The phrase "a sort of trial" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when describing an experience or situation that resembles a trial or test, but may not be a formal or traditional trial.
Example: "The new software was put through a sort of trial to assess its performance before the official launch."
Alternatives: "a kind of test" or "a type of evaluation".
Having landed the Rolling Stones as a sort of trial munch, he went after the Beatles.
They should start with a "minimum viable product", or MVP, a sort of trial balloon to gauge the audience's interest.
As he strolled the sidewalks — waving to neighbors, pointing out landmarks — he seemed to be subjecting himself to a sort of trial.
Usually the England one-day team is a sort of trial zone for future Test players, to see if they can handle the extra demands of being an international sportsman.
To help make the transition to IPv6 easier, Yahoo, Google and Facebook, whose Web sites generate a combined traffic of more than a billion visits a day, have agreed to participate in a sort of trial run on June 8, named World IPv6 Day, to make sure their systems are ready.
Their application, called Seymour, was supposed to launch tomorrow morning in conjunction with Fortune's Brainstorm conference, but it hit a somewhat fortuitous snag: CleverSense decided to release it early on the App Store under a different name (Alfred) as a sort of trial run.
Chemically altered antibiotics are typically thrown at the disease in a sort of trial-and-error process to see what works.
Stern wants to expand to Europe one day and is viewing the games as a sort of logistical trial run.
Earlier this week, Dafna Linzer, of ProPublica, reported on a draft executive order on Guantanamo that lays out procedures for detaining prisoners there indefinitely, without any sort of trial at all.
Joining the Premier League is a long-held ambition: in 2003 he spent a week in Liverpool on a sort of unofficial trial, and was left wide-eyed after sharing a dressing room with Michael Owen.
The efforts to foster a culture and behaviours able to consume less energy or to stop consuming entirely are limited, representing a sort of Lilliputian trial in the face of an energy-consuming Gulliver.
