If you really want to get the most out of beer, you need to exercise–your palate, that is.
Is that a citrus flavor floating in that pale ale? Hints of chocolate in your British porter? And is that coriander or orange in that Belgian Trappist ale? Or both?
One of the joys of discovering microbrews and imports is the broad range of flavors they offer, even within the same style. Beer drinkers used to mild-tasting mass-produced brands are missing more complex brews. It is like drinking only jug wines instead of trying more challenging bottles. Mass-produced beers, such as Miller and Budweiser, are made to appeal to the broadest market, which means the flavors are masked as much as possible. Less flavor means there is less that could surprise, or turn off, people. But the specialized beers embrace, instead of hide, those flavors.
For the beginner, it can seem a little daunting, trying to recognize those mysterious tastes that separate one beer from another. You might have already started, trying the Bass or Harp after drinking Buds and Lites, and noticed the difference. After that, it’s not as tough as you might think. Just be willing to try something new. Then it is a matter of learning the basics, then honing them through practice.
“We all have the same equipment; it’s just a sense of describing,” said Jerald O’Kennard, tasting director of the Beverage Testing Institute in Chicago. “The misconception is you need to learn how to taste. It’s more a sense of recognition than a sense of taste.”
O’Kennard knows a thing or two about developing a palate and learning how to pick up different flavors. He samples spirits, wines and beers for a living at BTI, where he has worked since 1999.
Developing a palate is an ongoing affair, but the first thing you want to do is form a solid base. That means building a base memory of smells and flavors and how they differ.
“If you don’t know what an apple smells like, you can’t describe what it tastes like,” O’Kennard said. “It’s developing your sense of memory, your ability to associate a flavor with a smell or taste.
“Go to the spice shop, go to the vegetable and fruit stand to develop these smells. Get them in your vocabulary.”
And it will take time.
“The pros do it every day,” said Chad Wulff, manager of the Map Room bar in Chicago.
Learn to pick up the difference between malt and hops, which combined with yeast and water, form beer. Malt is from roasted grains, usually barley, and gives beer a bready sweetness.
“A really well-balanced beer is going to have a malt presence and a hop presence, and a bitterness and a sweetness, countering each other and leaving your palate clean when you’re done,” said Brian Brandt, beer manager for Sam’s Wine & Spirits and a former brewer for Two Brothers, a microbrewery in Warrenville.
“The characteristics I always see when I taste are a caramel sweetness from the malt or a higher sweetness, a syrupy sweetness.”
But the easiest taste to pick up is the hops, Brandt said.
“Automatically, that’s the first thing,” he said. “That’s what stays in your mouth last, the bitterness. It stays on the sides of your tongue.”
Read up on the beer experts–try any book by Michael Jackson–and keep your own notebook on flavors.
“By recording what you have, then you can start noticing trends,” Brandt said.
Learn some of the benchmark beers in a style, so you know what flavors to compare against.
Good benchmark beers include Pilsner Urquell for Czech pilseners, Sierra Nevada for American pale ales, Guinness for stouts, Schneider for wheat beer (weiss), Chimay for abbey ales and Hoegaarden for Belgian whites (wit).
For example, the super-hoppy Sierra Nevada will let you pick up bitter and citrus–almost grapefruit–flavors, while the Hoegaarden will offer a sweet/sour mix with touches of orange and coriander.
Learning the benchmarks and their established flavors will help teach you to pick up subtle notes in other beers. And once you learn those flavors, you can find out which ones — and which beer styles — you’ll like and which ones to avoid.
“You can pick up the flavors, but it doesn’t mean you have to like it,” Wulff said. “[But] just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate it.”
One side benefit: You’ll learn to tell when a beer has gone bad, by the off flavors and smells to that style.
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t pick up flavors immediately. What one person may find as lemony, another will find as orange, while another may miss it altogether.
“Sensory stuff is all individual,” O’Kennard said.
And some tastes are just too obscure or unusual to pick up at first.
“Some of the nuances, if a spice is added, people won’t naturally think of spice in a beer, so they don’t think of it in that way,” Brandt said. “People don’t know to pick it out.”
But just as new beers pop up every day, so do new flavor combinations, always leaving room for you to improve your palate.
“I’m still developing new descriptions every day,” O’Kennard said.
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Doing a tasting
One of the best ways to hone your palate is to do a tasting either at a bar or at home. Here are a few basics:
The right equipment
Just like wine, different beer styles deserve their own glasses. They help focus the smell and form the beer’s head.
“When you get the proper glass and the right head, the smells come,” said Wil Turner, pub brewer for Goose Island. “That gets you really salivating for what comes next, the flavor.” Many liquor stores sell specialized glasses, or look for them on the Internet.
The proper temperature
Check the beer’s label or ask a knowledgeable liquor store employee about what’s proper. “Don’t serve it ice cold. It’ll mute your taste buds, and the full flavors won’t come out,” Turner said.
Preparation
Eat beforehand to set a base in your stomach. Keep some non-salty crackers and water nearby to cleanse the palate.
Technique
First smell the beer, with two deep breaths. Swirl the beer and then taste it, letting it coat your tongue. Notice how beers differ in their mouth-feel. Some hoppy beers can feel slightly prickly, while rich, malty Belgian ales will smoothly coat the tongue. Take notes.
Spit the beer or swallow?
It’s up to you. Some experts say the full flavors–especially in the aftertaste–only come when swallowed. But Jerald O’Kennard of Chicago’s Beverage Testing Institute said you can still pick up the flavors if spitting out the beer. And you can taste up to 20 beers by spitting before palate fatigue sets in, he said, compared to four to six beers if you swallow. “There’s more advantage to spitting,” he said.
The beverage
There are two approaches: Stay within a style of beer to pick up the similar flavors but subtle differences; or do a tasting across a broad spectrum of styles. For beginners, it might be better to stay within a style to learn the basics. And avoid intense, unusually flavored styles, such as lambics or barley wines.
Two styles of beers that most people find drinkable, while still offering a chance to develop a palate, are German weiss and Czech Pilseners, said Brian Brandt of Sam’s Wines & Spirits in Chicago. He recommends the following beers for a tasting:
Pilseners: Pilsner Urquell, Staropramen and BrouCzech from the Czech Republic; Paulaner, Jever, Warsteiner and Bitburger from Germany; Tinkov from Russia; and domestically, Victory Prima Pils and Goose Island Pils.
Weiss beers: Schneider Weiss, Ayinger Brau-Weiss, Erdinger Weiss, Paulaner Weiss, Schneider Adventinus (wheat dopple bock), Tucher Helles Weiss, Ayinger Ur-Weiss, Tucher Dunkle Weiss, all from Germany; and from American brewers, Tabernash Weiss, Tabernash Dunkel Weiss and Two Brothers Ebel Weiss from Warrenville.
Palate challenges
Goose Island holds a monthly “Beer Academy” tasting with pub brewer Turner. On Wednesday, try more than a dozen Oktoberfest beers; and on Oct. 27 taste Belgian beers. Each begins at 6:30 p.m. and costs $10. 1800 N. Clybourn Ave. For reservations and information, call 312-915-0071.
The Map Room, 1949 N. Hoyne, offers “Beer Schools” monthly. Saturday’s event is sold out, but openings are available for next month’s blind tasting at 6 p.m. Oct. 23. Cost is $15. Reservations, 773-252-7636.
— J.B.
