On Tuesday we had the Belgian beer tasting session of the class. I got to admit, It's fun to try every single style of Belgian beer in a row. Today was different though. Today we were tortured. We sampled spiked bottles of Bud with many horrible fluids that nobody would want to try.
Caproic Acid at 7ppm I thought tasted like bark-dust, crayons and solvent and is attributed to yeast autolysis.
The phenolic Eugenol at 400ppb has a clovey, phenolic flavor reminiscent of Lambics and is a flavor that comes out of some yeasts. Ortho-chloro phenol at 6ppb tasted like a dentist office and shouldn't be trusted. The WORST flavor I have ever had in a beer is trans-2-nonenal at 2ppb. It is a compound that is caused by oxidation and smells like a flooded library. It's that old book smell. The taste is to me like biting into a piece of fruit with a stink bug inside. Then we tried some bottles subjected to a 60C heat treatment for three hours to simulate over-pasteurisation or poor storing conditions. It tasted and smelled like Cheerios, was sweet and doughy.
After the taste-bud lashing, we were subjected to a seven sample sensory evaluation. I missed the fact that baby-mess smell is attributed to the oxidation of hops, but I got DMS, diacetyl, trans-2-nonenal, iso-amyl-acetate and the two controls correct.
If any of you brewers, homebrewers or geeks would like to buy a kit of spiking stuff for your own palate training, I would heartily suggest the kit that the Siebel Institute is putting together. Although as you can tell from above, palate training is not always fun. Shoot me an email if you're interested: daveybrewing@gmail.com
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