Did you know that the human tongue has around 10,000 taste buds and that these little sensory organs regenerate every two weeks? Did you also know that as you get older they don’t regrow as well and you can be left with only 5,000 working taste buds. It’s why things taste stronger when you’re younger! Your taste is also affected by your sense of smell, by smoking, drinking alcohol, medication, illness, nerve injury, bad dental hygiene and even vitamin deficiency. It’s actually amazing that we ever agree on how something tastes.

Then, if you look at personal preference, some prefer their food bland, some spicy. Some prefer dessert (ahem) over their main course. So it’s no wonder one person will mark a beer with one star on Untappd whilst another gives it a five!! When we first started brewing and Untappd became a big thing, I used to check it almost daily, worried that Pete from Wigton had given a beer a low mark but celebrating the four stars from Joe from Carlisle. As time has gone on, I’m not quite so paranoid as I appreciate that everyone has different tastes and preferences and I tend to use them more as an indication of whether an outlet is keeping a beer on a bit too long.

There are so many variables to the taste of a beer and I have to say that I’m in awe of the beer recipe creators (including Alain). Starting with the malt base, you’re looking at so many different tastes depending on how long the malt has been roasted for: from caramel to chocolate to coffee. Add to that a range from sweet to bitter and obviously colour, which also plays an important role in how we taste things . Research has shown that our sense of sight can actually overpower our sense of taste. The type and amount of malt can also affect mouthfeel - different to taste but playing an important role in how you view the body of the beer that adds to the overall taste sensation. Added to this is water softness and hardness. Given that beer is predominantly water, it’s vital that a brewer understands the role water plays in the brewing process – it affects the pH of the beer, which in turns affects how the palate ‘tastes’ the beer and the salts in the water can make a beer taste thin or metallic or full and sweet. I’ve read somewhere that water adds the seasoning to the beer! Brewers have been playing around with water for centuries to get the balance right. The type of yeast used also has a massive role to play in taste and I have to say I hadn’t realised there were so many types on offer until we started brewing. But yeast in general can add fruity or dry or crisp or nutty or tart flavours. It’s a little bit of magic.

And then you get onto the part that most people think adds the most flavour to the beer: the hops. But as you can see from the previous paragraph, the hops are only part of the equation. Hops are part of the cannabis family. The green cone shaped flowers of the humulus lupulus plant grow all over the world. They are usually split into two types: bittering and aroma hops. Hops are also magical, helping ward off bacteria during fermentation and curbing the development of off flavours. It’s why IPAs have huge amounts of hops in them to help with shipping beer from the UK to India all those centuries ago.

When coming up with a recipe, a brewer has to look not only at the flavours each hop provides but also how bitter he or she wants the end beer to be. The decision has to be taken whether to add hops at the beginning, middle or end of the brewing process or even straight into the cask in order to get the flavours balanced with the right level of bitterness. The list of hops is endless: our hop supplier provides us with so many options and it’s their descriptions of flavours like tropical fruit, citrus, grassy, earthy, floral or caramel that catches attention and helps make the decision on what to try in a recipe.

Once the beer is brewed, the combination of all these options can provide a marvellous experience or one that needs tweaked or abandoned. I’ll let you in on a secret: we’ve only had one recipe that we said we’d never brew again and guess what, it wasn’t Alain’s recipe, it was the one he let me have a go at. We hadn’t been brewing that long and I was desperate to have a go. Suffice to say I now let him do what’s he’s good at and I stick to the sales and marketing bit.

So I admire anyone who can visualise in their head how they want a beer to taste and then work backwards to create those flavours in reality, making sure they are technically good in order to avoid off-flavours. There are training courses in tasting beers, working out which flavours are in there, trying to overcome personal taste issues so you can identify the ingredients, letting you know what flavours, mouthfeel and bitterness work well together. Those of us of a certain age will remember Jilly Goolden’s elaborate descriptions of wine on the Food & Drink Show and this is certainly something that you hear beer critics continue with (especially if you check RateBeer like you do Untappd).

In terms of beer, I have to say I personally tend to follow the old cliche of “I don’t know about art but I know what I like.” Although, after 9 years of brewing, I maybe know more than I let on (although you can safely say I won’t try creating a recipe again!!).

How much knowledge do you have in terms of flavour and taste. Are you like me building knowledge through copious amounts of research?

Happy taste testing!

Alison