Beer Tasting Standards

If you look in the back of Michael Jackson's Great Beer Guide (URL:

there is a glossary of commonly used "aroma metaphors" used in beer tasting and what they indicate, eg grapefruit for certain hop varieties, and pepper for alcohol.

I don't know of any more formal codification system for beer tasting.

d.

Here's link to the Beer Judging Certification Program, which provides a synopsis and examples of each style:

Have a look at this link

It systematically details 100 different categories of flavour....I'm not sure that my taste buds can distinguish anything like that number of different flavours!!

Cheers johnnysaint

We once had an evening aimed at educating our beer taste buds. It used a a kit that someone brought along which had little test tubes which contained the various flavours contained in beer but in pure and concentrated forms.

Then having sniffed all these little phials, we then tasted several beers and tried to say which flavours and smells were contained in each beer.

I can't honestly say my ability at describing or indentifying the different flavours in beer was improved at all, but it was an enjoyable night!