The best read post here, on an cumulative basis, is “Words to describe the beer you are tasting.” From nine years ago. Quite honestly, readers arrive via a search engine, read that post, check out nothing else here, and leave. The point is they are searching.
They might be better off forking over $16 (plus shipping) to buy their own Beer Flavor Map. You can read more about it here. It works like this: flavor is broken into three color-coded categories — Taste, Aroma and Mouthfeel. Within each there are sub-categories, so under Spicy you will find licorice, clove, cinnamon, etc.
Not many of the flavors featured in a book that recently showed up at our local library — Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine
Real quickly, author Sarah Lohman — an historical gastronomist — uses the history and stories behind eight ingredients to describe American cuisine. I don’t think I am spoiling much by listing them: black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, soy sauce, garlic, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and sriracha.
In the epilogue she describes an important ninth flavor: new. She writes, “The American kitchen is not static; it’s cumulative, and it evolves. Ten years ago, I had not heard of Sriracha, and now it is in every refrigerator I open (at least, those stocked by millennials). And in the next decade, or the next century, our cuisine will continue to change. Which means a new flavor will earn a permanent place in Americans’ hearts and stomachs.” And she proceeds to examine candidates for the next new flavor.
Drinkers, brewers, trendspotters are trying to do the same with beer. Maybe there is a Seven Flavors of Beer (or eight or four or whatever) in the works. Think one chapter will be called juicy?
To me, “Juicy” is not a flavour, or taste, proper, but something between that and mouthfeel. An evocative sensation that brings back sensory memories (at least to me) of biting a ripe plumb or peach, but not a juicy apple or pear.
In fact, is a bit like “crisp” in a way.