Educated Tasting in CyBeerSpace
Mark Tumarkin
This month I am going to start our tour by pointing you to one of
my favorite addresses in CyBeerSpace. That site is Dave
Brockington's Tasting Notebook. Dave is a grad student at the
University of Washington and in his spare time he drinks a lot of
beer. So far nothing special; I mean, we all do that, right? Yes, but
he really tastes those beers in a discriminating manner, and takes the
time to write some of the best beer reviews I have ever
found. Furthermore, he then posts those reviews on a terrific website
(located on the Real Beer Page server--
Since next month's tasting style is Porter, be sure to check out
the review of the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. That will give you an idea
of what kind of writing Dave is doing. And also because I agree with
him that Edmund Fitzgerald is an incredible brew. Reading these
knowledgeable beer reviews will help us all to improve our own beer
judging skills--
Also on The Brewery site are some other documents that are worth looking at for information on critical evaluation of beer:
An Introduction to Beer Tasting, Judging and Evaluating
Mark Stevens
http://www.brewery.org/brewery/library/Tintro.html
Professional Beer Tasting
Edmund Osterlund
http://www.brewery.org/brewery/library/PrJudgeTr.html
Another interesting site to check out is Tastings: The Journal of the Beverage Testing Institute. You can find this at http://www.tastings.com/beer/beer_home.html Also check out an article in Brewing Techniques, Use Your Common Senses by Jean-Xavier Guinard http://byo.com/Back/evaluate.html
One of the leading beer writers and historians is Fred Eckhardt. Take a look at his notes on a vertical tasting (same beer, different years) of Adambier from Hair of the Dog Brewery in Portland. http://www.southerndraft.com/sodraft/9610/Eckhardt.html As long as were on the topic of beer writers, we can't forget Michael Jackson (no, not the gloved one, I'd hope you know me better than that!). Point your browser at http://www.beerhunter.com/tastingnotes.html and you'll find a wide variety of his reviews of many of the world's leading taste treats. And check out Gak's Beer is My Life. Gak (Richard Stueven) is short on detail, but big on enthusiasm. And yes, he did taste every one of the 3285 beers listed here http://beerismylife.com/beerlist.htm
By now you're probably thinking, "Hey, this is fun, and I know I could do this better than these guys." Well, you're right, it is a lot of fun, and you can do it. So check out the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) home page at http://www.mv.com/ipusers/slack/bjcp/ The BJCP is a volunteer organization that exists to promote beer knowledge and appreciation, and mainly to provide a corps of competent, educated judges for AHA and BJCP sanctioned competitions. We have been doing a BJCP study group, led by Ed Wolfe, and are almost ready to take the exam. And the more trained judges we have in the club, the better. So after surfing these sites and trying some evaluation on your own, you should be psyched and ready for our next class.