Randy Mosher joins me this week to discuss the relationship between tasting and designing great beers. We talk about mental models, ingredients, taste, smell and how they all play together to create amazing beer.
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Topics in This Week’s Episode (48:16)
- This week Randy Mosher joins me to discuss mental models, ingredients, tasting, and how these factors all play into designing great beers. Randy is the author of the books Mastering Homebrew, Radical Brewing, and Tasting Beer. (Full disclosure: Amazon affiliate links to books) He’s also partner in two breweries near Chicago Five Rabbit and Forbidden Root.
- Randy also has a new book coming out titled Your Tasting Brain and has recently revamped his website at RandyMosher.com
- We start with a discussion of his new book Your Tasting Brain as well as the status of his two breweries, one of which is currently on hold.
- Randy tells us how your ability to design great beers can be limited by your ability to smell, taste and judge beers. We also discuss how some people are more sensitive to certain smells and tastes and how you can improve upon areas of weakness.
- We discuss mental models and how we each have an internal mental model of different beer styles as well as models that apply to each ingredient.
- Randy explains how mental models can be improved and how we can also increase our knowledge of individual ingredients.
- He tells us how you can tell if something is truly missing from a finished beer.
- We talk about cloning commercial beers, and how you can get close to your favorite craft beer at home.
- We discuss intangibles like balance, complexity and depth.
- Randy shares his thoughts on multi-sensory considerations in recipe design and how hundreds of ingredients combine to produce a sensory experience.
- He gives his advice for home brewers on improving their beer design skills.
- Randy finishes with his closing thoughts.
Sponsors
- Thank you to our sponsor Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for sponsoring this episode. I encourage you to subscribe to their great magazine!
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