Mark Dredge has written about 4,500 words, which is a lot, at Good Beer Hunting about beer flavor wheels, which he creates and sells, and tasting tools. He is correct that language is a weapon some people use to keep the beer they drink exclusive. You know if you know, but, sorry, you don’t know.
If you don’t have time for 4,500 words, go directly to what Garrett Oliver says, including, “when you’re speaking to an audience you have to think in terms of, are you bringing them into something, allowing them to see it, smell it, taste it, in their own minds, or are you unintentionally shutting them out?”
Re-reading what Jamie Goode wrote about if anyone still needs wine writers, I realized his story and Dredge’s are both for members of Club Wine or Club Beer, as the case may be. They are in the trade or otherwise invested in wine/beer. Goode wrote, “As Hugh Johnson once said, wine needs words. Wine needs people to communicate about it, because it is a complex area, and also a deeply interesting area. If it’s reduced to just the taste of a liquid in a glass, we are all doomed.”
If you, non-trade member, want to recommend a beer to a friend you don’t need to talk about if it tastes of pitanga, carambola or acerola. You can simply say, “I like it.” Or perhaps hand them a glass.
I’m in Ecuador today — that is, if you are reading this Aug. 22 — and in a few hours will be talking to brewers about biotransformations and thiols. Parting gifts will include a list of hop descriptors compiled by the American Society of Brewing Chemists.
You’ll notice the list of aromas/flavors are ones drinkers will already know from elsewhere. We rely on past experiences to suggest what to expect in new ones.
It would be much easier were we like the Jahai, a tribe of hunter-gatherers in Thailand. Their language has more than a dozen words to describe smells, none of which relate to the smell of any particular object. The word for “edible” is applied to gasoline, smoke, bat droppings, some millipedes and the wood of wild mango trees. But this works for them. When researchers gave a standard test to Jahai, they found that the Jahai tended to be quick and consistent in describing the smell, even though the actual odors used were unfamiliar to them.
It’s one thing to suggest aromas and flavors a compound such as 3-mercaptohexan-1-ol (3MH) may add to a beer, it is another to taste it. Because, as those of you who have read “For the Love of Hops” may remember, we humans sometimes have different genetic barcodes when it comes to aroma perception. So rather than handing out adjectives I’ve brought along a beer that “over expresses” 3MH. I’m looking forward to hearing the descriptors attendees come up with.
You might also enjoy:
– Everybody and their grandad loves Punk IPA.
– “The cool thing about beer is that it’s different colors, different flavors.”