Beer For Dummies by Marty Nachel

Author:Marty Nachel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2011-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

Many facets of a beer become more obvious in the aftertaste in a sort of harmonic convergence (of course, the beer’s faults, if any, are also magnified there). Certain beer styles are designed to accentuate malt over hops and vice versa, but no one ingredient should be allowed to completely dominate the other. No room for a bully here.

Touch: Mouthfeel and Body

The tactile aspects of beer evaluation are mouthfeel and body. You can literally feel the beer in your mouth and describe it in familiar physical terms (such as thick and thin). I describe these aspects further in the following list:

Mouthfeel: This aspect is the sensory experience of the whole inside of the mouth and throat. You don’t taste cold; you feel it. Finely carbonated beers (with their small bubbles) tend to have a creamy mouthfeel. So a continental lager beer may be effervescent, while a Stout is soft and chewy, but none of these descriptions has anything to do with how the beer tastes. Mouthfeel is how the beer feels (to you — this isn’t about the beer’s self-esteem).

Body: In beer competitions, judges use the term body to refer to the weight or thickness of a beer. A light beer is described as light-bodied, an India Pale Ale is considered medium-bodied, and a Doppelbock is full-bodied. Higher carbonation levels help clear the palate and create the impression of a lighter-bodied beer.

Gravity and Plato: Weighty, nonphilosophical issues

Some fairly technical terms, gravity (as in original gravity and final or terminal gravity) and attenuation, find their way into beer enthusiasts’ evaluations and written reviews, but these terms aren’t directly related to taste. These more technical terms are brewers’ measurements of fermentation and aren’t an indication of quality, even though some labels or ads may boast about a beer’s gravity.

What does gravity mean to the beer drinker? A beer’s gravity is used to calculate its volume of alcohol. The specific gravity scale is based on water at 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius). Some brewers prefer to note gravity on the Balling scale, measured in degrees Plato, which indicates the same information as the specific gravity scale, just on a different scale.

Higher original gravities of beer — about 1.060 to 1.100 — usually mean stronger and creamier beers (often called big beers). Above 1.090 is rare indeed. Lower original gravities — about 1.032 to 1.044 — mean lower alcohol contents and thinner, lighter-bodied beers. The vast majority of beers fall in the middle ground — about 1.044 to 1.060 or 11.5 to 15 degrees Plato.

More details on this kind of stuff are tucked safely in the chapter on homebrewing (Chapter 18).

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