Thanks to all of those who chimed in on the meaning of the word “phenolic.”
Your answers prove it’s not a useful word for a drinking note.
This is where it started. When I sat in for the Sunday Session on The Brewing Network a question came up: What’s the difference between phenols and esters? I blew it off, mostly because I knew if I started I could have the audience snoozing in a matter of minutes, and still have plenty of words left over. There are several sources of phenols and we perceive them in a variety of ways (though not all drinkers equally).
This show is mostly for homebrewers so a fair question. Just one I need to come up with a short answer for. I mentioned this to my wife, the first beer writer in our family, and she had a quick answer. “Phenols are bad, right? And esters are good,” she said, tongue in cheek. “That’s they way people talk about them.”
Many of the comments prove her point.
Thanks for playing along. I suspect it will make my short answer better.
Reminds me of the reply I received from a bartender in rural Ireland several years back when I inquired as to whether or not a specific dish was good. She said, “Oh, it’s all good…if you like it.”
Phenols are definitely like that. They’re very bad things, unless of course they’re not.
Why quibble with whether a single word is useful? I’m skeptical that tasting notes convey much information between two people, even experts.
That said, tasting notes can be an effective jog to your own memory. And in that situation, if phenolic means something to you, then it’s useful. Though maybe words like Laphroaig and Bandaid would better distinguish good phenols from bad phenols.
Tasting notes between brewers can be useful, even a single word. When looking at GABF notes, there can sometimes be only a few words on the score sheet. Words like phenolic can help if there’s something wrong in your process. While I can’t tell you exactly what phenolic tastes or smells like, I can tell you that I know what it is when I taste and smell it. Granted, it’s a broad category from clove to band aid. But if someone notes that it’s tasting phenolic, I’m looking at my fermentation temperatures, yeast pitching rates, etc and deciding if want to adjust them to get a slightly better tasting beer.
I use the word “medicinal” to describe a hop variety that has very high betas and makes great beer too,,,thus the name ,,”Medicinal” hops. Besides,,it’s a comedy. Truth in labeling says to put the name on the bottle,,but claims of beer being medicinal may be not looked at so kindly. Grandma always said that sip of beer was medicinal! No bad connotations with that word here.