Beer - The fab five

In one of my first columns, I shared some tips on how to taste beer like a connoisseur: with an open mind and a discerning palate. If you have been practicing, you might be reading my beer reviews and thinking, “I could write that!” And you would be right. Only you wouldn’t get paid for it.

If you are willing to work for free, however, there are two main websites out there that provide a forum for beer enthusiasts — both seasoned and raw — to rate beers based on a set of established criteria. There are no prerequisites for rating a beer at www.beeradvocate.com or www.ratebeer.com, but if you are a bit intimidated by putting your taste buds up against a phalanx of beer geeks, both sites have primers on how to taste beer (as if you didn’t know).

There are lots of fun experiments you can do to exercise your palate and improve your understanding of beer characteristics. Try a blind taste test, starting with beers of different styles and moving toward beers of similar styles as you are able to distinguish between major style categories. Try writing down your impressions regarding the five main categories of beer character (appearance, aroma, taste, mouthfeel and drinkability), then see how your perceptions compare to other beer drinkers on the beer rating websites. I have many “a-ha” moments using these sites, when I stumbled across a review that found just the word I was looking for, or identified a flavor that I just couldn’t put my finger on. Of course, different people perceive things differently, but if you see a preponderance of comments that say a beer finished dry when you thought it was creamy, you might want to revisit the beer and others of a similar style to see if you are observing the same thing.

If you want to go a step further, you can order a beer tasting kit from www.tasteyourbeer.com. The kit is modeled after similar kits made for wine consumers interested in learning how to get more out of their wine tasting experience. The kit includes samples of 13 varieties of hops so you can familiarize yourself with the particular aroma of different hop varieties. With practice, you will be able to pick out the hops used in a beer without the samples. There are a variety of other tools in the kit to expand your beer knowledge, including color swatches, a hops cheat sheet and a beer appreciation guide. Unfortunately, there is no beer. The company’s website has a wealth of valuable links, however, including a guide to beers that feature particular hops and a list of terms used to describe beer tastes.

One of the most detailed sites on beer tasting, perhaps too detailed for the novice, is the Beer Judge Certification Program website. The site contains all the information you need to become a certified beer judge, so get to studying because there is a lot of material to cover and the questions are all essay-style. Exams area offered in various cities at different times and one is coming up in Alpharetta in November.

Tasting notes

This is old news, but I found it interesting. Apparently, last year Anheuser-Busch came as close to admitting that American macro-beers have become “flavorless” as the company will ever come. A Wall Street Journal article revealed that both malt content and IBUs have gradually declined in American-style lagers over the last 50 years. Doug Muhlman, Anheuser-Busch’s group vice president for brewing and technology, blamed the progression away from flavor to the concept of the slippery slope, or as he termed it, “creep.” The effect of constant modifications to account for changes in ingredients, weather and consumer taste has led to reduced bitterness in its beers. This was confirmed by owner August Busch III, who has been pulling an Uncle Disney by cryogenically freezing A-B beers since the early 1980s so they can be sampled later to see how the flavor has evolved. Or in this case, devolved. Muhlman stated that compared with the 1982 version, a 2003 version of Budweiser was a “little less bitter.” So, how long before it actually is water?

Talking Head columnist Jeff Holland can be reached at jeff.holland@creativeloafing.com.