How to Taste Beer
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Posted: January 23, 2007
Categories: General, Tips & Tricks
Tags: Beer Tasting, How to Taste Beer
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Tasting beers may seem simple to many: buy beer and drink it. However, there are an increasing number of people who understand that craft beers can be just as complex as some wines. Because so many brewers are starting to put more thought and effort into brewing beer, we as beer drinkers should also think more about what we taste when we drink beer.
Just like tasting wine, there are a few steps that one must go through to fully appreciate what one is consuming. There are many aspects to beer that makes it what it is - appearance, aroma, flavor, and body - and a beer enthusiast should be able to identify many traits of a beer within these components.
Four Steps to Tasting Beer
The following four steps aren’t that difficult to implement and can make your beer drinking experience a million times better, especially if you like to drink craft beers. On the contrary, these steps could quite possibly make you hate your favorite macrobrewery’s best offerings.
Observe
There are a few things to note when looking at a freshly poured beer. It is very important to pay attention to a beer’s color, clarity, and head retention. Knowing these characteristics of a beer can give you a pretty good foreshadowing of what the beer will be like when you actually taste it.
Disturb
This is obviously the easiest step but nonetheless important. By gently swirling the beer you can disturb it just enough to allow its aromas to be amplified for a moment. Before swirling your beer make sure you have your nose ready to do some analyzing.
Inhale
Many people don’t think of beer as aromatic (except once you’ve had a few too many and you begin sweating) but a beer’s smell is actually pretty important. When inhaling pay attention to whether the beer’s aroma is sweet, floral, spicy, or otherwise - these aromas often hint at what types of malts, hops, and yeasts were used and how it was brewed.
Taste
Obviously tasting the beer is the most fun and first impressions usually mean a lot, so do your best to get the most out of this step. It is important to figure out what is flavoring your beer so take notice to whether the beer is sweet, bitter, or balanced - do this by intentionally forcing the beer over your taste buds. Within a beer’s balance one can typically identify many sub-characteristics. Don’t forget to note what type of feel or texture the beer has. Along with a beer’s overall taste, body is probably one of the only things most people seem to care about, for example: America’s obsession with “light” beers. Much like a beer’s aromatic characteristics, the different parts to a beer’s taste can also tell you much about the beer’s ingredients and how the beer was made.
Go Forth and Drink Beer!
Hopefully these beer tasting methods will help the next time you drink a beer. I know that when I was first told about them around a year and a half ago I started noticing so much more about my favorite beers and especially beers I was trying for the first time. Once you have started using these four steps, you will eventually be able to break down each step even further, identifying more and more small details about the beer you are tasting. Good luck on your next beer tasting adventure - make sure you put your new knowledge to good use! Cheers!
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Great stuff Paulie. Question: what was your first beer tasting experience like? Do you remember the first beer you had where you could taste specific flavors?
Hahahahaha.. this owns!
Nice article. It’s great to see craft beer getting its due. I like that you have explained this in simple terms without being snobbish about the subject.
Drink Better Beer! Prost!
I puked
AAA++++
you sweat when you’ve had too many beers?
Great post, thanks!
Why don’t you learn to drink beer the way he tells you to? Don’t ask questions about his first beer… who cares. Ask questions aobut your first beer.
How to taste beer: pay attention to what you’re tasting and then pretentiously talk about it like it’s some sort of artform.
I totally agree. As big of beer drinkers we Americans are, we don’t seem to give a crap what it tastes like (just like our food, tobacco, film and music generally speaking with notable exceptions).
Thanks for taking the time to break this down for the uninitiated.
this is great, i’d add three things.
1. it is imperative that your beer be the right temperature for the tasting. beer that is too cold will hide some of the subtleties of the beer.
2. it is important to use the proper glassware when tasting beer. glasses are important for retaining head [which if missing will definitely impact the flavour of your beer] and also keep dirt and other such particulates out of your mouth.
3. after you taste the beer. open your mouth and exhale. there is a phenomenon known as ‘retro - olfaction’. the flavours should change, and you’ll get an enhanced version of what is commonly referred to as ‘aftertaste’
I’ve been working on a part 2 for this article which includes items 1 and 2 from zeefreak’s comment. Thanks for the feed back.
me like drink
this is generic.
The question is, do you spit or swallow?
Fair enough!
There’s just the right amount of information here to get the best out drinking a beer without turning it into a ceremony. Well done.
Linked in my blog: A Mad World, My Masters
Peter
ZZZzzzz….
Its also good to look for sediment in the beer (the leftover yeast at the bottom of the bottle of some beers)
Give the bottle a light swirl after pouring out 3/4ths of the bottle to get all that yeast worked up before pouring the last bit into your mug.
I used to think I was just being a bit too snobby, but I literally can’t enjoy some of the more “popular” brews out there as they are too watery. The stuff just doesn’t settle well in my stomach. And you’re right that some of the finer beers are just as interesting as fine wines. Each represents a bit of the taste from whence it came.
This is a nice intro! Just found it via Del.icio.us - all too appropriate.
The poster who talks about noticing the “aftertaste” is perhaps intentionally avoiding that professional tasting term, the “finish.”
But “finish” is such a good description of that lingering pleasure.
Especially with hoppy stuff, where the sensation can linger for a long time and better be fabulous.
Great intro to the art of tasting beer. Its about time that real beer starts to get the respect and appreciation it deserves… especially here in the States.
As long as we all keep writing and talking about craft beer, its only a matter of time before it others catch on.
Rich
Useless article.
Teaching Americans to drink beer in a certain “tasty” way is like selling fridges at the North Pole…
*sigh*
Beer is for DRINKING, not debating, dammit!
Beer is not just for drinking–each of the hop characteristics gives a different feeling. Americans drink lager thats watered down with rice.