Who Nose? You Nose! Sensory Magic in a Box
Discover skills and techniques for how to objectively communicate flavor perception in judging and/or how to be a better brewer.
Sensory Detectives
Become a detective of your own senses with Seattle Beer School. As sensory detectives, we follow the clues of memories to get to the bottom of what we’re actually experiencing: aroma as the key clue to recreating the scene. Our investigative techniques will help you unlock & expand…
Using Common Sensory: Organizing Beer Sensory Experiences to Improve Your Palate
Performing sensory analysis can seem intimidating to many people who would like to improve their palates but aren’t sure where or how to start. Learning more about beer ingredients while expanding your beer vocabulary and tasting ability is not only fun but also approachable. It can even be…
Oxidation Effects in Beer
There are hundreds of compounds in beer that change as it oxidizes. Simple sensory descriptions of oxidation often focus on a limited set of effects, particularly those common to pale lagers. However, oxidation effects over time are much wider in the full range of beer styles. Grandmaster beer judge Gordon…
The Deductive Beer Tasting Method: A Method to the Sensory Madness
Learn more from tasting the beer you brew! Join Rich Higgins, Master Cicerone and former brewmaster, to learn a method that lets you “look under the hood” and understand every beer you taste. Rich’s Deductive Beer Tasting Method builds upon the framework of aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression…
All About That Base: Learning More About Malt Through Sensory Analysis
Brewers will learn the basics of sensory analysis, including a brief overview of the hot-steep method, and an overview of malt and the malting process. The presentation highlight will be a guided 30-minute malt sensory tasting session incorporating craft malt from around the United States, wherein participants will have the…
Beer and Food Pairing Principles
Join Jay DeLong to examine the versatility of beer as it pairs with food. This talk discusses the primary beer-pairing factors as well as some general pairing guidelines. Primary emphasis will be on finding balance in both the beer and the food and how they can enhance each other. Pairing…
Flavor Creation in the Malt House and its Impact on the Beer Styles of our Past, Present and Future
Many beer styles are defined by the characteristic flavors found in specialty malts, but how does a maltster develop these flavors? Let’s follow grain on a journey through the malt houses of yesterday and today to understand the importance of flavor creation and its impact on the beer styles of…
The Art of Mead Tasting and Food Pairing
Mead is an incredibly diverse beverage category with the potential to create sublime food pairings. This talk introduces mead styles, discusses food-pairing strategies, and offers tips on how to develop meads specifically to pair with meals at home.
Evaluate Your Beer Like a Master Judge
Learn practical methods for assessing the aroma and flavor of your homebrew, exercises for developing your palate, and the techniques beer judges use to assess beer in amateur and professional competitions. Lean the structured tasting process, how to read and apply style guidelines, and how to evaluate beer for technical…
Pairing Beer: How Does Your Palate Approach, Taste, and Pair Beer?
Taking a sip of beer might seem as common as a blue sky, but what is the first thing you think about when you taste it? In this seminar, we will dive into the two main palate approaches to tasting beer, discover how each defines a pairing, and learn how…
Blind Tasting: Sensory Development for the Homebrewer
Removing preconceived bias from sensory evaluation will make for a more powerful learning/tasting experience. We will focus on sensory description along with the triangle test and how it can be used by the discriminating homebrewer.
Food & Beer Pairing
Take pairing your home-brew to the next level. This seminar will cover the how and the why food interacts with beer and what ingredients can best do both in the beer and the food to the pairing. From pairing your own homebrew for a dinner at home to dining out…
Not Just for Judges: How to Train Judges, Brewers and Tasting Gurus at the Same Time
We will demonstrate how the sensory analysis and technical knowledge obtained through judge training can also be beneficial for brewers and craft beer fans. We’ll review over proven techniques and show how they can be used in large and small group sessions. Taste malt teas, hop teas, malt varieties while…
Sensory Evaluation of Specialty Malts: A Practical Approach to Describing Malt Flavors
When it comes to choosing the best specialty malt for your brewing recipe, flavor contribution is one of the most important factors to consider. Whether you are looking to improve consistency or enhance creativity, sensory analysis of malt ingredients is a practice that will serve you well. This presentation will…
Sources of Beer Flavor and the Importance of Sensory Training in Producing Great Beer
Sensory evaluation is an important tool for the homebrewer, as access to expensive lab equipment or testing is not typically possible. Sensory training is a powerful, inexpensive way of producing high quality beer at home. Understanding the source of beer flavor allows the homebrewer to the most powerful tool at…
Tasting Beyond the Scoresheet
Beyond drinking beer and beyond judging beer lies tasting beer. Truly tasting and evaluating beer is an exploration into the soul of a beer and the mind of the brewer. The best beers take you to a time and place and let you get to know the brewer and culture…
What a Proper Pairing Can Do for Your Beer
Tasting a beer when pairing to food is different than tasting to evaluate beer style. This seminar will cover how food interacts with beer and how to approach tasting beer when pairing to food. From pairing your own homebrew for a dinner at home to dining out on the town…
Evaluating and Judging Beer
Jamie will begin this seminar by teaching the sensory technique for evaluation that is used in sensory labs as well as for judging. He will then discuss sensory evaluation in the commercial brewery and at home, and finish with a discussion of judging homebrew competitions. If you have ever wanted…
Sensory Evaluation: Methods to Improve Your Palate and Vocabulary
All brewers use sensory evaluation as at least the primary, if not only, method to analyze their beer and determine how to improve it the next time they brew. For many, the palate sensitivity and/or vocabulary to evaluate and describe a beer is the limiting factor in determining how to…
Stepping Up Your Sensory Game: How to Be a Better Taster
The necessity of being able to accurately describe your beer, whether you’re a judge or simply an aficionado, cannot be overstated. As the community continues to grow exponentially, homebrewing competitions are popping up around the globe, requiring more and more qualified judges. We will discuss topics including the identification of…
The Science of Beer Flavor
Join West Chester University Chemistry professor Dr. Roger Barth as he discusses the science behind what you taste when having your favorite brew. In this presentation, Roger breaks down what the anatomy of flavor really is, from taste and aroma to the mouthfeel and flavor threshold of your beer. Go…
Beer Tasting
In this seminar, Ted will explore the nuances of tasting beer, the wide range of perceivable flavors, how to taste and ways to improve your tasting ability.
Focus on Flavor
We enjoy fermented products because of the amazing depth of flavors they present, including many compounds that we can detect at parts per billion and less! Many homebrewers and BJCP judges reach a plateau in their ability to describe beer, relying on borrowed phrases and expectations rather than their own…
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