8 replies to this topic

[SchwanzBrewer]

I want to learn more about hop/malt aroma, bitterness, and stuff and I figured maybe somewhere there was a kit you could buy that had different scents you could use to isolate aromas or flavors in your beer and train your nose/pallet.Cheers,Rich

[RommelMagic]

There is this AHA Off flavor kit. I do not know of others though.

[SchwanzBrewer]

That's a start. I have heard of kits like this for wine, but not for beer.Cheers,Rich

[lowendfrequency]

Good question. I've taken a few classes for both wine critiquing as well as descriptive wine writing and have found the scent kits to be a VERY valuable tool. Something similar for beer would be great. Not just off flavors, but general descriptive scents. I'd love to see someones face when they smell the Belgian kit for "wet horse blanket" lol

[strangebrewer]

Good question. I've taken a few classes for both wine critiquing as well as descriptive wine writing and have found the scent kits to be a VERY valuable tool. Something similar for beer would be great. Not just off flavors, but general descriptive scents. I'd love to see someones face when they smell the Belgian kit for "wet horse blanket" lol

I'm sure ScottS can hook you up with a sweaty goat so you can nail down that aroma too.

[chuck_d]

Siebel has a sensory training kit, contains 2 dozen flavors.https://www.siebelinstitute.com/sensory_kit/I think the worst smell was isovaleric. I think it's definitely worth picking up and throwing a few sensory parties. You can't go through the whole kit in one sitting, with that many flavors you should break it up into 3 or 4 sessions on different days. I miss being in school and having other trained drinkers to compare notes with in a bar. So I want to train my friends

[chuck_d]

BTW, if you have pipettes you can just open up your bottles, dose the beer and recap the beer. That way you can mix up your samples ahead of time. We used Budweiser. Remember to have enough of the beer available so that you can keep returning to baseline by sipping the reference beer.

[tag]

And it's free if you have a BJCP exam scheduled: https://www.bjcp.org/cep/kits.php

[MolBasser]

There is another kit you can get called FlavorActiv.They aren't cheap.MolBasser