Hard ones!

Tasting session 28

Beer 1 Choices: Irish Stout, English Porter, English Brown Ale, Oatmeal Stout

Beer 2 Choices: American Lager, Munich Helles, Cream Ale, Kölsch

Beer 3 Choices: Belgian Blond Ale, Saison, American Pale Ale, Weizenbock

Score: 1/3

Beer 1 things to look for:

Irish Stout: roast, lighter body, light esters?

English Porter: esters, roast

English Brown Ale: esters, toasty, no roast

Oatmeal Stout: esters, heavy roast

Notes:

This one was hard! I detected a lot of fruity ester character (dates/currants/figs), so felt comfortable eliminating Irish Stout which usually shows little to no ester character. There was also for sure some roasty flavors going on, so I got rid of English Brown, which is toasty/toffee forward, but never roasty/burnt. English Porter vs Oatmeal Stout was difficult, especially since the clues I gave myself were identical (clearly a weak spot for me). A big differentiator is the inclusion of oats, but I wasn’t picking up on a particularly creamy or soft mouthfeel that oats would contribute. Judging mouthfeel in these blind tasting settings can be difficult since I’m not comparing beers side-by-side. If I was trying a beer with oats next to one without, it’d be much easier to differentiate. 

Due to the heavy roast, I went with Oatmeal Stout since they usually are more heavy on the roast. This was incorrect; it was an English Porter. I decided to open Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout to do a side-by-side comparison in hopes of picking out some differences. Both had similar expressive ester character along with a subtle but present roast. I suppose that the oatmeal stout had a slightly softer mouthfeel, but it wasn’t significant. Both beers are 5% ABV, and the stout didn’t come across as bigger, bolder, or more bitter/burnt. I’m at a loss with this one. 

Beer 2 things to look for:

American Lager: not bitter, neutral, thin, no foam

Munich Helles: not bitter, malt richness, round body

Cream Ale: not bitter, slightly bolder American Lager

Kölsch: esters? bitterness?

Notes:

My first impression was that this was not an American Lager or Cream Ale. When I swirled the glass, the foam coalesced and stayed present before slowly dissipating. In my experience, American Lagers and Cream Ales have very poor foam retention due to the heavy use of adjuncts like corn or rice that don’t contribute the necessary proteins to form a good head. A taste test confirmed my suspicions- the malt was a little too expressive for these styles.

I detected green apple on the nose and a taste test confirmed this. A strong green apple note often signals acetaldehyde, an off-flavor compound that results from an incomplete fermentation. During normal fermentation, this compound is eventually converted into a non-flavor active compound. This kind of brewing error is more likely to be found on the smaller scale- homebrewers or smaller local breweries trying to turn around batches too quickly. I wouldn’t expect acetaldehyde to be present in any of the samples I purchased for these exercises since most of the breweries that made these beers have been established for decades and have their processes very dialed in.  

I decided to go with my gut and consider this apple character to be a fruity ester. Fair enough, I thought, as Kölsch commonly expresses fruity esters. Wrong; it was Munich Helles. I’m not sure if it was a handling error, old beer, strange imported version, or I’m tripping. I’ve never had a Munich Helles with so much fruit character. Again, I’m at a loss for this one.

Beer 3 things to look for:

Belgian Blond Ale: malt forward, phenols, esters

Saison: hop forward, phenols, esters, Tank 7?

American Pale Ale: US hops/bitterness, caramel, clean yeast

Weizenbock: Weizen yeast, Bock booze

 Notes:

I didn’t detect much hop presence on the nose or palate, so I eliminated American Pale and Saison, which usually have very high levels of bitterness. Weizenbock vs Belgian Blond was much harder than I expected. Weizen yeast (banana esters and clove phenols) usually pops out to me quite fiercely, but the yeast character in Leffe Blond ​​comes across as very Weizeny to me. I usually pick up lots of banana/clove with some cracked black pepper too. 

To complicate things though, Belgian Blonds have a bit of alcohol warmth and body to them, a shared trait with Weizenbock. I guessed Belgian Blond because the yeast was giving off other peppery notes in addition to clove. 

After some research, I realized that Belgian Blonds don’t typically use wheat in their grain bill. [In fact, Tripels, Belgian Golden Strongs, and Belgian Singles don’t usually either.] For some reason, I had it in my head that grains were like spices in Belgian brewing- where brewers may add small amounts of spices that are so subtle they are often missed and/or attributed as part of the malt, yeast, or hop complexity. I thought that Belgian brewers sometimes added other grains in this manner, using wheat/oats/spelt/etc. I’m assuming this could be true for some Belgian brewers and beer styles, but for the purposes of this exam, Belgian Blond (and Tripel, Golden Strong, and Belgian Single), have no wheat!

Since Weizenbock typically dedicates 50% of its grain bill to malted wheat, smelling/tasting for wheat is going to make it to the top of my “things to look for” list next time. I didn’t take the time to investigate the malt character in this matchup, but I should have. I’m going to pop a Leffe and Weizenbock to investigate further. It’d be nice to have more reasons to be confident in my choice if I get this comparison in the future.