lightningbug
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- Feb 22, 2022
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I’m studying and practicing for the BJCP judging exam and I’m starting to get a little demoralized with my inability to discern different flavors, especially from malt. It’s extra bad that I can’t seem to find anyone else online with the same problem… it’s like everyone can pick up the moderate notes of cracker, nuttiness, dough, toffee, corn etc and the only advice they need is to be more descriptive on their scoresheets.
I would love to be more-descriptive, but in most styles the malt flavors just taste like, well, beer. I can’t break it down any further, it smells and tastes like beer. I can maybe get bread or bread crust in the aftertaste sometimes on certain styles, but never anything mid palate, and I can never smell it at all (except highly roasted malts). But I think I’m doing okay with hops and fermentation flavors at least.
Any little tips on how to develop or train this, or how to taste beer in a way to make the flavors pop? I’ve tried a handful of common advice and it doesn’t seem to help. I know what caramel, toffee, crackers, etc taste like already. I practice a new scoresheet with a commercial beer every day. Eating raw malts tastes like straw mixed with milk balls (but not sweet), or like bran cereal, and not at all what they’re supposed to taste like in beer. I even tried some BJCP diy sensory training where you make mini-mashes by steeping small amounts of malt and compare their taste/aroma on a flavor wheel… they just taste like wort to me and seem wildly different to finished beer, and I STILL can’t taste the crackers or caramel.
Any help would be appreciated.
I would love to be more-descriptive, but in most styles the malt flavors just taste like, well, beer. I can’t break it down any further, it smells and tastes like beer. I can maybe get bread or bread crust in the aftertaste sometimes on certain styles, but never anything mid palate, and I can never smell it at all (except highly roasted malts). But I think I’m doing okay with hops and fermentation flavors at least.
Any little tips on how to develop or train this, or how to taste beer in a way to make the flavors pop? I’ve tried a handful of common advice and it doesn’t seem to help. I know what caramel, toffee, crackers, etc taste like already. I practice a new scoresheet with a commercial beer every day. Eating raw malts tastes like straw mixed with milk balls (but not sweet), or like bran cereal, and not at all what they’re supposed to taste like in beer. I even tried some BJCP diy sensory training where you make mini-mashes by steeping small amounts of malt and compare their taste/aroma on a flavor wheel… they just taste like wort to me and seem wildly different to finished beer, and I STILL can’t taste the crackers or caramel.
Any help would be appreciated.
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