This week I take a look at using sensory kits to enhance your ability to judge beers. These kits, while somewhat expensive, can be a great way for small groups and clubs to help people understand off flavors in beer.
Why Every Brewer Should Judge Beers
I’ve written extensively over the years and hosted podcasts on why the ability to judge beers is a critical skill for any brewer. Basically if you can’t accurately judge both the off flavors and imbalances in your beer, it becomes impossible to correct and improve a recipe. Specifically you need to be able to isolate the 17 or so major off flavors which I’ve detailed here. In addition to off flavors, there are also imbalances in beer such as improper malt-hop balance, clarity, color, etc… all of which factor into brewing the best beer you properly can.
Because judging is such a critical skill, I urge all brewers to work on the skill whenever you sample a new beer, whether commercial or home brewed and compare notes with fellow brewers and judges so you can build a solid understanding of off flavors and imbalances. Formally participating in judging and becoming a beer judge under the BJCP beer judge program is another great way to develop this skill.
Sensory Kits To Aid Judges
Beer sensory kits are basically small vials of flavoring you can add to a neutral beer that accentuate particular off flavors. The BJCP, Siebel Institute and other organizations use them in training people to find key off flavors. I’ve used them for years with classes as part of my Designing Beer seminars at the BYO Boot Camps. I typically present an hour on off-flavors and then give the class a half dozen or more unlabeled samples of beer tainted with these off flavors, and then challenge the students to match each one from a list of flavors on the screen. It is rare, but we have had some students score 100% on the exercise.
The only downside with sensory kits is their expense. Typically a kit sells for $75-200 and is single use, so they really don’t make sense for an individual brewer. They are great for small groups, homebrew clubs and classes. With a liter of each off flavor beer you can easily handle a group of 15-20 people.
Sensory kits are easy to use. Purchase commercial beer with a very neutral profile like Bud or Michelob light and mix each of the sensory vials with a liter of beer. Then pour the mix out into sample cups for the group to taste.
The Siebel institute is the major producer of beer sensory kits, and they offer a variety of different kits including a basic kit, sour sensory kit, specialty sensory kit, and craft sensory kit. Their Comprehensive kit is the most complete covering some 25 off flavors with separate vials, each making 1 liter each. This would probably be the best kit to purchase for an in-depth tasting exercise, though I would still divide the tasting into rounds of 5 or 6 flavors each as it is too difficult for new judges to try to distinguish between 25 separate samples at once. My second choice would be the Craft kit which covers 12 common flavors including the majority of the major off flavors.
The basic kit covers 6 major off flavors: Acetaldeyde, Sour/buttery, DMS, Diacetyl, Isoamyl Acetate and Papery and is a good starting point for small groups. The sour kit covers off flavors common for sour beers including: Acetic Acid, Butry acid (baby vomit), Diacetyl, Lactic Acid, Barnyard and Cadaverine. Each of these kits has multiple vials of each flavor, each making 1 liter. Siebel offers other kits as well and you can see the full listing on their website. Siebel institute kits are also available through third party sellers like Morebeer.
The BJCP also offers a kit for beer judging though the kit is made by Siebel. it covers all of the common off flavors and can often be purchased though the BJCP at a reduced price versus some of the other kits.
A British company called FlavorActiv also has sensory kits. Their Professional Beer Sensory Starter Kit covers 20 different flavor standards, and is comparable to the Siebel specialty kit overall. I also found a UK company Aroxa that offers a Beer Uno kit covering 10 different beer off-flavors.
No matter which kit you choose, pick a very neutral flavored beer to use as a base and mix the kits per the instructions, typically with 1 liter of beer per sample. A one liter sample should provide enough beer for 20 people. I recommend organizing the tasting into groups of 5-6 off flavors each and listing the off flavors on the screen. Then label the samples with letters or numbers and allow each person to independently match the number or letter against the off flavor they are tasting.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s article on flavor sensory kits for beer. Thanks for joining me on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog. If you want to take the guesswork out of brewing, please try my BeerSmith recipe software from BeerSmith.com. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter or my podcast (also on itune and youtube) for more great tips on homebrewing.
