How to taste beer like a pro!

I don’t know about you, but the best part of this beer hobby of ours is tasting the beer.  I love picking apart what I’m tasting and really getting to understand what is in my glass.  To do that, here are some tips from the pros for properly tasting your beer.

Use a glass 

The first thing you need to do is decant your beer into a glass.  That way you can really see it well, it releases the flavours and the aromas and all of that combined is what adds to your tasting.  I like to use a teku glass.  It's got a nice bowl shape so it opens up the flavours and aromas and you're not holding the beer, you're holding the stem so you're not adding to the temperature of the beer, which in a paler beer you don't want to do.  

Aroma

After decanting the beer you need to take in the aroma as it is quite volatile so it does go away quite quickly.  There are different ways that you can take in the aroma.  The first quite fun one is called the Drive By.  You move the glass from side to side under your nose.   You will get the very top notes of the aroma from this. 

Then you can do the Short Long Sniff or Pull Away.  This one is fun!  Stick your nose in the glass and then put it away - wine tasters do this one - super fun!

Then you want to do short sniffs inside the glass, maybe one or two sniffs.  Stick your nose right in the glass, this gives you deeper notes.  When I go in deeper I often get the hops or the underlying malts.

Finally you can do the Swirl and Sniff.  Put your hand over the top of the glass and swirl it - this captures the aromas under your hand and then you stick your nose in and have a really long sniff.  That's where you get all the aromas that are right underneath – think deep vegetal hop or roasty malts, maybe even some peppery fermentation flavours.  You can do one or all of these techniques, do what works best for you to get those layers of aromas.

Appearance

The next tasting technique is the appearance because we also taste with our eyes.   You want to have a good look at your beer in the glass.  Think about the colour you can see and the clarity – is it clear, hazed or opaque?  What is the head like also?  Is it thick and creamy or just bubbles?  Can see any carbonation bubbles in the beer.  Think about the size of the bubbles, this will influence the mouthfeel.  The bubbles might stream slowly, there might be only a few.  But if you've got a dark beer like a stout you might also want to get a light through it so you can see if there's any underlying colour.  It might not be black or very dark brown, it may be black with a red highlight or a dark brown highlight.  Think of Coca Cola and how that's got a highlight to it.  Some professional tasters take a torch in their pocket and shine it through the beers so you can see the colours.  You don’t need to get that technical with it, you can hold it up to a light bulb or if I really want to know and I'm getting really geeky I will put the flashlight from my phone behind it to see the colour.  Have a good look at the beer because your brain is going to determine some things about the beer just by looking at it.  Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it may detract from it.  For example, if you have a black IPA you're expecting it to be roasty from the dark colour and then it's hoppy.  So take in what it looks like, but remember to be open minded when you get to the tasting.

Taste

The final part of our tasting process is of course the tasting.  Unlike with wine you do want to swallow your beer because part of the taste is in the aroma and we want that to go past our olfactory system.  This is called retronasal because it is at the end that we get that aroma as part of the swallow and it adds to the flavour.  You want to take a nice gulp, try to get it all around your mouth so that you can get all the different nuances of it.  If you've ever seen the tongue map where it says different areas of the tongue taste different things, it has been proven that that is a load of nonsense!  Do get it all around your mouth so you can get all the different feelings because we want to assess mouthfeel as well as the flavour.  Is it very carbonated?  Is it lightly carbonated?  Is it bitter?  Is it acidic?  Is it soft and pillowy or is it spiky?  Is it smooth? Is it dry and finishes very quickly?  Is it thick and chewy?  Is it slightly oily – some stouts can get quite oily.  Think about all these things as it's in your mouth.  Sometimes as well it may be too cold to get the full flavours and the aroma so you may need to warm it up a little bit or take more sips! 

Think about how it feels, think about the flavours and the aromas that you're getting and think about the finish.  Does anything linger on in the taste or does it finish quite quickly.  Is it dry in that it isn't very sweet, but it makes you want to take another sip?  Is it clean so there isn't really anything left at the end, it's just quite refreshing? 

All of these elements combined make up the beers we enjoy. As you practice these each time you sample a new beer you will gradually build up your tasting technique. Your next step is to build your beer vocabulary to help you describe what you are tasting. And I have a course for that! To learn more click here.