How to Evalute Beer Aroma

When we are beer tasting, we need to think about the appearance and the flavour of beer. But we also need to think about beer aroma. A lot of what we consider taste and flavour actually comes from the aroma of beer. So it's important that we are able to assess this well, and use our beer vocabulary to be able to describe what we are smelling in our beer. After reading this blog post you’ll know how to assess beer aroma and learn some professional tasting techniques that will help you to pick out the nuances in beer aroma.

Use a glass to assess beer aroma

The first important part of assessing beer aroma is to have it in a glass.  Keeping it in the can or the bottle when you're at home will stifle some of those volatile compounds. Select a good tasting glass, you want one that shapes inwards to capture the aromas and wide enough that you can stick your nose in to really pick up the beer aromas from what's in your glass. My favourite glass to use at home is a Teku. They have a lovely bowl shape, which is going to open up the flavours and aromas of the beer. A Teku then tapers in to capture those aromas and there is a slight lip around the edge, which keeps the aroma in your glass.

Beer aroma when you first open the can or bottle.

When you first open the can or bottle, the beer aroma is volatile, so some of it will come out as soon as you open it.  Think about what you get as soon as you open the beer - that is what the beer is shouting at you, it will be the most prominent notes of your beer aroma.

Beer aroma techniques

There are several different ways you can assess the beer aroma through different aroma techniques. Here are three of my favourites.

• The first is the Drive-By. Pass your beer glass back and forth under your nose. You breathe in as you do this, and that will give you the top notes of the beer aroma.

• The second technique that you can use is Short Sniffs. You want to put your nose in the glass and take lots of short, sharp sniffs. This is going to get you the next layer of aroma.

• The final technique I want to share with you today is my absolute favourite. And if you don't do any others, then you should always do this when you're trying to assess the beer aroma. Take the glass and put your hand over the top to seal it. You're going to swirl the glass around. This will move the beer and release some of those volatile aromatics and they're trapped under your hand. You are then going to put the glass under your nose, take your hand off and then take a deep sniff. In this way, you can get the very deepest note of your beer aroma.

You can do any combination of these techniques.  Try them all to find which one works best for you.

Where does beer aroma come from?

But where does beer aroma come from? Beer aroma can be added through the addition of hops, different malts and through fermentation. Hops add tropical fruit, citrus, pine, resin, earthy marmalade, perfumy, sometimes minty notes to beer aroma depending on where they are from. Malt has a wide range of aromas that it can add to beer. The lightest malts add doughy and grainy aromas moving to darker malts end will add coffee, chocolate, and even some burnt, roasty aromas.

Fermentation is really interesting both in beer aroma and flavour. Concentrating on the aroma today, fermentation can add things such as jammy notes. It can add what are called esters and phenols. Esters are fruity notes and phenols are spicy notes. If you think of a classic wheat beer, that will have banana esters and clove phenols. That beer aroma comes from a particular strain of yeast so it's important to think about the strain of yeast used when you are assessing beer aroma. You might also want to think about what isn't there in your beer aroma. If it's a lager, these are said to ferment clean, so there may be no fermentation character at all.

Understanding beer aroma can help us work out the bigger picture of the beer in our glass. Add these techniques to your tasting skills today to enhance your beer tasting experience.

If you'd like to learn more about beer tasting, my course Build Your Beer Vocabulary will help you do just that. We look at beer descriptors, where they come from, but we also look at how to taste beer with professional techniques that will build your confidence in your beer tasting hobby. Find out more and sign up to the course here today!