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Author Topic: How to become a better recognizer of flaws  (Read 3976 times)

Offline benamcg

  • Cellarman
  • **
  • Posts: 72
Re: How to become a better recognizer of flaws
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2013, 07:54:34 am »
Us women generally have more sensitive palates than our male counterparts. I read it in a book, so it must be true! ;D

Otherwise, drinking beer and writing down what you think is a great way to get the thought process going. The BJCP has tons of great resources on their website - use them!  :)

As a biologist, I can say that there is a lot of evolutionary evidence for females (of many species) having better senses for smell and taste than males.  My wife's palate is one of my most important brewery guages!

From the number of responses  here and from past posts, it seems that smells affects beer perception greatly, maybe even more so than taste.

Offline mpietropaoli

  • Brewer
  • ****
  • Posts: 258
How to become a better recognizer of flaws
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2013, 02:21:07 pm »
My problem is that I know that I like it or I don't but like you said detecting those little tasting notes and picking out specific flavors is difficult for me.  I wish more BJCP judges would sign up on my site so I could send them my homebrew without having to enter a contest

Ummm, would you take a provisional judge!?  I will be happy to give you notes!  Iam taking my tasting exam in a month, but passed my online entrance. 

I would echo the sentiments of the others, my wife is a bloodhound, but doesn't necessarily pay attention to descriptors. 
Bubblin': helles
Flowin': IIPA, Doppelbock, Flanders
Sittin': More Flanders, Braison,
Thinkin': wit, more helles

Offline jeffy

  • Official Poobah of No Life. (I Got Ban Hammered by Drew)
  • *********
  • Posts: 4222
  • Tampa, Fl
Re: How to become a better recognizer of flaws
« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2013, 02:47:00 pm »
Us women generally have more sensitive palates than our male counterparts. I read it in a book, so it must be true! ;D

Otherwise, drinking beer and writing down what you think is a great way to get the thought process going. The BJCP has tons of great resources on their website - use them!  :)

As a biologist, I can say that there is a lot of evolutionary evidence for females (of many species) having better senses for smell and taste than males.  My wife's palate is one of my most important brewery guages!

From the number of responses  here and from past posts, it seems that smells affects beer perception greatly, maybe even more so than taste.

Without your sense of smell all you'll get is sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. 
During an extended period of the loss of my own sense of smell in the early 90's, I got pretty good at differentiating sweet flavors from each other as well as sour flavors.  For instance I could usually tell the differences between say, fructose, maltose and other sugars, but I couldn't tell the difference between a pineapple and a strawberry in a beer.  They both tasted like fructose to me.  So I learned to look for color and texture differences, too.   
All the actual fruit flavor comes through your nose.  Pumpkin beer tastes like squash beer unless you can smell it.
Jeff Gladish, Tampa (989.3, 175.1 Apparent Rennarian)
Homebrewing since 1990
AHA member since 1991, now a lifetime member
BJCP judge since 1995