Beer Tasting - Get The Most From Your Beers

Beer actually falls into just two types: the ones you like and the ones you dislike. What is a tasty beer is different for everyone because everyone has their own taste preference. What helps is understanding why you like one beer and not another. It especially helps because it allows you to better choose from different beers. That is why tasting is worth doing in a targeted manner – and it is certainly not difficult.

See tasting as a first acquaintance with a painting, a person or a song, and follow the same steps over and over - you'll be an accomplished taster in no time. The first thing you do when you meet someone is usually visual: you see the painting, person or glass for the first time. In the first thousandths of a second you already form an image, an expectation. If the beer looks unexpectedly cloudy, flaky or beaten to death, it does not invite you to take a sip. If that is not the case, the colour, already says a lot about the taste that you may or may not expect. The colour of the beer comes from the malt used, and possibly from fruits or other additives.

If we limit ourselves to malt, we know that light-coloured beer (milk white to copper) is made with malt that has been dried at a relatively low temperature. The result is beer that will taste predominantly bread-like.

Red-coloured beer indicates red fruit – so it can taste like fruit, or wine-like if it's spontaneously fermented.

Dark beer, from amber to deep dark brown, is made from darker malt that has been dried at increasingly higher temperatures. This creates flavours and scents that 'match' with the colour: caramel coloured beer will also contain caramel flavour, beer with a light chocolate colour will taste like chocolate and deep dark beer, made with roasted or roasted malt, will smell like coffee and dark chocolate and flavours. And you haven't taken a sip yet...

After the visual acquaintance comes the smelling of the aromas. Almost 70% of what you taste is not done with the tongue at all, but is perceived through the nasal cavity. Smelling is more tasting than you think! All those aromas, those volatile fragrances, they are the fundamental and at the same time temporary building blocks of your beer, and you can't taste them - you smell them. While smelling, you immediately look for unpleasant, strange or foul odors - if you detect nail polish in the aroma, for example, return the glass quickly.

The smell, in combination with what you saw, has aroused a certain taste expectation. Time to put it to the test: take the first sip, not too many at once, and give that sip time to cover your entire mouth. Roll that sip from front to back and back again. You can taste the basic flavours sweet, salty, sour, bitter and savory (umami) on your tongue: everything in between, plus all the nuances, you smell - even now, because your mouth is directly connected to the nasal cavity.

The introduction is almost complete: take a second sip and then exhale through your nose. Now you also have the aromas that rise from your mouth, which is called the 'retronasal' perception (from the back of the nose).

Unlike wine, to fully taste beer, you must swallow. Feeling the role of carbon dioxide, but also your mouthfeel, is only then 'finished'. So: you swallow. Do the puzzle pieces of looking and smelling fall into place? Then there's only one thing left to do: answer the question whether your taste expectation matched what you tasted - and whether that is 'nice' or 'not good'.