How to... taste beer

Professional beer tasting might be the best job in the world, but it’s also one of your most important responsibilities, there are some pieces of advice that need a lot of hammering home to persuade people that a little chore is worth doing. Then there are some that probably don’t.

The advice that you should taste your beer every morning before opening undoubtedly falls into the second camp.

You should taste your beer before opening to ensure it is up to scratch. This quality control check will avoid people being put off by a dodgy pint and make it more likely that they will come back to your pub. It is especially important with cask beer – as a live product, it continues to evolve and change in nature in its container.

“They need to be, because quality control is so important.”

Next, you should swirl the beer in the glass, and then take a good sniff to check the aroma. The gap left in the glass allows the aromas of the beer to circulate, something that is a big determining factor in taste.

Finally comes the drinking. Take a sip of the beer at first, and then take a bigger slurp over the entire tongue to really assess the taste. Make yourself aware of which parts of the tongue receive different elements of flavour by checking the diagram (right). For most beers, the really important part is found at the back of the tongue, where the bitterness receptors are.

This does not necessarily mean you have to swallow the beer. Even once it reaches this point of the mouth, you can train yourself to spit it out as you would wine in a wine tasting.

If your beer tastes sour or vinegary, this means it is almost certainly off, something that is generally caused by the beer having been on too long.
If your tasting detects either of these problems (and it is much better that you do so, rather than having your customers do it for you!), stop selling it immediately, then determine the cause of the issue.

“It is important to me to taste a sample of the beers every morning, as imperfect taste is the least obvious at the point of dispense and we pride ourselves on delivering the perfect pint every time.”