Tongue and Cheek
Jul 14, 2010 Beer, Education & Training
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
Mmmmm…Beer Smells Good
Dec 11, 2009 Education & Training, Something To Think About
One thing that many people who drink beer have yet to get into the habit of is smelling their beer. It’s one important part of the events I conduct with beer – to teach people to smell their beer. To drink with their noses first.
Most people are in the habit of smelling food, smelling wine, smelling the roses (although some are still missing this).
So why are you not inhaling the heady scents of your beer?
The information we take in through our noses is really important, chock full of memory and therefore thoughts. Smells tell us myriad things about what it is we are sniffing.
SO – pause and smell before drinking that next beer. THEN take a sip, swirl it all around your mouth, making sure it reaches all those taste buds in your tongue, roof of your mouth, cheeks, throat…
Tags: smelling your beer, taste buds
