BEER, GLORIOUS BEER “That’s what we live for” – popular Rugby song

WORDS: Krista Hall, Certified Cicerone PHOTOGRAPHY Meritt Thomas @unsplash.com

Smell, swirl, sip, savour and hopefully smile.  We learn how to do this with wine and see people analysing wines every time they sip, but we don’t often try this with our bubbly brews.  I’m here to tell you it’s no different when tasting beers when you are trying to understand the complexity of a beer, the aroma, flavour profile and style, 

With so many different beers out there to sample and try, how do you understand the difference between one and the other?  Let’s break down how to analyse and taste a beer, what to look for and why. 

First, we always want to pour a beer in a clear glass.  This way we can see the colour, the bubbles and the foam retention as well as getting all the aromas from the open glass rather than a closed bottle.  Pour the beer at a 45-degree angle down the side of the glass and about a third of the way full.  This allows us to swirl and smell because if it is too full, you will end up with a mess to clean up.  Once it is in the glass, you can look at the colour: is it clear or hazy, what is the colour, is it straw, gold, amber, brown or black?  Is there a lot of foam, does the foam stick around?  The colour of the beer can already start to tell us about the beer style.  If it’s a straw or pale colour, it could be a pale ale or lager, if it is brown it tells us dark specialty malts are used and if it’s black, these specialty malts will be even darker which means the flavours will likely be dark chocolate, coffee, dates, burnt toast rather than biscuit, toast, nuts that an amber colour shows.  The foam gives us a clue about what ingredients are in the beer.  If the head retention is low and doesn’t last very long, it could be all barley used or maybe even some corn or rice in the brew.  If the foam sticks around, it could mean some other malts like oats or wheat were used in the recipe.  If there is a big foam, like half the pour is foam, it likely means the brew contains lots of wheat.

After looking at the glass and colour, we can smell the beer.  Give it a swirl and have a sniff.  What are you picking up? Is it a strong smell or very light, does it remind you of anything floral, fruit (either fresh or dried), any citrus or stone fruit, tropical fruits or perhaps herbaceous or herbal?  All the aromas can indicate what style of beer it is.  If it smells like bubblegum and banana/clove, it’s likely a wheat beer, if it smells like pine and citrus fruit with a strong aroma, maybe it’s an IPA, or if it smells fruity and sour, maybe it’s a sour or barrel-aged style.  So many things the nose can pick up and tell us, and everyone will pick up different aromas depending on their upbringing and their day-to-day experiences with smells.

Now we get to sip away!  Have a sip, swallow and pause.  Is it light in body or full body, does it leave a heat in your mouth that lingers after, is it low or high in bitterness, is there any sweetness, what flavour characteristics are you picking up and is it a short or long finish?  The body of the beer is important because it can mean it is a very light beer, medium or heavy beer in style.  Light beer would be a lager, medium could be an IPA and a heavy style could be a Baltic porter or Belgium Triple.  The heat I referred to lingering after you swallow is reference to the alcohol.  If there is heat left in your mouth it means that the beer is high in alcohol, if it’s not, it could mean it’s low or medium.  The bitterness is also important because it’s a tricky balance between marrying hops and malts to balance.  If there is too much hops content in a beer it can overpower everything and feel like sandpaper down the hatch but if it’s balanced you will have enough malt backbone to accommodate the high levels of hops and it doesn’t overpower everything.  Sweetness is similar to the hops bitterness, too much or too little can mean it isn’t balanced.  There are some sweeter styles of beer that will showcase sweetness but are balanced by acidity.  Flavour characteristics you can pick up like those on the nose.  It should flow through similar flavours from the nose to the palate.  The hops can shine on the nose and palate or the malt complexity of say an amber ale can showcase the layers of malts used to create the beer.  

Beer tasting doesn’t need to be intimidating, it should be a playful and fun activity and open up discussions to share thoughts and comments around a brew.  So next time you crack open a beer you’ve never tried, try following these steps to taste through the beer and take time to pause and appreciate the effort that goes into making the frothy little number.