March 5, 2008
The Impact Of Brewing On My Palate
Being a homebrewer is a great hobby. As I often point out, what other hobby allows you to sit around with your friends, drink beer, smoke cigars, and end up with more beer at the end of the day than you started? In addition to the end product, though, it is a very satisfying creative process.
But I’ve noticed that as I understand more about beer, it helps me to improve my own personal taste palate. I find myself able to recognize and determine the cause of flaws and imperfections in a beer that I may never have even tasted a few years ago. I am better able to analyze a beer and understand what ingredients were used to create it, and when I am attempting to clone a beer, I am able to both get close to their taste and then understand with the final beer why I missed the target.
For example, my amber ale was brewed with the intent of being loosely based on Fat Tire. Thus, I intentionally put a heavy “biscuit” character into the recipe. After having brewed it and tasted it, though, I’ve realized two things. First, that I don’t like that much biscuit character in an amber. Second, that while I got the “biscuit” character of Fat Tire covered, I created a beer with less body, which then over-emphasized the biscuit and hop characteristics of the beer. I’ve decided from what I’ve learned to completely re-tool the recipe if I want to keep this beer as an amber, or modify the recipe if I want to tend more towards a brown ale.
As a second example, I created a beer loosely based upon the Left Hand Milk Stout. I enjoy the original beer, and wanted to create something similar but still mine. Based on what I’ve learned from a side-by-side tasting, though, the Left Hand version seemed to be both more roasty and more sweet than mine. I deduced that this was due to two reasons. First, I deliberately tried to keep the roast character in check, as it was only my second attempt at a stout and I didn’t want to overdo it. Second, I used a more attenuative yeast than I probably needed, and dried the beer out more than intended. My re-mix of the recipe to be brewed next weekend will include heavier roast character, heavier use of chocolate malt, but at the same time use slightly more sweet ingredients and a less-attenuative yeast. So the roast character should be increased, the sweetness should be increased, and I’ll have a corresponding increase in bitterness to keep that sweetness in check. I think the beer will be both more flavorful and more balanced.
All this coincides with improvements in my brewing process, which are helping to ensure that I’m trying to pick out small flaws in a beer, instead of having glaring flaws which mask the subtleties. And as such, I’m even more able to understand the complexities of a beer because they’re not drowned out by things I’ve screwed up.
All this is making me a better brewer, as well as making me a better drinker. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to put all this to use at South Swell Brewing Company 
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Great insights. I’ve found the same about my palate. It used to be pretty much terrible. Now it’s less so. An example: I was tasting a beer with Jeff and Peter, both who were gifted with exceptional palates. I made the comment, “it seems like it was brewed with a shitload of low alpha acid hops.” Which, when you thought about it, kind of made sense. And they agreed, so it’s totally not just me. I’ve also noticed that I can pick up on flavors in foods a little more readily.