Thirsty Boy
ICB - tight shorts and poor attitude. **** yeah!
- Joined
- 21/5/06
- Messages
- 4,544
- Reaction score
- 106
The first and most important thing to remember about a beer palate and even a wine palate -- is that it isn't about taste, its about a common and shared language to describe taste.
No-one, not the most educated and fancy beer r wine guy/girl in the world, can tell you what you do or don't taste in a beer. You are always .. I emphasize ALWAYS .. right about what you taste.
The trick - is to learn how to describe what you taste, so that other people know what you mean. Acetylaldehyde has been mentioned -- what does that taste like?? Well, the classic descriptor is green apples. Great - fine. You taste green apples in a beer and its probably acetylaldehyde. What f you don't?
Not everyone tastes it like that. I taste acetylaldehyde in dark beers as a kind of red current flavour ... and in light beers as a bruised red apple flavour (that smell you get when you open a plastic bag of supermarket apples and one is all mankey...) but not, never; as green apples.
So your palate is important, and experience will develop its sensitivity. BUT - the biggest thing is learning the language. Acetylaldehde is "this" -- and when people talk about green apples, you have to mentally substitute what you taste into the conversation.
All the wine wankery about cassis, hints of tobacco, a dash of leather etc etc -- has its equivalent in beer. Light pear esters, subtle but present diacetyl, woody notes with vanilla and dark fruit highlights...
All that crap is code -- its real, but its code. You might not taste exactly whats being described, but an educated, experienced taster - who also doesn't taste whats being described - knows what they mean anyway. The flavours have actual numbers -- some frigging geek has codified this and assigned a number to all the flavours and smells you might find in a beer or a wine. And no matter what they might individually taste or smell .. educated tasters know that flavour number xxxx is (for instance) fatty acid... and when they say rancid, off butter etc etc -- they all know that what they really mean is flavour number xxxx. Its code.
So you educate your palate to identify what you like and don't like ... then you educate your mind to translate between what you taste, and the "standard" tastes, so that you can effectively communicate to someone else.
And thats what most of the BJCP stuff is about; its what most of the sensory education courses you could take about wine or beer are about. They aren't about what you actually taste -- no one can tell you that except yourself. They are about how the hell you go about communicating what you taste to someone who doesn't share your taste buds.
Trust your tastebuds -- someone who tells you that you aren't tasting what you think you are tasting - Is wrong. Plain and simple. Whether you and he/she share enough common language to work out your differences........... is a matter of education.
TB
No-one, not the most educated and fancy beer r wine guy/girl in the world, can tell you what you do or don't taste in a beer. You are always .. I emphasize ALWAYS .. right about what you taste.
The trick - is to learn how to describe what you taste, so that other people know what you mean. Acetylaldehyde has been mentioned -- what does that taste like?? Well, the classic descriptor is green apples. Great - fine. You taste green apples in a beer and its probably acetylaldehyde. What f you don't?
Not everyone tastes it like that. I taste acetylaldehyde in dark beers as a kind of red current flavour ... and in light beers as a bruised red apple flavour (that smell you get when you open a plastic bag of supermarket apples and one is all mankey...) but not, never; as green apples.
So your palate is important, and experience will develop its sensitivity. BUT - the biggest thing is learning the language. Acetylaldehde is "this" -- and when people talk about green apples, you have to mentally substitute what you taste into the conversation.
All the wine wankery about cassis, hints of tobacco, a dash of leather etc etc -- has its equivalent in beer. Light pear esters, subtle but present diacetyl, woody notes with vanilla and dark fruit highlights...
All that crap is code -- its real, but its code. You might not taste exactly whats being described, but an educated, experienced taster - who also doesn't taste whats being described - knows what they mean anyway. The flavours have actual numbers -- some frigging geek has codified this and assigned a number to all the flavours and smells you might find in a beer or a wine. And no matter what they might individually taste or smell .. educated tasters know that flavour number xxxx is (for instance) fatty acid... and when they say rancid, off butter etc etc -- they all know that what they really mean is flavour number xxxx. Its code.
So you educate your palate to identify what you like and don't like ... then you educate your mind to translate between what you taste, and the "standard" tastes, so that you can effectively communicate to someone else.
And thats what most of the BJCP stuff is about; its what most of the sensory education courses you could take about wine or beer are about. They aren't about what you actually taste -- no one can tell you that except yourself. They are about how the hell you go about communicating what you taste to someone who doesn't share your taste buds.
Trust your tastebuds -- someone who tells you that you aren't tasting what you think you are tasting - Is wrong. Plain and simple. Whether you and he/she share enough common language to work out your differences........... is a matter of education.
TB
