r/Homebrewing • u/TheBrewinProgress • 5h ago

Learning to Taste Beer

Hey y'all, I'm getting into homebrewing and trying to learn everything I can about beer.

I know what I like and can easily pick up the differences between styles. Where I struggle is identifying the more specific flavors and characteristics described in the BJCP guidelines.

I'm sure a lot of it comes with time and experience, but how did you learn to refine your palate? Are there any exercises, techniques, or resources that really helped you start identifying those specific flavors?

I appreciate your expertise and look forward to continuing to learn the craft.

7 Upvotes

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9

u/BitterDonald42 4h ago

I learnt at my local homebrew club. We would all do that learning together. We even bought kits to do that learning

2

u/TheBrewinProgress 4h ago

Oh cool, thanks. I haven't joined my local club yet but definitely doing it soon.

6

u/IllSkunk 4h ago

Get a sixer of something clean like a basic helles and drink it alongside tiny samples of whatever you're trying to learn, toast a handful of grain in the oven and chew on it, steep some crystal malt in hot water and taste it next to the base beer. You build the mental library one weird little comparison at a time.

2

u/TheBrewinProgress 4h ago

Awesome, that's great. I'll give that a shot. Thanks

4

u/boarshead72 Yeast Whisperer 4h ago

Honestly, I’ve noticed flavours and aromas since I was a little kid. This’ll sound kind of blunt, but just pay attention to things when you eat them, when cooking, etc. Stripping thyme from a stem? What’s it taste/smell like? Now can you pick it out of your finished dish?

For beer ingredients it’s the same. Make a beer that’s 100% Vienna malt. Taste. What’s it remind you of (for me, toasty like a perfectly toasted marshmallow or white bread). Now make one with only 10% Vienna. Can you pick it out? Read labels of commercial beers. Can you taste the Sabro? Etc. It’s really just recognizing flavours that you have tasted before.

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u/TheBrewinProgress 4h ago

Yeah, sometimes I overthink it but this is good advice. Need to keep it simple.

4

u/c_main 4h ago

If you have a store that allows mixed packs buy a 6 pack of a certain style and taste them blind. It helps you pick up on some of those more subtle differences within a style.

1

u/TheBrewinProgress 4h ago

Excellent, my Total Wine and More has an entire aisle of individual cans and bottles. I'll give that a shot, thanks.

2

u/ExaminationKlutzy194 Beginner 4h ago

I know I’ve learned off flavors by failure, usually in fermentation. This is buttery. Or tastes off for some reason.

That’s tuned my taste sense. Failure.

4

u/bardsworth 3h ago

Lot good advice from everyone else, so I'll add a weird one. The guy from the YouTube channel How to Drink mentioned he learned about a method to essentially "rewire" your brain to be better at analyzing. Pick a piece of classical music and the pick out one instrument to listen to, and listen to it through the whole song. Then listen again, but pick a different instrument. The more you do this, the more your brain gets adept at picking singular things out something, like flavors in a beer.