Beer Styles for the public

Range of beers at a recent tasting

I've done a number of recent well attended beer tastings and its been great to talk with people who are genuinely interested in beer and want to learn a little bit more. Most members of the public struggle to define a flavour in beer but will describe a beer as hoppy, which is often true. Ask them to go on and define that flavour further as in citrus, floral, herbal notes etc, then its not easy.

This is where the brewers can help a lot more in my view. Beer Styles have are often over looked on the bottle label or pump clip in favour of branding. Indeed head to your local supermarket and you'll find a montage of labels facing you on the shelf with no apparent order to them other than perhaps by brewer. No wonder the public gets confused and often pick on names or brands they know to choose beers rather than style.

There are probably two main styles the public can identify with easily. The IPA beer they recognise, a few know the background to the name, a few might even know its going to be a hoppy beer. The other style is a stout/porter and people understandably define it by its colour. The latter is a much underestimated style of beer and people are often put off trying these beers which is a great shame as they are potentially missing out of some fine beers.

Where it all gets confusing is the middle ground of describing a beer. What distinguishes a best bitter from a pale ale, where does a golden beer sit compared to an IPA?  Where is a strong ale sit compared to a premium ale or vintage ale and just what is the difference between a double and a triple. All too confusing for many of us involved in the beer industry let alone the public!

My view is that there is a job to do for both brewers and retailers that would really help. Firstly the brewers could properly mark up their brands with beer style and make it easy to identify, some consistency in attributing beers to styles would also help. Retailers can probably have the most impact by displaying beers by style and or flavour rather than by brewer. I think this would help hugely for people to understand. Contrast this to wine displays and you will certainly find red and white displayed separately, plus perhaps a split by country and often grape variety. So just why then why then is it not similar in beer?

I think ultimately a growing interest in beer and the craft beer boom, fuelled by the impact of social media will mean the public becomes more knowledgeable and thus demanding. Those brewers and retailers who recognise this will be the ones who become favoured suppliers of beers and develop the stronger brands.

 

Plymouth Beer Tasting

The tasting commences!

A recent beer tasting with Plymouth Chamber of Trade was very enjoyable but also highlighted what interest there is from the general public in learning a little bit more about beer. It's not however the art of brewing that people want to know, fascinating as it is, brewing can be scientific and complicated with references to brewing equipment and processes that many in the trade take for granted, but for the uninitiated cause an instant glazing over! What is of far more interest is to help people understand a little about the flavours they are tasting, what ingredients contribute to them, help in describing them and above all else keeping it entertaining and fun.

As regards flavours how often have you heard someone describe a beer as hoppy? Countless times for sure, but for many people to describe the flavours you can expect from hops would be quite hard - the fruity citrus, herbal, floral, grassy and cheesy notes. It just gets described as hoppy. Likewise with malt flavours, there are not that many times you hear toffee, biscuit or roasted being used to describe beers.  However this is where the Beer Sommeliers, CAMRA members and other enthusiasts can help. It is really easy to try to impress with ones beer knowledge and identify flavours that are the merest hint in a beer. It's actually much harder to try and bring this into the every day language, using easy and obvious flavour terms and make a beer more accessible and easy to understand.

At the Plymouth tasting it was great to use simple props like bags of toffees, grapefruits, jars of coffee etc. to engage with people and help them connect every day flavours to the beers they were drinking. Add a little beer and food matching, a fun quiz, play with some actual hops and malt and of course taste a wide variety of beer styles and you have the making of a good evening.

The tasting in Plymouth went well and I have to thank Plymouth Chamber of Trade for organising it. Hopefully it will have enthused those who attended to try different beer styles for themselves and also understand a little as to why they like or dislike certain beers.