Hi again and happy Friday!
This is the second half of the "Sensory Training" tasting notes, first half is here. We actually did this a year ago and I wrote up these notes for the club blog.
There were some great comments in that previous diary from Permanent Republican Minority, who appears to be a trained beer judge.
References for these off flavors are Beer Faults and SensoryTraining Slides.
When I went there today to look at these references I saw that this 24-sample kit is no longer available, now there's only a 12-sample kit. At the same price.
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Setup: The kit is intended to produce each flavor at about 3x the typical threshold of detection when added to 1 liter of beer. This threshold is going to vary from person to person, and I think for most of us there were some that we didn't pick up at all. The flavors were added to Coors Light since it has so little flavor of its own to get in the way of detecting the test flavor.
Our first tasting session was so much fun that barely half as many people showed up for round 2. Since there were fewer people, and since in the first round most of us found at least some of the samples imperceptible, we mixed the flavor sample with only two cans of Coors, and the bad flavors just jumped out this time. Maybe not a good thing.
the second half of the kit, in the order we tasted them. The first part is the official description, then my personal comments:
13. Geraniol: Floral/Rose like -- an unpleasant fruitiness. Despite the similar name this chemical is only a minor part of the scent of geraniums.
14. Indole: Farm/barnyard -- "barnyard" is the polite language. In plain Anglo-Saxon, it smells like shit. Yes, literally. According to the slide only 50% of people perceive the "fecal" aroma, I'm one of that half. One whiff and I didn't even consider tasting it.
15. Isoamyl acetate: Banana esters / peardrop -- as with the apple and spice flavors last time, wrong for a lager but not unpleasant
16. Grainy: Husk like / Nut like -- husk with some tannin extraction, noticed astringency on the back of the tongue.
17. Isovaleric: Cheesy / old hops / sweaty socks -- another seriously nasty one. As the pitcher was passed toward me the first few tasters were already complaining. Cheesy as in spoiled cheese that you should have thrown out a long time ago.
18. Lactic: Sour / Sour milk -- sour milk, nothing else to say.
19. Caprylic: Soapy, fatty, goaty -- yecch. I got pretty much the sour milk flavor again.
20. Papery: Cardboard, oxidized -- exactly; wet cardboard.
21. Vanilla: Custard powder -- familiar vanilla flavor
22. Bitter: Hoppy / Bitter -- bitterness past hoppy and into puckery and astringent.
23. Infection: Sour / buttery -- the sample must be fake butter flavor, it smelled EXACTLY like microwave popcorn.
24. Hefeweizen: Spicey + buttery esters -- the sample is specifically CLOVE, strong and unmistakable. Too strong to be pleasant although I like Bavarian banana/clove hefeweizens.
Near the end of this group the MC sent around some untainted Coors Light to fool the participants -- I said out loud that there was an aftertaste I didn't like, and I'll stand by that.
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I've got Sam Adams "Rebel" IPA. It was on special this week, not bad. What are you drinking? Who's brewing?