Beer Tasting Terms

The art of beer tasting has recently surged in popularity. The craft brew connoisseur enjoys a full vocabulary to describe each intricate flavor and brewing style.

Acetaldehyde - a green apple aroma; a biproduct of fermentation
Alcoholic - a warming effect due to higher alcohol content; or a sharp alcohol taste
Astringent - a drying, puckering aftertaste
Bacterial - a taste likened to mold or must
Bitterness - a sharp taste from the hops
Bouquet - the scent that emanates from a beer
Butterscotch - also called diacetyl or caramel; is a buttery flavor or toffee taste
Cabbage-Like - the aroma or taste of cooked vegetables
Chlorophenolic - a plastic-like smell likened to phenolic but still unique
Clove-Like - similar to the taste of cloves
DMS - also called Dimethylsulfide; a taste and smell likened to creamed corn
Ester - also called estery or fruity; a smell likened to various fruits
Flowery - an aroma likened to flowers
Grainy - flavor likened to grains or cereals
Hoppy - a smell similar to hops
Husky - a smell likened to grass
Light-struck - an aroma of skunk
Malty - a taste that is sweet, smoky or earthy
Metallic - a flavor of tin, bloodlike or coin-like
Mouthfeel - the feeling a beer has in the mouth relating to density and texture
Musty - a flavor of mildew or staleness
Oxidized - also called stale; a taste likened to cardboard, paper, or rotten pineapple
Phenolic - a taste or smell like medicine, plastic, Band- Aids, smoke or cloves
Salty - a taste likened to table salt
Solvent-like - an aroma of nail-polish remover or paint thinner
Sour - also called acidic; lemon or vinegar-like taste
Sweet - a taste likened to sugar
Sulfur-like - also called sulfidic; a taste and aroma likened to rotten eggs
Vinous - a taste and aroma likened to wine
Yeasty - a flavor likened to yeast

Beer Glossary

A

Adjunct - Any fermentable ingredient used in the making of beer, other than traditional grains. This can include, but is not limited to, rice, corn, brewing sugar, unmalted wheat and unmalted barley.

Ale - A beer brewed with top fermenting yeast.

Alpha Acid - Hop flower resin that adds bitterness to beer.

Alpha Acid Units - AAU; a bitterness measurement system that specifies the amount of alpha acids present in hops.

Astringent - A dry, tannic or puckering taste.

B

Barley - A malted grain used to make beer.

Beer - A malt beverage produced by the fermentation of cereal grains and flavored with hops. Origination: Latin, from the word “bibre,” meaning to drink.

Bitterness - A sharp taste derived from the addition of hops. The degree of bitterness is measured in International Bitterness Units (IBU).

Body - A term used to describe the thickness of the beer (e.g., full or thin bodied).

Brew - The process of making beer. This process includes: mashing, lautering, boiling and fermentation.

Brewer - One who makes beer.

Brewpub - A small brewery that also sells food and typically sells the majority of its beer on the premises.

C

Carbonation - The result of carbon dioxide dissolved in beer, created either through fermentation or manually injected.

Cereal - A generic term used to describe small seeded grains from the grass family (e.g., barley).

Clarification - A process to remove unwanted haze and yeast.

Conditioning - A process where the beer is allowed to mature, in bottles or kegs, to allow for natural carbonation.

D

Diacetyl - A chemical compound produced during fermentation that imposes a buttery or butterscotch aroma.

Dimethyl Sulfide - A chemical compound produced during malting that resembles a corn or cabbage aroma.

Draft, Draught - The act of dispensing beer from a tank, cask or keg.

Dry-hopping - The act of adding dry hops to aging or fermenting beer to achieve an increased hop character.

E

EBC - European Brewing Convention (standard used to indicate colors of beer).

Ester - Organic compounds produced during fermentation that resemble fruity or flowery aromas.

F

Fermentation - The process, in brewing, when yeast converts the sugars to ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Filtration - The process of removing impurities in beer (e.g., suspended yeast).

Final Gravity - the specific gravity of beer after fermentation has completed.

Fining - A substance that aids in the clarification of beer.

G

GABF - Great American Beer Festival, is one of the world’s largest and most prestigious tasting competitions. Over 100 professional beer judges from the United States and abroad evaluate over 2,300 beers entered by more than 450 domestic breweries. Gold, silver and bronze medals in 69 beer-style categories are awarded.

Grist - Milled grains utilized in brewing (see Mash).

Growler - A half-gallon glass jug used to take fresh beer home from a brewery.

H

Haze - A term used to describe a beer with a cloudy appearance (e.g., wheat beer).

Head - Term used to describe the foam on top of beer.

Hops - A natural herb added during the brewing or aging process to create a bitter taste and aroma; also used as a natural preservative.

I

IBU - International Bitterness Units; a measure of the hop bitterness in a finished beer.

L

Lager - Beer produced at colder temperatures with bottom fermenting yeast.

Lagering - To store beer at cold temperatures for aging; from the German word “lagern” meaning “to store” or “storehouse.”

Lauter - A process where the resulting mash liquid or wort are removed from the spent grains; from the German word “to clarify” (see Wort).

Light-Struck Flavor - A skunk-like aroma typically caused by exposure to light.

Liquor - Brewer’s term for water used in brewing.

Lovibond - A scale used to measure the darkness in malts.

M

Malt(-ing) - Grain that is steeped, germinated and kilned to convert the insoluble starches in barley to water-soluble sugars.

Mash - The process of soaking the malted grain (see Malt) in water in order to break down the carbohydrates into simple sugars; this is also the term used for the final product of this process.

Metallic Flavor - When a beer has a tin or coin-like taste; may be a result of bottle caps, or minerals in the water.

Microbrewery - A brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels of beer per year.

O

Original Gravity - The specific gravity of wort prior to fermentation.

Oxidized Flavor - Characterized by a stale flavor usually caused by exposure to oxygen or high temperatures during aging.

P

Phenolic Flavor - Describes medicinal flavors in beer usually caused by bacteria, tannins or sanitizing residue.

Pitch - The process of adding yeast to wort.

Purity Law - see Reinheitsgebot.

R

Reinheitsgebot - The “Purity Law” that was initiated in Bavaria in 1516, that requires that beer contain only malted grains, hops, yeast and water.

Real Ale - A beer that has not been pasteurized or filtered and is served from its secondary fermentation vessel. A real ale is not given additional carbonation, but served with carbonation produced from fermentation.

S

Skunky - When a beer has a smell likened to a skunk (see also Light-struck).

Sour Flavor - A taste likened to vinegar or lemon; usually caused by bacterial infection.

Sparging - The act of rinsing spent grains to ensure complete extraction of the sugars from the mash.

Specific Gravity - Density of a solution compared to water.

Spontaneous Fermentation - A fermentation process that uses wild yeast strains.

SRM - Standard Reference Method; method used by brewers to measure the color intensity of beer.

Sulfur-like Flavor - When a beer has an aroma likened to rotten eggs; produced by certain yeasts.

W

Wort - The solution of grain sugar that has been collected from the mash (see Mash).

Y

Yeast - A micro-organism that is in the fungus family; used in the brewing process to convert sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Yeasty Flavor - Beer having a yeast-like flavor; usually a result of beer aging too long on yeast sediment.

Z

Zymurgy - The branch of chemistry that deals with the fermentation process, as in brewing