Rating
Beer
The
art of rating beer is a skill anyone can acquire with a
little information and a lot of practice. Whether you desire
to become a beer judge at competitions or simply want to
learn about the various beer styles
for your own personal enjoyment, here is some information
to help get you started.
There
are basically 4 things to notice when rating a beer. They
are (in order in which they are to be observed):
1.
Aroma
2. Appearance
3. Taste
4. Aftertaste or finish
Aroma
A
beer’s aroma is extremely important to its overall
taste. Believe it or not, your taste buds are only capable
of detecting four distinct tastes. They are sweet, salty,
sour, and bitter. The receptors for these tastes are located
on the areas of the tongue shown in the diagram.
These
four taste characteristics combine with the aromatic properties
of the beer to result in an overall flavor. The nose can
detect literally thousands of aromas which give us a multitude
of flavors. The reason you want to observe the aroma first
is because your nose tends to become desensitized to odors
rather quickly plus the aromatics of beer tend to be transient.
One
of the most noticeable aromas in a beer comes from the malt.
Malt will impart a sweet, caramel-like quality and will
vary depending on the darkness of the malt. Ales usually
take on a fruity and sometimes butterscotchy aroma. This
is a result of the warmer fermenting temperatures. If specialty
malts are used, you may notice roasty, chocolate, or even
nutty aromas.
Another
ingredient you will notice in many beers is the hops. Hops
will vary greatly depending on the style of beer being made.
Some of the most common are: grassy, piney, citrusy, floral,
and spicy. A good way to detect the odor of hops in beer
is to brew a batch for yourself. Once you have smelled the
hops before and during a brew you will never forget it.
Appearance
The process of rating beer begins with its visual appearance.
Many people make hasty judgments of taste (food or drink)
based entirely on sight alone. When it comes to beer, sight
can be deceiving. Just because a beer is dark, rich, and
potent looking, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s
full flavored. It could just be dark. But as far as appearance
goes, what you’re looking for are color, clarity,
and head retention.
Color
– Beer has a wide range of colors such as light straw,
amber, copper, red, chocolate, black and every color in
between. No particular color is better than the other. The
color lends charm and personality and should be fairly consistent
among the different styles of beer.
Clarity
- Americans tend to really value clarity in a beer. Since
you can’t really taste the difference in a clear or
cloudy beer, it just goes to show how important appearance
is. It’s kind of sad too because most of the time
these fine particles are high in B vitamins (which coincidentally
is what the alcohol depletes from your system and helps
contribute to a hangover). The only way to guarantee clarity
is to filter the beer. Most homebrew will settle and clear
up, so long as you don’t disturb the yeast in the
bottom of the bottle. There are also clarifying agents that
can be used in the brewing process.
Head
Retention – Any beer style should be
able to first form and then maintain a decent sized, tight
celled head for a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes the
head will take on a rocky appearance which is accepted as
normal. If the beer fails to produce or maintain a head,
it could be the result of a problem with the beer, or simply
a soapy residue in the glass. By the way, the term for the
bubbly layer that sticks to the sides of the glass is called
Belgian Lace.
Taste
As
I said earlier, the tongue by itself can only detect four
distinct tastes. When combined with aroma, the result is
its flavor. In beer, many styles will often share many of
the same taste attributes, but the intensity of the individual
flavors can differ dramatically.
Try
to notice the taste and the way it feels in your mouth as
it comes into contact with the entire tongue. Is it heavy
(like cream) or light (closer to water)? This is what’s
referred to as body.
Keep
in mind that different styles of beer have certain guidelines
as to what tastes should be expected. Some
taste attributes such as tartness are acceptable (even desired)
in certain styles of ale. The same tartness would be considered
a flaw if found in a German lager.
It
is beyond the scope of this site to go into all the details
of what gives a beer its flavor, but it’s helpful
to know a few things. For instance, many times a homebrew
will take on a rubbery flavor. This usually happens when
the beer stays in contact with the yeast too long during
fermentation and the yeast becomes autolyzed (it actually
starts consuming itself after all the sugars are gone!)
Most
of the time, sourness comes from a bacterial contamination.
A contamination from wild yeast can impart a mediciny or
plastic-like flavor. These are a result from compounds call
phenols, thus the term phenolic.
In
order to establish a common vocabulary to identify the tastes
and smells of beer, a brewing chemist named Dr. Morton Meilgaard
developed a system called the Meilgaard Beer Flavor Wheel.
Below is an illustration from his work.
click
image to enlarge
Aftertaste
(finish)
The
term aftertaste is not a negative thing like many would
believe. An aftertaste can be bad, or it can be good. It
all depends on your personal preference. The aftertaste
will magnify the good and the bad qualities a beer will
possess.
Sometimes
an aftertaste will last a long time. Other times there virtually
no aftertaste. This is referred to as being dry.
While
noticing the aftertaste, it's a good time to reflect and
decide for yourself if this beer is true to its style and
whether or not it makes you want to have another drink.
This is also where you take in consideration the balance
between the bitter and the sweet, the aroma, body, and the
overall impression the beer makes.
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