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.
