Harbor TaproomBlind tasting
Blind tasting flight
Friday Flight
- 1ScanOpen the tasting on your phone
- 2TasteSip each lettered sample
- 3RateScore, rank, then see the reveal
palateparty.net/vt/ABCDPowered by Palate Party
Venue Help
From invite to your first tasting.
Everything a new venue needs, in order: getting access, branding, adding products, building and printing a tasting, and understanding your results.
On this page
Quick start
Five steps to your first tasting.
Each step links to a full walkthrough below. Gather these first and the rest goes quickly.
- Get accessRequest an invite, set your password, and sign in.
- Brand itAdd your name, logo, color, font and closing message.
- Add productsList what you’ll pour so you can build a tasting.
- Create a tastingPick samples, add questions, and save it.
- Print the QR codePut the card on tables and run your first tasting.
Before you start
- A square logo file (PNG, JPEG or WebP, at least 512 × 512 px, under 5 MB)
- Your brand color as a 6-digit hex code, like #0E7C86
- The products you plan to serve, a barcode can make it easier
- A name for your first tasting
- Card stock for printing the QR card (4 × 6 in or 4.25 × 5.5 in)
Step 1
Getting access.
Venue accounts are invite-only. Every request is reviewed by our team before an invite goes out.
Request an invite
Fill out the form on palateparty.net/venues with your business name, contact email, phone number and an optional message. Someone from our team reviews it and follows up by email.
Open your invite email
Approved venues receive an email with a one-time activation link. The link is valid for 7 days. If it expires, ask us to send a new one.
Create your account
On the activation page, confirm your first name, last name and organization name, then choose a password: at least 8 characters, with an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, a number and a special character. Select Activate account.
Sign in any time
Use your email and password at palateparty.net/venue/login. Forgot it? Use Forgot password? on that page.
Step 2
Custom branding.
Make the tasting look like your venue. Open the Branding tab to set these once; they apply to every tasting you run.
Branding tabIllustration with sample data
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Venue nameRequired
Up to 200 characters. Guests see it in the app and in their post-tasting email, and it prints in the band across the top of your QR card. Shorter is better, since the card clamps long names to two lines. - 2
Logo
PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 5 MB. Choose Upload logo, or Replace logo if you already have one. It saves the moment you upload it. See the sizing guide below. - 3
Accent color
A 6-digit hex code, or use the color picker. It colors buttons, headers and sample cards, and text on top switches between white and dark automatically. The contrast check is advice only and never blocks saving. In email, a color very close to the dark background or to white falls back to the default gradient bars. - 4
Font
Default, Inter, Georgia, Playfair Display, Poppins, Caveat or Courier Prime. It applies to the landing page, the QR card and the email, but not the app. Some email apps replace custom fonts with a default. - 5
Closing messageEmail only
An optional note at the bottom of the post-tasting email, up to 280 characters. Plain text only: no links, no < or > characters, and at most 2 line breaks. - 6
Save changes
Your edits are a draft until you select Save changes. The logo is the exception: it saves immediately, and Discard won’t undo it. The page warns you if you try to leave with unsaved edits.
Where your branding appears
Guest-facing surfacesIllustration with sample data
Step 3
Set up your first tasting.
Build it in order: products first, then the tasting that uses them, then questions, then the QR card.
A quick tour of the portal
After you sign in, the tabs across the top are your whole toolkit. You’ll use Products and Tastings most while setting up.
Venue portalIllustration with sample data
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Results
Dashboards for how your tastings are performing. You land here after signing in. - 2
Tastings
Create tastings, manage their questions, and print their QR codes. - 3
Branding
Your name, logo, color, font and closing message. - 4
Products
Everything you pour or serve. Tastings are built from these. - 5
Billing
Your trial or subscription status and plan. Owner only. - 6
Staff
Invite teammates and manage their access. Owner only.
Add your products
Open the Products tab and select Add product. Add every product you want to include in a tasting. Select any row later to edit it. Only active products appear when you build a tasting.
Products tabIllustration with sample data
The Add product form opens in a window. Only the brand name is required.
Add productIllustration with sample data
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BarcodeOptional
Scan or type the UPC/EAN (6 to 16 digits), then choose Auto-fill. We look it up on OpenFoodFacts and fill in the brand, variant, image and ingredients when there’s a match. No match? Fill in the details yourself. - 2
ImageOptional
Drop or click to upload a PNG, JPEG or WebP up to 5 MB, or paste an image URL. An image with a transparent background (no background) displays much better in the app, but it isn’t required. - 3
Brand nameRequired
Up to 200 characters, for example “Harbor Brewing”. This is how the product is identified in your lists and tastings. - 4
VariantOptional
Up to 100 characters. Use it to tell apart products from the same brand, such as “Hazy IPA”. - 5
Affiliate URLOptional
A web link (starting with http or https). Adding one adds a Buy now button. - 6
Price tierOptional
From $ to $$$$. Shown as 💲 icons in your product list. Choose Unset to leave it blank. - 7
IngredientsOptional
Type an ingredient and press Enter (or a comma or semicolon). You can paste a whole list at once. Up to 100 ingredients, 200 characters each. - 8
Dietary and allergensOptional
Mark a product Vegan, and flag any of Peanuts, Tree nuts, Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, and Fish / shellfish.
Create a tasting
Once your products are in, go to the Tastings tab and select Create tasting. A tasting is a reusable template. Guests pick it by scanning its QR code.
Tastings tabIllustration with sample data
Create tastingIllustration with sample data
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NameRequired
Up to 200 characters, such as “Friday Flight”. Guests and your results both use this name. - 2
CategoryOptional
Surprise, Savory, Sweet, Global or Sip. If you leave it unset, it defaults to Sip. - 3
Rated attributesOptional
Up to 4 things guests rate from 1 to 5 stars on every sample, like Sweetness or Finish. 30 characters each. Blank slots are skipped. These become columns in your results. - 4
Samples
Choose up to 10 of your active products with the + button. The order sets the blind labels guests see (A, B, C…). Drag a row or use the arrows to reorder, and ✕ to remove one. A product can be added to a tasting once. - 5
Feature star
Star a sample to highlight it in your results. - 6
Guest experience
Age acknowledgment makes guests confirm their age before the tasting starts. Active controls whether the tasting can be selected; inactive tastings are hidden.
Add questions (optional)
On your tasting’s row, select Manage questions. Questions are short multiple-choice trivia that guests see between samples, as a palate-cleanser break. Write your own, or choose from Palate Party’s question library.
Tastings tabIllustration with sample data
Manage questionsIllustration with sample data
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How many you can add
Up to 2 × (samples − 1), spread as evenly as possible between samples, with at most 2 in any gap. A 4-sample tasting allows 6; a 10-sample tasting allows 18. A tasting with one sample can’t have questions. - 2
Write a custom question
Every field is required: the question (up to 300 characters), exactly 4 options (up to 200 characters each), and a short blurb (up to 500 characters) shown after guests answer, whichever option they picked. - 3
Add from library
Search the shared library or filter by category, then choose Add. Library questions are read-only. To change one, remove it and pick another or write your own. - 4
Correct answer
Select the radio button next to the right option on each custom question. - 5
Save questions
Nothing is saved until you select Save questions.
Print the QR code and start tasting
When your tasting is ready, select QR code on its row. It opens a print page with a ready-to-print table card for that tasting.
Tastings tabIllustration with sample data
QR cardIllustration with sample data
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Print QR code
Prints just the card. The page controls don’t appear on paper. - 2
Card size
Choose 4 × 6 in or 4.25 × 5.5 in, whichever matches your card stock. - 3
Customize this card
Override the accent color, eyebrow text (the small line above the tasting name, up to 40 characters), font or logo for this printed card only. Your venue branding elsewhere stays the same.
Place cards on your tables. A guest scans the code and starts hosting, and everyone at their table can join. Guests rate each blind-labeled sample, rank them, and see the reveal. The card walks them through it: scan, taste, rate.
Step 4
Reading your results.
The Results tab shows how your tastings are performing and which samples guests liked and would buy.
Tasting results (before 10 sessions)Illustration with sample data
Overview
The first thing you see after signing in. It covers all of your tastings together.
Results tabIllustration with sample data
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Tastings completed
Completed sessions across all tastings, out of those started, and your completion rate. The pill reads Healthy at 90% or more, Watch at 80% or more, and Low completion below that. - 2
Guests
Everyone who joined a completed session. It’s counted once per tasting attended, so a guest who attends two tastings counts twice. - 3
Guests per tasting
Total guests divided by completed tastings. It’s the average group size, not how engaged people were. - 4
Engagement Score
The share of the optional steps (attribute ratings, brand guessing and trivia) that guests took part in, averaged for the latest completed week. It measures participation, not correct answers or satisfaction. The week-over-week change shows only when both weeks had at least 10 guests. - 5
Tasting performance
One row per tasting that has been started. Select a row to open that tasting’s results. Tastings below the threshold show Collecting data instead of a status. - 6
Engagement by week
Weekly participation over up to 26 weeks. Hollow dots mark weeks with fewer than 10 guests or a week still in progress. - 7
Where your guests came from
Each tasting’s share of your guests. It’s about which tasting drew them, not where they live.
Results for one tasting
Select a tasting from the performance table to see which samples guests preferred.
Tasting resultsIllustration with sample data
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Group favorite
The sample with the best (lowest) average finish across guests’ rankings, where 1 is the group’s top pick. Ties show both samples. - 2
Top purchase intent
The sample the largest share of guests said they’d buy in a store. Measures based on fewer than 10 responses are flagged as directional. - 3
Sample leaderboard
One row per sample. Avg finish: lower is better. Rating: the average from 1 to 10. Would buy: the share who’d buy it. Attribute columns: the 1–5 average for each rated attribute, shaded by score. Comments: a positive, neutral and negative split. Brand guessed: how many guessed the brand correctly. The accent marks the leader in each column. - 4
Liked vs. would buy
Plots each sample’s average rating against its purchase intent, so you can see whether a well-liked sample is also one guests would buy. It appears once at least 3 samples can be plotted.
Select a sample row to open its details: its full set of numbers, plus the recognition and comment views below.
Sample detailsIllustration with sample data
- 1
Recognition vs. preference
Compares the average rating from guests who guessed the brand correctly with those who didn’t. If knowing the brand lowers the rating, the leaderboard flags it with a warning. - 2
Comments
Guests’ comments, shown exactly as written. Nothing identifies who wrote one. Each is tagged Positive, Neutral or Negative by a simple word-list check, so treat the tags as approximate.
Troubleshooting
Quick answers.
I didn’t get my invite email, or my link expired.
Activation links are valid for 7 days. Check your spam folder first, then email hello@palateparty.net from the address you used on the request form and we’ll send a fresh invite.
I forgot my password.
On the sign-in page, choose Forgot password? and enter your email. For privacy, the page gives the same response whether or not the email has an account, so check your inbox either way.
“Manage questions” is greyed out.
The button stays disabled until the tasting has at least one sample. Questions are spread between samples, so the limit is 2 × (samples − 1): you need at least 2 samples before any question is allowed, and a 10-sample tasting allows up to 18.
Why can’t I see results for my tasting?
A tasting’s results unlock after 10 completed sessions of that tasting. Until then the page shows how many you have so far. If you instead see Subscribe to view your results, your free trial or subscription isn’t active. Open the Billing tab to fix that. Your products and tastings aren’t affected at first.
My logo looks cropped.
On the landing page, in the app and in email, logos are cropped to fill a square, so a wide or tall image loses its edges. (On the printed QR card the whole logo is fitted inside a white tile, so a wide one looks small instead.) Re-upload a square version, at least 512 × 512 px, with some padding around the artwork.
The printed QR card is missing its colored band.
In your browser’s print dialog, choose the paper size that matches the size you picked on the card page and turn on Background graphics. Without it, browsers skip background colors.
Do my guests need an account or the app?
No. Guests scan the QR code and can play in their phone’s browser, or open the native app if they already have it. No account is required to start.
Can my staff see billing?
No. You can invite teammates from the Staff tab. They get their own login with the same access you have, except billing and staff management, which stay with the venue owner.
Not invited yet, or still stuck?
Request an invite on the venues page, or email us and we’ll help you get going.