Smell first, then take a BIG sip

As soon as you get a beer within reach, smell!

When tasting beer, there are a lot of “rules” to follow. Obviously, you don’t need to blindly obey, but bragging about these unwritten rules can make you seem like a proper sommelier, or at least gives the impression you are a proper snob. All good.

Common knowledge is that you look first, then you smell and only after that you take a sip. A small sip, as that should be enough. Contrary to our wine loving friends, we swallow as spitting is wasteful (and the taste receptors at the back of our tongue are in fact very relevant for beer).

I may be called rebellious here, but I’d deviate from these rules on two fronts. First and foremost: smell first! Them lovely aromas evaporate like crazy! I will allow you to look at the beer as it is served. Indeed, the foam has a tendency to collapse rather quickly too, so getting a good look at that while the glass is on its way to your willing hands is smart, but you really want to sample those aromas as soon as you can.

Those who don’t like such anarchistic behavior might tell you that you can easily refresh the aromas, by swirling your glass a bit. Again, our winey friends do this all the time, so it probably looks plenty classy, but they do have a significantly different drink. Beer has carbondioxide. Those precious little bubbles are of crucial importance in both flavor and mouthfeel, so we want to keep them around, if we can. Bubbles that rise grow on the way and burst when they reach the surface. This does bring out the aromas, but also removes much of the gas from the liquid. To everybody who feels like this is nitpicking: pour a Duvel, taste it, then swing your glass for a minute, smash out all that fizz and taste it again. If you haven’t done this before, you will be blown away by the difference. Promised.

Then, take all the time you need to look. The looks of the beer, except for the froth, won’t change a whole lot over time, upon warming up, or by reacting with molecules in the air, like flavor and smell do. If you’r planning to take more than a minute for just looking at the beer, you might even just take that sip first.

Second deviation. I don’t take small sips. I take rather large sips. I swallow about half of it almost immediately, to be left over with a small sip’s volume in my mouth, but I also properly wet my throat and the taste receptors back there. Much of the aroma we experience comes from the nose, even when we take the sip. The aroma comes back from the rear entrance of our nose, which is in the throat. We call this “retronasal”. A reason for the small sip is that getting the volatile aromas out of the liquid is sped up by heat. Warming up a small amount of liquid is easier than a larger amount, so a small sip will release its aromas more efficiently. Why taking a large sip and swallow half instantly? I don’t really know, but in my experience it is easier to fully sense the flavor profile this way. This may be personal, though.

Glassware is important in this discussion too. I’ll save that topic for later, but in short: a glass that tapers is best, and don’t fill it up. Glasses like those below are great for sampling! They are called AnDer and Teku. Ask at your local beer shop for options!

I’d be curious to hear about your tasting habits! Let me know down below!