Keystone Light: Dartmouth’s Beer of Choice Kathy Birchall, Anne Abbott, and Andrea Abeita Math 5 Winter 2004

Say What? Benjamin Franklin once said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” How does this apply to Dartmouth students?

FYI: Dartmouth’s social scene is dominated by Greek houses, instead of bars and clubs Kegs have been forbidden by the College, so the Greek houses have been forced to find another cheap alternative to supply beer to the students; their choice has been Keystone Light 30-packs All three members of our group are Greek- affiliated seniors and have noticed the abundance of this beer on campus

Goals: To determine whether or not the constant presence of Keystone Light at the Greek houses makes it more recognizable to senior student taste testers that belong to a Greek organization How much beer are we drinking? If the majority of students can distinguish Keystone Light from Amstel Light (a similar beer), what does this say about the rate of student beer consumption? Are we drinking too much? Or just products of our environment? How much does being a part of the Greek system affect beer tasting ability?

Our Pre-Test Beliefs A majority of Greek affiliated seniors tested will be able to taste a difference between the beers. More precisely, we believe that the majority of those who can taste a difference will identify the Keystone Light. Even more precisely, we believe that at least 80% of the testers will correctly identify the Keystone Light

Null Hypothesis Greek affiliated seniors that drink beer regularly and can taste a difference between the beers will not be able to recognize Keystone as opposed to the other light beer supplied. If p is the percent that can recognize it, then the null = p= 0.5

Alternate Hypothesis The majority of Greek affiliated seniors will be able to correctly identify Keystone More precisely, p > 80% (use to calculate the power)

Keystone Light VS. Amstel Light

The Test Testers drank from cups A and B, both of equal color, foam, and temperature without knowing which beer was Keystone Light, or that the other beer was Amstel Light They were asked if they could tell a difference. If they could, then they were asked which one was Keystone

Bull’s Eye!! Most of the students tested CAN IDENTIFY KEYSTONE LIGHT!!!

Results 94.1% (32/34) students drank beer frequently 96.9% (31/32) could detect a difference between Keystone and Amstel Light 87.1% (27/31) correctly identified the Keystone Light

Type One- Alpha Error Leaving a 5% significance level, or chance of a Type One (Alpha) Error, P= 0.65 (the critical region) But we got 0.87!!! Therefore, we have less than a 5% chance of a type one error!

POWER!! 99.9% Power!! The chance of a Type 2 (Beta) error is therefore only 0.001

We Must Accept Our Alternate Hypothesis!!! We hit our mark with room to spare! We believe this test is statistically significant and is an accurate reflection of what we tested.

Contributing Factors The requirements to be an “ED” (experienced drinker) limited our pool of test subjects to Greek- affiliated seniors Due to Winter Carnival (RAGE!) we were not able to find enough testers over the weekend so we had to move it to Monday night, which is when Secret Societies hold their meetings. Being the day after Carnival, some students were less than thrilled to drink any more alcohol- even a sip!!

Contributing factors continued… Consequently, many usually enthusiastic drinkers were unable/unwilling to participate. We kept the beer samples properly chilled until the test was performed, unlike basement situations where the beer temperature tends to fluctuate (sometimes it is consumed when it is cold, other times it has been sitting on a pong table for hours and has grown warm).

Contributing factors continued… We could only afford to buy one other type of beer. If we had been able to run the test using either a different type of beer or had more than one other alternative sample, our results may have been different… Is Amstel Light too different than Keystone?? Is being “light” not enough??

Someone turned 21! We held the test in Andrea’s room in KDE Someone turned 21 on Monday night and people were celebrating! Many of our subjects were taking part in the birthday bash The fact that they may have already had tossed back a few could have inhibited their ability to detect Keystone...

No worries though!! The majority, 87.1%, still correctly identified Keystone! Dartmouth students must really spend some quality time with this beer if they can spot it so easily!

Directions for Future Research Ideally another test would include the following: Expand the number of sample beers to four or five to ensure a greater variety and would decrease the chance of “lucky” guesses More time to recruit more subjects Not be performed directly post-Winter Carnival weekend

Credits RAGE ON DARTMOUTH!! Thanks to all the participants and Professor Leibon and Professor Rudel for their online examples and support RAGE ON DARTMOUTH!!