How Do I Make My Mouth Smarter? (Sensory Perception)

[Near-Beer-Engineer]

My taste buds are, for lack of a better word, dumb.

They know when they like something, and definitely know when they don't, but that's about all they're good for. My goal is to improve my sensory perception skills so I can actually identify and categorize off-flavours, and be able to pick out subtle flavours that I've previously not been able to comprehend or describe. I think this is key to designing truly great beer.

I've found a couple of related threads here, although they are not exactly what I'm looking for:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/evaluating-homebrew-382214/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/sensory-evaluation-kit-36069/

Does anyone have any tried-and-true, practical advice on how to improve this skill? Here's what I've tried or considered so far:

Tried: Tasting several commercial beers and reading the BeerAdvocate or RateBeer website reviews while I drink it. I find that the reviews differ wildly, with people apparently experiencing totally different things. Sometimes I can confirm what they're saying, but other times I swear some people are just making it up! (Really? You taste lightly roasted chocolate marshmallows with a hint of rhubarb pie? Really?)

Tried: I just recently sent off 2 homebrews to 2 different competitions in the hopes that I will get objective feedback and put names to the flavours I taste. I sent them to 2 different ones to see if the judges are consistent or not...if not I guess I'll know who is making up reviews on BeerAdvocate!

Considered: Sensory Evaluation Kits (http://www.bjcp.org/cep/kits.php). - Are these any good? They are very expensive.

Considered: The Tasting Beer book by Randy Mosher (http://www.amazon.ca/Tasting-Beer-Insiders-Worlds-Greatest/dp/1603420894/ref=pd_rhf_gw_s_qp_12_140T?ie=UTF8&refRID=0P855JE22W52B33947T8) - Anyone read through this? Is it actually practical?

Considered: Intentionally Ruining (small) Batches - I'm thinking of making 1 gal batches and doing terrible things to them. For example aerating before bottling, fermenting at high temps, adding tons of cane sugar, force carbing aggressively for carbonic bite, etc. Destroying these lovely batches might destroy parts of my soul though...

Any other suggestions? Appreciate the help!

 

[jekeane]

I have read Tasting Beer and thought it was helpful. I have been attempting to locate many of the recommended beers that according to the book exemplify specific styles. The book gives a better perspective on how we taste and how you can better sample beer for flavor. Sadly or perhaps thankfully the only way to develop better tasting skills is to "practice" and drink more beer.

 

[kaconga]

Try tasting things with an experienced taster. Sometimes they can label things so that you can say "I do taste that grapefruit, now that you mention it." The hard part is being objectively honest about what you are actually tasting and to not be swayed by theore experienced taster.

 

[DrunkleJon]

You are going to have to train your self. I am in the process of doing it myself. Open a beer, write out your sensory notes on the beer for appearance, aroma, taste etc. Go slowly and try to pick out the nuances. Then look them up on BA, etc and try to locate what you taste. Try again with the same beer the next day, or later and see if you notice the same things.

Unfortunately there are different levels of tasters. You could be a super taster or a non taster or most likely somewhere between. The only thing to really do is practice and maybe have a list of common flavors as well as taste beers with someone else. Your tasting buddy may notice something mention it tastes like something and you realize that you have been tasting it all along.

Practice practice practice. I am sure that is not too arduous of a task.

 

[KepowOb]

I've started spending a lot more time trying to analyze both my own beer, and beer that I buy.

I've done like you, in reading over a place like RateBeer and seeing how my experience compares, and I too, wonder what the hell some people are talking about. I tend to just laugh at/ignore the really outlandish stuff though.

My pallet is very far from being refined, but I find the more time I spend actually trying to figure things out, the more different flavours I can pick out of a beer. My biggest problems now are actually describing the flavours. I can taste something, and taste differences in beers as they warm up, but I often have trouble being able to properly explain, even to myself, what I am tasting. It's something I'm working at though. As others have mentioned, the more you do it, the better you'll get.

 

[Homercidal]

Tasting beer is a great book, and I recommend it to anyone. It's chocked full of cool and interesting pictures and other eye candy. Mosher writes with a humorous flair that is entertaining. He also knows what he is talking about.

I think the main thing I took from the book is that really tasting beer, from a judging point of view, requires practice. It might take a lot of intense focused tasting to build your palate and be able to express what you discover in all of those flavors.

You may be sensitive to certain flavors and insensitive to others. You may appreciate some things, and find other things disgusting.

After you've read the book, and read through all of the stuff you find online and elsewhere, try to attend a sensory evaluation event. Some homebrew clubs buy a kit and hold special sensory event where people might sample some off flavors. It may take a few times to get to know some of the flavors.

And picking out off-flavors is not the only reason to learn to taste beer. You could use it to more fully enjoy your drinking experience, or to tweak recipes better.

 

[melchermatt]

If you're an AHA member you can go to the NHC 2014 website and find the presentation about sensory evaluation. It is a discussion about learning flavors and descriptors.

As some one said before - you have to train yourself. One thing though - you wont develop your palate through reading. You gotta eat, drink and smell a lot of stuff!

Look at the decsriptors in each style. Gather some of those items and have them around when you drink that style of beer. Have a 'wheat beer' night and have some cloves, bananas, grain, citrus, spices, pepper, etc. Before your drink any of the beers take a few minutes to famialirze yourself with the aromas. Now drink the beers and see if you can pull out the aromas and flavors. Write down your experience. Be descriptive and try to evoke memories the aromas and flavors remind you of. Does it remind you of Grandma's bananna bread?

One suggustion I would make is that you need to cross-train your palate. Instead of trying to pick out flavors in beer, experience the flavors and aromas in their 'native' environment. Experience the aroma and flavor of grapefruit by eating a grapefruit. Remember it the next time you drink a grapefruity IPA. Next time you mow the lawn take a deep breath and remember the aroma - Thats 'fresh mown hay'.

I once had a beer with several friends and my initial thought was it smelled like a humidor. That cedary leather aroma that says a cigar lives here. One guy didn't know that aroma because he's never smelled a humidor. He kept saying things like earthy or woody or piney.

You want to learn off-flavors? Look up the descriptions of the flaw and gather the items together. You've heard the descriptions like band-aid, butter, green apple.

In the end you can try all of the suggestions in the op. I've done almost all of them (with the exception of intintionally making batches of off beer - why bother?). The sensory evaluation kits from bjcp are awesome but expensive. Get a group of people together and go in on one. A little goes a long way. You really dont want to drink many of the samples!

Learn flavors and aromas outside of beer and then use your memory while you are smelling and tasting. Write things down - it helps.

 

[stamandster]

You DONT want to be a super taster (as they HATE anything that's bitter is OVERLY bitter). You just want to train your brain to locate the flavors. Being able to focus well on what you are drinking and drink it slowly does help. I've been trying to help my tongue by helping my nose. Sniffing spicy things is supposed to help. Being hydrated is supposed to help too (a glass every hour or two).

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Hard to say, when I was really young everyone reffered to me as a smart mouth. Overtime I grew older and eventually became known as a smart ass. So either biologies natural progression moved all the smarts from the input to the output or I am just constantly talking out of my ass.

 

[krackin]

Back in the late '90s when I started in agriculture commercially I raised organic strawberries as one of my crops. In short order I was known for the best flavored and sweetest strawberries around. Why is another story.

One couple, a little backwoods from the western Maine foothill area always said the strawberries lacked flavor and were sour. No one else said that. Finally one day I asked them if they ever used a tooth brush. Evidently not. Now they have no teeth and everything still tastes sour to them.

I'm not saying that is the issue but this thread was the right place for the story.

 

[Near-Beer-Engineer]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I might pick up that book and dedicate myself to the selfless study of slurping beers until I'm a pro.

 

[Cyclman]

It is a good book. +1 on writing things down. I think having to put words to what you are tasting is very helpful. I also like RateBeer reviews, many are ridiculously off, but many are very good. I also like to try single hop beers, then read descriptors of those hops, I can identify several hops if the are strong in a certain beer. Repetition, repetition, it's terrible, isn't it

 

[Beernik]

Tasting is one of those things that once you learn, you can't unlearn. Some days I wish I could just drink a beer and not have a list of possible ingredients or flaws hanging in the back of my mind.

Part of it is paying special attention to what you are tasting. And you only get three or four good sips before your tastebuds get fatigued.

Smell first. Try to get all your smelling in before you sip. You only get so many whiffs in before your nose fatigues too. If you drink, you lose your sense of smell faster.

My sense of smell isn't great. I taste a lot of things people say they smell.

Once you can detect distinct smells and flavors it's word association. What does it make you think of.

Write down what you taste. The act of taking notes makes you pay more attention to what you are doing.

I can pick out flavors in beer really well and find words to describe them: chocolate, coffee, nutty, citrus, etc. It even goes so far that I can speculate on ingredients.

I can't do it with wine at all. I can taste things in wine. But I can't associate those tastes with words. Most of the associations are fruits and I'm not much of a fruit eater. So when a red wine is described as having a plumb flavor or apricot flavor, it means nothing in my head.

 

[podz]

Reading ratebeer reviews is a good way to see for your yourself how pretentious people are when it comes to this sort of thing. 99.9% of it is people blowing smoke out of their ass while flipping through a thesaurus. There's all of the sudden a million people who want to be considered as beer critics/judges who possess a magical nose and palate.

You are either born with the "reference" sense of taste and smell or you're not. Same way you're either born with the ability to distinguish between musical notes, or you're born tone deaf. Nothing you can do to change it.

I'll give you an example. After you've eaten asparagus, do you smell a heavy metallic smell in your piss or is it just another piss? There is a gene that is responsible for the ability to smell asparagus piss, and apparently only 25% of the population has this gene. If you don't have it, then nothing you can ever do is going to give your nose the ability to detect asparagus piss and people who can't detect it are just going to tell you that you're crazy because "my nose works and there's nothing there".

 

[theck]

Reading ratebeer reviews is a good way to see for your yourself how pretentious people are when it comes to this sort of thing. 99.9% of it is people blowing smoke out of their ass while flipping through a thesaurus. There's all of the sudden a million people who want to be considered as beer critics/judges who possess a magical nose and palate.

You are either born with the "reference" sense of taste and smell or you're not. Same way you're either born with the ability to distinguish between musical notes, or you're born tone deaf. Nothing you can do to change it.

I'll give you an example. After you've eaten asparagus, do you smell a heavy metallic smell in your piss or is it just another piss? There is a gene that is responsible for the ability to smell asparagus piss, and apparently only 25% of the population has this gene. If you don't have it, then nothing you can ever do is going to give your nose the ability to detect asparagus piss and people who can't detect it are just going to tell you that you're crazy because "my nose works and there's nothing there".

Did not know that... I smell that nasty smell every time I eat asparagus, even after only a few hours sometimes seems to.come on faster with the more quantity. I figured everyone had that ability... Now I feel special, I guess.

 

[sportpak]

Did not know that... I smell that nasty smell every time I eat asparagus, even after only a few hours sometimes seems to.come on faster with the more quantity. I figured everyone had that ability... Now I feel special, I guess.

Asparagus wizz reminds me of forgotten mop bucket water. Bleh..

 

[podz]

Did not know that... I smell that nasty smell every time I eat asparagus, even after only a few hours sometimes seems to.come on faster with the more quantity. I figured everyone had that ability... Now I feel special, I guess.

It's a little more complicated than just a single gene, but here's a reference that describes the thing in more detail:

http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythasparagusurine.html

Basically, not all people have the gene that causes the odor to be secreted in the urine and not all people who do secrete the odor are able to detect the it. Those are two separate things.