Tongue and Cheek
Jul 14, 2010
Consider the taste buds.
One reason to thoroughly coat your mouth when you taste your beer it because we have tastebuds all over our mouth – tongue, cheeks, back of the throat, and the roof of the mouth.
Larry and Don at Napa Smith
We recently had the pleasure of a tour and visit with Don Barkley, at Napa Smith, and I asked him about this. I asked him about how beer makers completely taste and swallow and wine makers taste and spit it out. (Napa Smith makes both quality beers and wines hence the question). More specifically I inquired about if and why beer should be swallowed when tasted vs. the traditional wine spitting out after a thorough mouth coat.
He shared that he believes that it’s important to swallow because the different flavors you get from beer will best include the swallowing of the beer for those flavor purposes. Said another way, you get different flavor experiences when you completely swallow your beer.
Never mind that attractive (to some) beer burp to re-experience it.
So be sure to really taste your beer. Let it coat your entire mouth and then enjoy the swallow. The whole experience involves from the tip of your lips to the drop down the gullet.
Tags: Don Barkley, Napa Smith, taste buds, tasting your beer
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