Evaluating Beer

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Evaluating Beer

• Terafan Greydragon
• University of Atlantia
• 2 December A.S. XXX

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Why Evaluate Beer ??

• Quality control and Consistency
• To be able to describe beer
• To score and/or judge a competition
• To define styles
• To detect problems and improve your own or
  someone elses beer

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How to evaluate beer

• Beer can be evaluated using the flavor profile as
  a guide to step through the process
• The most obvious (and the real bottom line) is
  the taste.
• Before that, however, you must train all your
  senses to notice additional aspects that may help
  identify certain characteristics

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Flavor Profile

• Appearance (Visual examination)
• Aroma/Bouquet (Olfactory examination)
• Taste (In the mouth
  examination)
• Overall impression (General quality)

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Use all six senses

• Sight
• Hearing
• Smell
• Taste
• Touch and feel
• Pleasure

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Overview

• Sophisticated equipment can be used to measure,
  down to the last molecule, the chemical breakdown
  of your beer
• Technology may augment, but cannot replace, the
  objective and subjective findings of a trained
  evaluator
• The human senses of taste, smell, sight, hearing,
  and touch can be trained as effective tools to
  evaluate beer
• It all starts with an understanding of what each
  sense can give you and how they relate to the
  flavor profile

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Sight

• Head space in the bottle
• Surface deposit inside the bottle neck
• Gushing
• Haze
• Legs
• Foam stability/Head retention
• Clarity

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Hearing

• Level of carbonation
• Specific tones for specific levels of CO2

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Smell - (Aroma/Bouquet)

• Volatiles/Aromatics
• Diacetyls
• Phenolic character
• Esters
• Aroma from malt, grain, and fermentation
• Bouquet directly attributable to hops
• Odor - (Sulfur based compounds/oxidation)

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Taste Perception
Where we perceive it...

• Bitterness - on the back of the tongue
• Sweetness - on the tip
• Sourness - on the sides of the tongue
• Saltiness - just to rear and sides of tip

15-20 of Americans confuse sour and bitter
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Taste
How beer affects the sensation of taste

• Bitterness - Hops, Tannins, Malt, Minerals
• Sweetness- Malt, Hops, Esters, Diacetyl
• Sourness- Carbonation, Contamination
• Saltiness - Minerals

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Touch and Feel

• Texture - creamy, over/under carbonated
• Body - full bodied or thin...
• Astringency - Dry, puckery feeling (Not really a
  flavor)
• Others - Oily, menthol-like, burning, etc

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Pleasure

• Overall impression
• Close your eyes- Is it memorable?
• Would you want another one?

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Maximizing Flavor Perception

• Begin with lighter styles and progress to darker,
  more full bodied beer
• Dont smoke or be in a smoky room
• Do not eat salty or greasy food while tasting
• Do not wear lipstick or Chapstick
• Eat french bread or saltless crackers to cleanse
  palate
• Use clean glassware

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Evaluating Beer

• Appearance
• Examine bottle for sediment
• Pour the beer
• Quickly sniff the beer
• Examine the beer in the glass
• Odor
• Aroma (non-hop odors from raw materials)
• Bouquet (odor from fermented elements)
• Hop nose (hop aroma of beer)

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Evaluating Beer - contd

• Taste in the mouth
• Take a good sip
• Swirl and slosh around your whole mouth
• Swizzle (suck in air through beer in your
  mouth)
• Small sip to check 4 tastes
• Check Astringency
• Check after-taste or tail
• General Quality
• Memorableness or come hither appeal

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The taste of beer

• Hop quality
• Hop intensity
• Sweet/dry balance
• Beer character
• Aftertaste or tail
• Body and Palatefullness
• Flavor balance

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Summary

• Becoming a knowledgeable beer drinker takes
  practice
• Taste, smell, feel, and look at your product
  during every step
• Evaluate the beer as it ages
• What sulfur characters come and go?
• Which phenolic characters get worse with age?
• How does bitterness and diacetyl rise and fall?

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The most important thing in learning how to
evaluate beer....

• PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!

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References

• Papazian, Charlie, The New Complete Joy of
  Homebrewing, Avon Books, New York, 1991
• Eckhardt, Fred, Essentials of Beer Style, Fred
  Eckhardt Associates, Portland, OR 1989
• Jackson, Michael, Simon Schuster Pocket Guide
  to Beer, Simon Schuster, New York, 1993
• Papazian, Charlie, The Home Brewers Companion,
  Avon Books, New York, 1994
• Robertson, James D. The Connoisseurs Guide to
  Beer, Jameson Books, Ottowa, IL
• Mosher, Randy, The Brewers Companion,
  Alephenalia Publications, Seattle, WA, 1995