The importance of tasting notes

Even though my methodology for tasting notes is in constant flux, I never waver on their importance. I find it weird when people don't write them, whether on paper or in their heads. Granted, I'm guessing most people would rather concentrate on just drinking the beer, but I find that taking notes enhances the experience.

For many years, Dead Guy Ale was my favorite beer. It has a big hoppy bite, so I always considered it an IPA. Since I'd never taken the moment to taste it and write what I thought, I was fixated on the hoppiness of the beer. I was missing so much of the picture. The beer is not an IPA, but a “Maibock” (John Maier interpreted the style loosely). I tasted it again recently and noticed that the defining feature was not even the hops, but the big malty aromas and caramel notes throughout. I was tasting a completely different beer! How many people did I mislead by calling it hoppy, by saying it's a great IPA? Had I taken the time to stop, taste, think, and write, I'd have seen my folly. (In my defense, when I had first encountered the beer in 2006, American IPA's had much more crystal malt and moderate hopping rate than the current dry-bitter bombs a lot of breweries and churning out now.)

I suppose when the number of beer options was limited, the finite differences between a Silver bullet and a Bud Lite were unimportant. You either liked one or the other, and would argue passionately about the one you preferred. Now the choices are staggering. Even if one were to drink a few different beers every day, they still wouldn't be able to even try a portion of the new beers and styles being released that year! It is becoming akin to wine, with the countless varieties of grapes, regions, and production methods, orientating oneself is getting harder and harder.

I don't write tasting notes for wines unless I'm at a tasting event, and I rarely do anything with the notes I do take. Thus—and this even happened to me today—when presented with a wine, even though I know I've tasted it before, I often can't offer a word about it, not even to say if I liked it or not. Sometimes I'm impressed with myself if I can even remember that name. I admit to buying a wine I didn't like multiple times, just because I wasn't sure if I'd tried it before.

My guess is that the average person's behavior is closer to mine when it comes to wine. Simply put, the most important goal of tasting notes is to improve your memory.

I'm much more methodical with beer. I take the time write out detailed notes (and more on what I mean by “detailed” later), but also type them up on www.ratebeer.com. I now have a pretty decent idea of what I've tried and generally what it tastes like, which is probably the bare minimum commitment a beer sommelier must make. I taste at least three new beers a week (and when I say “taste” I mean, I sit in a quiet room with a proper glass and a notebook.). I will often try new beers with friends, but I find that if I don't spend that quality time, it all fades away. For those that get the proper attention, just one look at my notes can conjure the flavor.

Non-professionals often overlook the importance of notes, or even look down upon the practice as snobbish, claiming it's a bunch of BS to be smelling for anything more than beer in their beer. I do admit that is can seem a bit pretentious to swirl a beer in a glass and take a few sniffs, hold it against the light to see the color, before swishing it a bit around the mouth, taking a few minutes before even the first swallow. Most people don't need this level of detail, but a bit of contemplation can improve the experience. And when you write it down, you begin to see trends, start to map out your own preferences so you can more wisely purchase beers. Even if you are only writing down “super hoppy”, “sweet”, or “aromas of pineapple, lychee, and sugar cookies”, you are interacting with your beer and helping the future you understand preferences.

I admit that even I find the excessive details of some tasting notes to be insane. After about 10 different modifiers for a beer's smell, they seem like they could be describing anything. Granted, there are some beers that do really evolve over time, releasing new aromas every few minutes. This is a mark of a special beer, but even an amazing beer doesn't need to be so complex. When I stumble upon something impressive, I get excited, go back to my notebook every sip. If my notes for multiple beers are identical, it usually is a sign of mediocrity (or lazy notes).

In my beer sommelier class, we were trained to taste beers using a set structure:

Color of the beer:

Clarity: Clear, hazy, or cloudy/sedimentary

Level of carbonation: Low – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – High

Smell (swirl, take small sniffs, then take a big sniff from deep in the glass)

Obvious failures or infections?

Intensity: Low – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – High

Malt: Low – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – High

Yeast: Low – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – High

Hops: Low – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – High

General aromatic qualities: (fruity, floral, piney, vegetal, etc.)

Specific aromas: (apples, seashore, hog barn, the smell of your wool jacket after walking through the forest in the rain,etc.)¹

Taste (take a sip, let it sit on the tongue for a moment, being sure it coats your whole mouth. Swishing is unnecessary. Swallow, then breathe out your nose.)

Sweetness: Dry – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – Sweet

Acidity: Not Sour – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – Intensely Sour

Bitterness: Not bitter – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – Very bitter.

Malt: Low – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – High

Yeast: Low – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – High

Hops: Low – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – High

Taste concentration: Low – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – High

Length of aftertaste: Short – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – Long

Body: Thin – 2 – 3 – 4 - 5 – 6 – Thick

Level of alcohol:

Flavor additions:

General gustatory qualities:

Specific descriptors:

Now, to complete this precise form, one needs at least three or four minutes. This is not practical in most social situations²

The other drawback is that this type of analysis is, frankly, a bit boring and doesn't mimic the experience of tasting something. My biggest issues is that it robs the taster of the pleasure of just drinking the beer, which is the point.

After my course, I ditched this method and started writing impressions, the most evident features and descriptors of the beer, making sure I say something about the look, smell, taste, and body of everything. Here's some examples plucked from my ratebeer:

Nøgne Ø #100

Dark brown, medium carbonation, though it took some coaxing to get the head going. Once it settled, the head lasted a long time. Lots of alcohol up front in the aroma, fruity yeast, dark malts, but with little roasted aromas, some non-dominating herbal hops. Syrupy body. Very sweet start, huge bitter hit in the middle, like the bitter, herb liquors (unicum, underberg) fades to some caramel, then finishing with a not-overbearing bitterness. Lots of phenols and herbal hops. Has notes of cough syrup, medicine, dried fruits, caramel, licorice. Full bodied. Was really good beer to sip, especially when it is a bit warm.

Rodenbach Vintage 2014

Copper color. Medium carbonation. Complex aromas of caramel, light figs, almonds, vanilla. Very balanced flavor of cherries, vanilla, caramel, touch of vinegar with a lovely tart finish. This has almost no hard edges to it. It is smooth and elegant. It is lovely in the mouth, but after every swallow, I get a bit weak, sends me shivers. This is a fantastic beer! One the best I've ever had.

This style is short, to the point and gives a general impression of what the beer tastes like, but is this enough information? For any casual use, yes. This gives me enough context that I can look back and remember the beer. 

But what do you get out of it? Does this help you in any way know what beer you're going to have? There was a time when I was looking at gose styles (a salted, coriander-spiced, wheat sour beer). I read my description for one on ratebeer, but there was little to separate it from others of the same style. After consulting my written notes, where I did the whole tasting form, I was easily able to get a clear picture of how that beer differentiated from other similar ones.

Take the Nøgne Ø #100. It is listed as a barely wine, Kjetil Jikuin said he meant it as an double IPA. From my description, if not for the hops, could describe a Dark Strong Belgian. These are three very different styles of beer. The hop varieties are mostly American-style, which are usually described as citrusy, not herbal. A lot of others on rate beer said it was grassy or floral. If we took a handful of these descriptions and brewed beers based on what people say, you'd get a wide range of different beers. So then, what is the point of even posting these online?

For me, it's to catalog what I've tasted in an easy to search format. Yet, even in my own notes, I find discrepancies. I've gone back to revalue or describe beers, only to find that an entirely different person wrote these notes! Beers I've disliked are suddenly amazing. Given this high level of subjectivity (both personal and time-influenced), the advantages of the quantitative method becomes more evident, a chance to objectify this.

Some writers embrace the personal nature of describing sense, and choose to tell a story instead. In his book The Brewmaster's Table by Garret Oliver mixes his tasting notes with context, describing those perfect quiet moments: sipping a best bitter while staring out at Britain's southern coast, cleaning out a Vietnamese restaurant of their unlikely collection of Saison Dupont, or his heated cheese-pairing battle versus a well-regarded wine sommelier. Not that he shies from more typical tasting notes. But this focus on the personal experience of drinking beer helps turn what is basically a book full of tasting notes into a highly readable, essential part of any beer lover's shelf.

So, my dilemma is clear. I'm a beer sommelier, so I need to collect a catalog of clear and specific tasting notes so I can decide on the best beers to go with food. Yet, I'm also a beer lover and I want to enjoy my beer, not spend 30 minutes sniffing and swirling. And as a writer, I would love to tell you embellished stories of a beer I loved.³ One has to look at the situation and choose what works best for them. Despite the issues I addressed above, don't forego tasting notes altogether. You'll thank yourself later.

1-I have had many debates over whether these ultra-specific smells actually communicate anything to anyone but the writer. A great example of this is from the documentary, Somm http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2204371/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

One of the candidates described a wine as having the aroma of a freshly opened can of tennis balls. Anyone who has ever played tennis, would get a very clear image and memory from this smell. However, is it accessible to an average person? Have enough people opened tennis balls for this to mean something? Why can't he just say it smells like rubber? I think most people who do know the smell would say that, no rubber isn't good enough. This opens up lots of questions, mainly the subjective vs. objective dialogue, or simply, who does one write their notes for? Ultimately, a sommelier's job is to sell something, otherwise the proper title would be “snob” or “drunk”. If a description means nothing to anybody but the describer, is it a good description? Or is it best to have a high level of specificity, so those who do understand can get a richer understand of what they might be buying? They can always been toned down if a connection is missing. The other curve ball is that we all have different receptors for smells and tastes. To some, coriander leaves are fresh and delicious, to others, it tastes like soap. There are some jerks out there who can eat asparagus without being punished by the smell of their own urine. Tasting and smelling is always subjective, not just from preferences, but from the chemicals that our bodies can sense. For example, I can barely detect the smell of saaz hops, one of the reasons I am not a fan of pilsner.

2-Unless your social excursion is a tasting! Don't overlook the fun of this. Granted, I have multiple sommelier/snob friends, so having an organized tasting is not such an odd idea. If you really want to learn about beers. Go with a group of friends to the liquor store, pick a theme and have everybody buy a few. Elect a taste master (one who sets up the line up and keeps track of what everyone is drinking) and taste it all blind. You'll be surprised by what you learn. Some of your favorites might turn out to be poor, and something you don't like may be better once you eliminate the bias of knowing what you drink. Also, you begin to realize that differentiating styles is much harder than one would think.

3 -Ha! I bet you thought I was going to tell a story here. To be honest, I did too, then changed my mind.

Tasting beer in 4 easy steps

We are living in a transitional era of beer. The popularity of beer is at one of its highest levels in over 100 years (we still haven't bounced back to the peaks of the 1800's, when beer was so popular, an exploding vat of beer was so big, it drowned eight people in the streets of London), yet people still don't know how to taste their beer. For one, even in the United States, where the craft movement has become a juggernaut, it still only controls 11% of the market (I use the word “only” lightly. This is a monumental achievement.) That means that still 89% of all beer sold is "MacBeer". The craft movement is incredible, but many people are just jumping on this wagon as a trend and could jump off in favor of craft gin or aquavit just as quickly.

Even as people seem to be valuing the flavor of beer more, we are still stuck in the same bad habits from the days when most beer didn't taste very good. We are much better at drinking good beer, but still not at tasting it. Few give it the same type of respect and attention they give wine. Rarely do you see people drinking wine straight from the bottle or out of pint glasses filled to the brim. Even the most terrible of wines gets the courtesy of wine glass. Brewers give just as much attention to process as winemakers (some may even argue they give more, as they are focused on producing a consistent product. Could you imagine the uproar if your favorite brewery made a worse beer this year because of seasonal variations?), so why is it you rarely see a hipster contemplate over the fine brew they have in their hand?

My own opinion is that we'd been living in a world of such bad beer for so long, the industry has just gotten used to suppressing the flavor as much as possible. Not all is lost though. You, yes, YOU can help point our culture in the right direction. The first step is actually learning how to taste beer.

Um, sorry you SNOB, but um, what do you think I do every time I drink something? I have a tongue.

Oh, not you again. I'd hoped you'd been abandoned for a more creative technique. But to answer your question, there is a difference between drinking something and tasting something. Think about your own habit of consumption. When you take a sip of water, do you hold it in your mouth and think about it? How does this differ from when you drink wine? Or what about tequila? I'd like to argue that most people try to avoid tasting many of the things we consume. Beer is no different. Most people view beer as a buzz-conveyance, much as we view water as a hydration-conveyance. This is the first step to tasting anything. Anything you eat or drink should be a flavor-conveyance. When you have so many options for food and drink, why would one ever choose something that doesn't taste good? Sure, tasty things cost more, but that's why there's a concept called moderation.

Step one: whenever you consume something, take one moment and think, does this taste good?

Whenever I go to a nice pub, I am always dumbfounded by way beer is served. If they have taken the time to invest in 100 taps, why can they not invest in a glass that actually encourages proper tasting? The standard glass seems to be the pint-sized shaker glass. You know the type, they are v-shaped, usually with a brand logo printed on the side, then beer is filled to the rim, allowing no chance for any aromatics to come through until you've finished nearly half the beer (by this point, most of the best aromas have dissipated.) Even worse are those who serve it straight from a bottle or a can, which give no aromatics whatsoever. (However, a new, interesting trend has emerged. Many new beer cans have an opening, where the whole top comes off, leaving behind a slightly-tapered cup to drink from.

If you go to a fancy beer pub, you'll see any number of fancy glasses. It seems that every single beer in Belgium has its own special glass. The brewers will claim that they engineered the glass to perfectly enhance the experience of drinking that particular beer. It need not be that complicated. Yes, it is best to drink a hefeweissen from one of those foot-tall glasses that leaves plenty of room for the huge fluffy head, yet still give a chance to concentrate the aromatics at the nose, but you don't need it. A good beer glass should have a stem, so the beer stays at a constant temperature, a tapered nose to concentrate aromas, and big enough to leave room to swirl. I think you have one of these already in your cupboard.

Step 2: Use a proper glass

You keep talking about the aromatics, but last time I checked, my tongue is in my mouth, not my nose.

I'm glad you brought this up actually. Our tongue is actually a crude sensory organ. Scientists have yet to identify only five basic flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami (this is not including tongues ability to pick up on other arguable non-tastes: minty coolness, chili's spiciness, clove's numbness, red wine's tannins, and fat's creaminess). Now, these flavors can combine together in many complex ways to produce what we call taste, but the real work horse is our nose. Our olfactory sense can identify hundreds of chemical compounds. Ask anybody who doesn't have a sense of smell, they are missing a lot!

I find that the aroma is often one of the best parts of beer. Some beers smell like a bowl of fruit salad (for example, the amazing Garagista by Garage Project http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/garage-project-garagista-ipa/286255/), coffee, chocolate, caramel, fresh baked bread, a pine forest, a sweaty horse. Some beers smell amazing, but taste very lackluster and some the opposite. Ultimately, if you don't smell your beer, you are missing more than half the fun.

One little trick is to smell your beer when tasting it (yes, this is possible) and thus open up a whole world of flavor possibilities. When you take a sip, breath out your nose immediately afterwards. You'll get both the taste and the aromatics at the same time.

Step 3: Smell your beer

So, you've smelled your beer, you've tasted your beer from a proper glass, and you've given it some thought. Congratualtions, you are officially tasting. If you follow these steps, you might find that beers you once thought are good, are no longer are great as you thought. Don't worry, it happens to everybody. The final step is to write something down and evaluate. Get ratebeer, beer advocate, or untappd for your phone. Log what you've had and look for trends. Maybe you'll find that IPA isn't your favorite style. Maybe you'll learn that your favorite hop is Mosaic. You can then use this information to pinpoint exactly what you like and that can help you buy the beers you prefer (I'll resist the urge to go in depth on tasting notes. I'm a currently writing a whole entry on tasting notes.)

Step 4: Take notes

It's all very simple. With these four steps, anybody can learn a new appreciation for beer. Now go get a real glass and start tasting!

https://www.brewersassociation.org/press-releases/craft-brewer-volume-share-of-u-s-beer-market-reaches-double-digits-in-2014/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste

(sorry for the wiki reference, but I don't have time to do intense amounts of research)

Quirky yeasts at a fine feast: A review of Marg og Bein's Beer Maker's Dinner (2. February 2016)

 

I'd been to Marg og Bein (Bergen, Norway) one time before with my wife and David, and though we'd all enjoyed the food and their reasonable prices, we were in no rush to return. We saw potential in the place, but it seemed too slack on those little things that differentiate good from great restaurants. It is clearly a food-driven business. In particular, their barren wine list and having our food served on cold plates (all but assuring our food was lukewarm within a minute) turned us off.

I had been giving thought lately of a return visit (the food was some of the best in town, with cheap prices) and when I learned that they were planning a collaborative Beer Maker's Dinner with South Britain's Wild Beer, it was clear this was my chance. Also, the only other Bergenite in my beer sommelier course worked for the restaurant, so I figured he'd had a hand in it.

We sat down on one of two long tables (these events are usually set up like this to encourage discussion.) and the first thing I noticed was that the forks and knives were set on the wrong sides. I immediately became worried that this would be another flawed experience.

We were served as an aperitif, Sourdough, a barrel-fermented sour beer, brewed from a 60-year old sourdough culture from a bakery close to Wild Beer's farm. It was hazy yellow and had an intense, funky, highly sulfuric aroma. It wasn't welcoming, but thankfully, the beer tasted much better than it smelled. It was medium-bodied and refreshing, with a striking tartness up front, but remained balanced, supported by a touch of sweetness and woodiness in the finish.

I was getting hungry and when the first starter finally arrived, I had to force myself to not devour it immediately. It was hot-smoked eel served atop apple remoulade with picked beets. It was well composed; the remoulade offering just the right amount of creaminess and acidity to smooth out the fishiness of the eel. It was paired with Zintuki, a blend of their famous Ninkasi saison and a sour beer fermented from apple skin yeasts. It was hazy, light-gold and had a lovely aroma of barn, apples, and some fruit esters. It was a round-feeling beer with a rich mouthfeel. It was dry, but balanced, with a hint of acidity and a champagne-like spritziness. It was a great pairing. The beer was lifted from being merely good to fantastic. The salty smoked flavor of the eel brought out the fruitier characteristics of the beer, while the beer's acidity cut through the remoulade's creaminess. Not to mention the harmonization of the apple flavors in both. The pickled beets were the only misstep, as they overpowered the beer a bit.

With the next course, we were served Winter Blend 2015, which was a crazy mix of 24 different barrel-aged beers. It was served ice-cold, which was a major killer of what could have been an aromatic bomb. Still, a whiff of lactobacillus yogurt smells, some forest berries, and funky, barn-like brett came through in this dirty, mud-like beer. It was sour in every imaginable level, having the acer-bacteria influenced vinegar-flavors of a Flemish sour, the bright tartness of a Berliner weiss, and the intense, mouth-imploding sourness of a lambic. It was a punch in the face, both bright and deep. It felt dry, even on the front of the tongue, but opened to reveal a good dose of malt to hold it all up. I'm not sure if I liked it, but I'll still buy a bottle to cellar for a couple years, see how the brett will develop in it.

Such a intense beer seemed an odd choice for a second course pairing, especially beside the dish, which was deer tartar with pickled shallot, horseradish, marinated oysters, and instead of the classic egg yolk, bright yellow roe of a small, fresh-water fish (called løyrom in Norwegian). It was delicious. The roe gave the right type of saltiness to brighten the otherwise deep, rich flavors of the deer. The shallot provided the needed acidity.

The pairing was acceptable, yet somehow the food balanced the acidity of the beer too much, killing the more interesting nuances. And when mixed with the shallots, it brought out a strong, lingering aftertaste of sulfur.

As good as the starters were, we had our sights on the main: confit pork cheek with gravet bacon, baked leek, a slightly sweet parsnip puree, all swimming in a knee-weakening pork jous. It was so delicious, I forgot all about the beer, which is one of my favorites. Ninkasi is a saison, brewed with apple juice, wild yeasts, and bottle conditioned with champagne-yeast. It has a hazy, bright-orange color. The apples are clear in the nose, as well some bubble-gum-like esters and some biscuit-like malts. It is a very yeast-driven beer with very little hop aroma. It tastes rich and complex. Spicy and dry with just the right level of bitterness and acidity. It is a smooth beer with a perfect balance. The pairing seemed to work, but I was in the throes of food-ecstasy, so it was all a bit hazy.

When I emerged from my daze, I looked at the menu and got even more excited. Stilton cheese with barley wine. Stilton is a winner with beer, though it needs the right pairing to stand up to its intense flavor. Usually barley wines do the trick. The blue cheese was creamed into a mush and smeared on a plate with flax seeds, sunflower seeds, and poached pears. I would have been happier with just a piece of stilton. It tasted fine, though the poached pears had all their pear-i-ness poached out of them, so they provided neither acidity or sweetness. The beer, III, brewed with pomegranate molasses and caramelized orange peel, sounded “wild” but tasted very subdued, especially with the cheese. Again, it was served too-cold, so very little aroma was decipherable, but I did get some hits of vanilla and dates. It was bitter and acidic, clearly from the orange peel. It had a creamy body with lots of malt, but it will stand as the blandest barley wine I've tasted. Though this may have suffered from following such a strong act, I'd say that this course was ultimately unsuccessful.

To finish, Marg og Bein made the dessert beer into an ice cream with a salty peanut butter. It was a nice salt and sweet combo and the beer made a fine base for an ice cream. The beer itself was worthy of being a dessert alone. It was a milk stout, called Millionaire. It was dark brown with a rich roasted aroma and a touch of yeast fruitiness. It had a sweet flavor with lots of caramel. The addition of salt helped control the sweetness, kept it from being undrinkable. It finished with a pleasant, cleansing roastiness. It wasn't overly complex, but it was delicious. Sadly, it became thin in concert with the food. It finished like a cup of gas station coffee on the side, which isn't a bad thing, but it was a shame to have such a tasty beer watered out on the palate.

I was satisfied with the evening. It was great to see such an exciting chef and brewer working together. Yet again though, it was another imperfect experience from the restaurant. The server seemed knowledgeable about beer (my classmate, was unfortunately too busy to work this night), yet three of the beers were far too cold. Thankfully, the beer was served in tapered glasses, so we could appreciate what we could of the aroma. Too many fine restaurants like to serve beer in open-topped shaker glasses that give no impression beer fragrance. The pairings were done theoretically, and everything worked on paper, but it could have benefited from a test-run to see if they were winners in reality. In these types of dinners, the dishes often need to take a flavor hit, letting the beer create the missing link in the flavor composition. Here, they went all out, which created some stunning dishes, but less-than-perfect pairings.

Marg og Bein's chef Mark McCarthy seemed inspired by the beers, though, and plans to keep Wild Beer on tap. He voiced plans to have small dishes that pair with the brews, in an attempt to be a brewpub in addition to a fine restaurant. I'm excited for this development and will surely return to Marg og Bein. Despite its flaws, it has some of the best food in town and their prices can't be beat.

Marg og Bein is located on Fosswinckels gate 18 in Bergen Norway

http://www.wildbeerco.com/

http://marg-bein.no/

Tags: Wild Beer  Marg og Bein  Beer Maker's Dinners  Beer and Food Pairing  Food porn

What is the difference between ale and lager?

At first, I was going to attack this blog with the assumption that all readers would enter well-equipped with prior knowledge. Yet, considering that my aim is to help the average person become a true appreciator of beer, this supposition may hurt my goals.

Before we can begin any in-depth discussion of beer, there are some terms (jargon perhaps?) that needs to be cleared up.

Most have heard the words, “beer”, “ale”, or “lager” when describing their beverages, but the actual meaning of theses words is not always common knowledge. Everyone knows that beer is...well beer. 

But what exactly is beer? I can say that after years of being an enthusiast, I've tasted beers that I could have swore were wines. In Nepal, I had a beer that was just a big jug of grain slurry, to which boiling water was added, then sipped with a crimped straw to filter out the solid material. Then there's chicha, the South American beer where corn is chewed and spit into a bowl and dried.

Then there's the whole ale and lager conundrum. Many address the question by simply saying, “well, ale is beer made from top-fermenting ale yeast and lager is beer made from bottom-fermenting lager yeast. Duh!” But what is even meant by “top or bottom-fermenting” or just “fermenting” for that matter? Plus, this definition is problematic in that is doesn't really describe the beer itself very well.

Um, yeah, of course I know what fermentation is...it's like how beer is made.

It's actually more than that. 

All alcoholic beverages and much of food we eat—wine, beer, vodka, jagermeister, kimchi, sauer kraut, vinegar, yogurt, and even cheese—are the byproducts of a process called fermentation. It is a non-fancy word for a complex process that I don't dare describe with any depth (high school biology was a LONG time ago). Simply put, many microorganisms (namely some bacteria and yeasts) get their energy (or ATP for those who actually remember biology class) in the absence of oxygen (this is an “anaerobic” process) , by “eating” sugars and “pooping” out carbon dioxide, alcohol, and/or acids. It is what makes bread rise (have you ever noticed that if you let rising dough sit too long, it smells sour or alcoholic?) It is the same thing that makes your muscles sore after you work out (this is not to imply that if you jab a straw into your chest after some bench presses, you'll secrete beer).

Wine is yeast-fermented fruit juice. Sauerkraut is bacteria-fermented cabbage. Vodka is distilled, yeast-fermented whatever-you-got-going-bad-in-your-cellar-juice (distillation will not be addressed here). Beer is simply a yeast-fermented grain beverage. For this reason, beer is often called “liquid bread”. So that means that even saki is beer, not wine.

Wow, you used all that space just to define, “beer”?

I've barely even started, buddy.

In English, the term beer used to be much more specific. Despite being one of the first food products ever created by man (Some postulate that the discovery of brewing and baking was responsible for the creation of civilization, anchoring people to the land through agriculture instead of hunting and gathering. The oldest evidence of beer is a 6000 years old tablet from Sumeria. Think about that the next time you drink a pint.), the word beer is relatively new. By the middle-ages, beer was a northern-Europe thing, the drink of the vikings, who spread it across the continent, especially to England. As with most conquerers, their word for the beverage, øl, (which is what nordic people still call it) became the standard term. You may notice that despite the weird letter, it looks a lot like “ale”.

After hops became a common addition to European ales in 1500 and 1600's, they began to gain popularity in England. The word beer (which was what the Germans, French, and Italians called the beverage) was used to differentiate this continental-style hopped “beer” from more traditional unhopped “ale” of Britain. Even up to the 20^th century, ale and beer were listed as different drinks (as was porter, which was dark beer.).

Um...Is there a point to all this history and science? Jeesh, I feel like I'm in school again!

Well, yes there is, Mr. Boldfaced, fourth-wall-shattering-commentary.

Nearly every “beer” or “ale” contains hops, so the old meanings of these words are a bit antiquated.

Sadly, I had little success in my research tracing the way in which “ale” adopted its current meaning, but there is little argument that it means “top-fermented” beer.

Oh no...Is there going to be another science lesson?

Yes, there is. And more history too!

The vast majority of beer is fermented from one of two yeast species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces pastorianus (or simply put, ale yeast and lager yeast). There are other yeasts that people use to make beer, but it is beyond the scope of this entry.

S. cerevisiae is probably one of the most important living organisms for mankind. It is a microscopic fungus that is used to make many things, namely bread, beer, and wine. Bakers yeast, brewers yeast. They're both names for this hardy fungus. Though, up until Louis Pasteur's revolutionary 1876 book Etudes sur la Biere, fermentation was a mystery, often with religious connotations. It was common for the the same stick to be used to stir every batch of beer as “good luck”. Sometimes these sticks would be handed down for generations. These stick were covered in S.cervisiae yeast, which was transferred into each batch of beer. In reality, there were likely a variety of yeast strains, but selective “breeding” by disposing of bad sticks, eventually led to the domination of “ale” yeast in beers (note, I have no research to back this sentence.) The vikings always gave a toast to a god or a hero for each drink they took of beer. To not, would offend the gods and they wouldn't be blessed with good beer. Many Norwegian brewers still “kauke” (scream) to the gods when adding yeast to their beers.

This is not to say that there was no understanding of science in brewing. It was a well-accepted fact that beer brewed in the summer was more likely to go bad; people just didn't understand why. In 1553, Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria banned the brewing of beer between April 23 and September 29, thus “creating” this second species of yeast (S. pastorianus). Lager yeast thrives at colder temperatures (6C to 13C ideally), whereas most ale yeast strains are inactive in these temperatures. Eventually, a new cold-loving hybrid was formed. Since these beers were stored and kept cold in Bavarian caves, often with ice blocks to decrease the temperature, they came to be known as “lager”, derived from the German verb “lagern”, meaning “to store”. (All British beers were likely to be S. cervisae, due the warmer climate. When these vastly different Bavarian beers reached their shores, it is no shocker that a different word was needed than simply “ale”. Though, “Bavarian beer” would in itself imply lager. Some have argued that is was, in fact, the Americans that are responsible for the knitting “ale” with S. cerevisiae and “lager” with S. pastorianus.)

Hey man, I just want to drink the stuff!

I know you do, and there will plenty of time for that.

Knowing the difference between the two yeast strains and the beers they create will help take much of the guesswork out of buying beer. Years ago, when buying a beer, beer was just beer. Now what everyone in America called beer is called “light lager”. There are all these other names on cans and bottles and it is getting to be as complicated as buying wine. Beer styles are worthy of a whole book (there have been many), but knowing the difference between ale and lager will roughly divide the field in half (well actually lagers comprise 90% or so of all beers sold...).

So, this brings us back to fermentation. As I've discussed, ale yeast (S. cerevisiae) is called “top-fermenting” beer because of the tendency of the yeast to form a thick film on the top of the fermenting beer. Lager yeast (S. pastorianus) is called “bottom-fermenting” because the yeast seems to sit on the bottom. Both names are a bit flawed because the yeast usually sits in suspension throughout the whole beer during fermentation, despite the strain. These factors say little about why the resulting beers taste the way they do. The true difference is fermentation temperature.

When beer is fermented at a warmer temperature, the yeast cells produce chemicals that give spicy or fruity character to beer. The colder the fermentation temperature, the more “cleanly” the yeast do their job. It is just that S. cerevisiae is most active at these flavor producing temperatures (17-23C) and S. pastorianus at “cleaner” fermentation temperatures (6-13C). Lager yeasts are also stored longer. This gives the yeast time to take up these bi-products. Plus, they can eat more sugars than ales, so they are often dryer and crisper beers as well. California common (or Steam Beer) is a lager beer made at a high temperature, so it has a fruitier, most ale-like flavor.

Basically, if you see “ale” on a bottle of beer, you can expect it to be slightly thicker in body and have a more yeasty character (which will be discussed in other entries to this blog.) Lager will express most the flavor of the other ingredients (malts and hops), because it lacks these distracting yeast flavors.

Think of the two yeast species like you would friends.  If beer is a three-way conversation between hops, malt, and yeast, ale yeast is that friend that is right in the thick of things, adding jokes, one-liners, even driving the talking at times.  Lager yeast is the one that sits back and lets the others talk, but will occasionally throw in a point that keeps the other two going. (And now you have a new game to play with your buddies.  You can start labeling people as either Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Saccharomyces pastorianus. "Oh, Trudy, you're such a cerevisiae!"  I don't think it'll take off.)

I'm a cerevisiae, but I'm drinking pastorianus.

To taste the way that yeast affects beer, try an Imperial Stout along side a Baltic Porter. These two styles are very similar, they just use different yeast. Or try an Imperial Pilsner vs. Duvel.

Of course, this long, winding post is only scratching the surface of the nuances between these two categories of beer.

Uh, thanks, that helps a lot. I think.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharomyces_pastorianus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharomyces_cerevisiae

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur

http://www.forn.no/maltol/107a.htm

Mosher, Randy. Tasting Beer. North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing, 2009.

Oliver, Garret. The Oxford Companion to Beer. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012

Palmer, John. How to Brew. Boulder, CO: Brewers Publications, 2006

Tags:  Saccharomyces cervisiae Saccharomyces pastorianus ale lager fermentation temperature beer knowledge