Do "professional" brewers consider brulosophy to be a load of bs?

[TheMadKing]

It is also foolish to blindly trust in science. I can't even count the number of times a study decided something was conclusively true, only to be proven false by a later study. I can't remember what the topic was, but a couple weeks ago I saw 8 studies, all on the same thing, and they were evenly split on whether something was true or false. For something like homebrewing, I will consider they study or the Brulosophy findings but my taste buds get the final word.

A study, no matter how scientific doesn't prove anything until it can be endlessly repeated.

If another study found a different result then it's still an open question in my mind.

You do bring up a good point about the sheer quantity of information available to the average person today. It's utterly overwhelming, and half the time we never know what's true and what's not, so it's taking longer than ever to establish real factual information.

 

[TheMadKing]

I would agree with what you're saying here if we were preparing fugu, the puffer fish delicacy that can kill if prepared improperly! Seriously though, we're discussing a substance - beer - that is all about sensory experience, and our discussion gets down to the very essence of why we brew at home.

When we brew for competition, we are careful to make sure that our beer meets the style guidelines. Otherwise, we are free to ignore strict style guidelines to brew what we like. If I use a "lager" yeast and ferment at a higher temperature and it produces a beer that satisfies <b>me</b> and tastes <b>to me</b> like a lager, I don't care if it's really a lager or what anyone else calls it.

When I brew, my "sensory-based opinion" is ALL that matters.

I 100% agree that brewing to your own taste is great, and I do the same thing! But saying:

"I brew with warm lager yeast and can't taste esters, therefore lager yeast doesn't produce esters when fermented warm.. for me"

Is totally different than saying "I brew with warm fermented lager yeast and can't personally tell the difference so that's what I drink at home."

One passes opinion as fact, the other simply expresses a personal preference. I've seen too many people muddy that difference and become advocates for their own way of doing things, whether its "good practice" or not. But as Denny says, maybe I just don't have enough faith in people

 

[Die_Beerery]

Last night I gave a presentation to my local homebrew club about super tasters, then after the discussion the super taster test was given to the members. Of 30 members there, 3 of the folks are super tasters. More interesting was the number of "normal" tasters. There are also a number of BJCP judges in the group and of which ZERO were super tasters. Also another interesting take away was that the super tasters are highly regarded as the best brewers in the club, and the normal tasters produce the least liked beer normally. We always do a club tasting of homebrew at the end of the meetings and we have general discussions about the beers. After last night, now knowing the results of the tests it all made sense.
Something like 10% of the world fall as dominant super tasters, meaning they can taste all the chemicals in the test. Genetics is a wonder.

Super tasters generally do not like bitter, so things like beer (pale ale, ipa) coffee or chocolate.

I happen to be a super taster, and interestingly enough, before I knew this I always wondered why I shyed away from west coast beers, only tried coffee once, and don't like chocolate.. So I guess the shoe fits.

Where I am going with this is that we all taste differently, most people can't taste things I can. So what I do for my brewing process is because I can taste things that result from it. Trust me, life would be much easier if I was a normal taster, many things that matter now would not then. But at the the end of the day if you can't taste a fault, and are happy with your beer the more power to you. However on the flip side just because you can't taste a difference doesn't mean there is not one. Thats my biggest beef, I see it every month at our homebrew club tastings. People, who think their beer is great (thats great if it is for them), but in reality its full of flaws, they literally can't taste.

 

[Denny]

A study, no matter how scientific doesn't prove anything until it can be endlessly repeated.

If another study found a different result then it's still an open question in my mind.

You do bring up a good point about the sheer quantity of information available to the average person today. It's utterly overwhelming, and half the time we never know what's true and what's not, so it's taking longer than ever to establish real factual information.

BOOM! That's exactly the point I've been trying to make! That's why we at EB and the guys at Brulosophy don't try to sell our experiments as the final word on a subject. That's why I ALWAYS say "try it yourself and let me know what you think"! Marshall provides a single data point. Becasue we use more brewers and tasters at EB, we provide a few more. But ultimately it's up to others to replicate what we do in order for it to have any chance at validity.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Something like 10% of the world fall as dominant super tasters, meaning they can taste all the chemicals in the test. Genetics is a wonder.

It's not just about genetics though, as with so many things it's a mixture of nature and nurture. Palates can definitely be educated, experience allows you to spot things that others will miss. I feel that particularly coming from a wine background, where my palate's been educated in a way that allows me to analyse and communicate about flavours in a way that most people don't - we're notoriously limited in a flavour vocabulary. I definitely come to beer in a different way to many other people as a result and for instance I've read reports of wine tests on the general population that have returned "no difference" results when I know that I have done similar blind tests and nailed the difference >90% of the time. So one imagines that a population of "mes" would generate a significant p value even when a population of the general public would not. And I wouldn't say I have a particularly good palate for discriminating different flavours - whilst I'm definitely a supertaster for some things, I rely more on education to spot a slight difference whereas some people seem to perceive differences as chasms.

I must admit I was a bit surprised at some of the Brulosophy results that claimed no difference between qualified judges and the rest, it might be something to explore further.

 

[bleme]

There are also a number of BJCP judges in the group and of which ZERO were super tasters.

Makes sense to me. I've tasted more than a few entries and I would think the last thing a super-taster would want to do is judge a homebrew competition...

 

[Die_Beerery]

It's not just about genetics though, as with so many things it's a mixture of nature and nurture. Palates can definitely be educated, experience allows you to spot things that others will miss. I feel that particularly coming from a wine background, where my palate's been educated in a way that allows me to analyse and communicate about flavours in a way that most people don't - we're notoriously limited in a flavour vocabulary. I definitely come to beer in a different way to many other people as a result and for instance I've read reports of wine tests on the general population that have returned "no difference" results when I know that I have done similar blind tests and nailed the difference >90% of the time. So one imagines that a population of "mes" would generate a significant p value even when a population of the general public would not. And I wouldn't say I have a particularly good palate for discriminating different flavours - whilst I'm definitely a supertaster for some things, I rely more on education to spot a slight difference whereas some people seem to perceive differences as chasms.

I must admit I was a bit surprised at some of the Brulosophy results that claimed no difference between qualified judges and the rest, it might be something to explore further.

Thats great, but it doesn't work like that. If you are not able to even taste, because you don't have the taste receptors, how can you describe it. You can't just become a super taster, I agree training will help describe the flavors you can taste, but you can't describe the ones you can't. It's the same as saying, I was born with green eyes, but I went to school therefor my eyes are now blue... Nope you still have green eyes (unless you used color contacts, but your eyes are really still green!).

However you may infact be a super taster. only one way to find out!

 

[mongoose33]

A study, no matter how scientific doesn't prove anything until it can be endlessly repeated.

BOOM! That's exactly the point I've been trying to make! That's why we at EB and the guys at Brulosophy don't try to sell our experiments as the final word on a subject. That's why I ALWAYS say "try it yourself and let me know what you think"! Marshall provides a single data point. Becasue we use more brewers and tasters at EB, we provide a few more. But ultimately it's up to others to replicate what we do in order for it to have any chance at validity.

I don't think "endlessly" is what MadKing really meant. That would mean we never have conclusions which, if you think about it, we want.

A study that produces an interesting result is just that, interesting, until it can be shown to be replicated. Then it becomes a trend and if enough evidence emerges we then accept the conclusions as true until and unless we find evidence to refute them.

I did several batches w/o dumping in trub, and some just dumping it all in. I could not tell a difference, which is fine for me. Might be one I can't perceive, but given that lots of others are liking the beer I'm brewing and that beer has the trub in the fermenter, it's not just my reactions, it's also those of others. So that adds evidence it doesn't matter at my level, but it's not definitive evidence.

Best practices are those because in the contexts in which they were examined, they resulted in the best results.

And if you think about it, taken to extremes, there could be no advice offered to new brewers because none of that advice has been endlessly repeated. So in the end, we reach conclusions not because things have been shown to conclusively to be the case, but because we couldn't do anything at all if we didn't decide.

 

[Morrey]

BOOM! That's exactly the point I've been trying to make! That's why we at EB and the guys at Brulosophy don't try to sell our experiments as the final word on a subject. That's why I ALWAYS say "try it yourself and let me know what you think"! Marshall provides a single data point. Becasue we use more brewers and tasters at EB, we provide a few more. But ultimately it's up to others to replicate what we do in order for it to have any chance at validity.

This is exactly how I (we) have been using the information reported from Brulosophy and EB. In fact Mongoose33 and I have done our own experiments spawning from ideas we got from those reports. Not that we didn't agree with the conclusions, rather we wanted to gain experience from these reports and become better brewers by trying it out for ourselves.

 

[Denny]

This is exactly how I (we) have been using the information reported from Brulosophy and EB. In fact Mongoose33 and I have done our own experiments spawning from ideas we got from those reports. Not that we didn't agree with the conclusions, rather we wanted to gain experience from these reports and become better brewers by trying it out for ourselves.

Way to go, Morrey! Good on ya both!

 

[Savagejair]

Brulosophy is fun. This hobby is fun. It’s what you make it.

 

[doug293cz]

The personal sniping is getting out of hand here. I'm closing the thread until I can clean it up. Many posts will disappear without a deleted notice. I'll reopen the thread when I finish the clean up. Play nice then, or thread will be closed permanently.

Update: I have deleted posts that had comments aimed at individuals rather than ideas. I also deleted most replies to those posts. In some cases I just edited quotes, if the post had otherwise appropriate content.

I will reopen the thread now. Remember - absolutely no personal attacks. If the thread gets out of control again, it will be shut down permanently. Brazen attacks, or other particularly dickish behavior, could earn you a ban from HBT.

doug293cz
HBT Moderator

 

[joshesmusica]

BOOM! That's exactly the point I've been trying to make! That's why we at EB and the guys at Brulosophy don't try to sell our experiments as the final word on a subject. That's why I ALWAYS say "try it yourself and let me know what you think"! Marshall provides a single data point. Becasue we use more brewers and tasters at EB, we provide a few more. But ultimately it's up to others to replicate what we do in order for it to have any chance at validity.

I'll be honest, I haven't read through the EB site in maybe a year and a half. It was ok at first, but I didn't like the way most of the "tests" were conducted. Maybe it's gotten better since then, I don't know because I haven't even thought about the site (although it is bookmarked) until all of the advertisement in this thread. So maybe this isn't the way you're presenting the results on your site.

HOWEVER, you're being very clearly biased if you can't see that the brulosophy site presents the results of the experiments as conclusive evidence. Sure at times they give the disclaimer that this should only be taken as a single data point, and a lot of further testing is required before the results could be considered conclusive. But these are usually side comments in the closing paragraphs. One that many readers likely either completely ignore, or won't remember because of the way the results above that were communicated. In fact, the part of each blog post from the experiments that people will remember are these p-test results.

I will say, though, that after this thread got started, I did see what seemed to be an alert awareness of this fact, and an attempt to make it clear that the results were in no way the final, conclusive act. BUT, most of the time they will say something along the lines of, "It's true that this is but a single data point, however, I'm convinced of these results having tasted the beers myself." They're mixing shaky science with anecdote and convincing many people that it's scientific fact through the way they communicate.

Hence, why I think, the reason this thread was started. Hence why many people have qualms with the information being presented on the site.

 

[mongoose33]

I ordered from https://www.ibrew.com.au/products/brewtan-b in Australia. I think it was about $15 including shipping to the US.

I ordered on September 21st and they sent me tracking information but the two links for tracking the package said it hadn't been scanned or that it wasn't trackable. I'd seen other US brewers report they'd received it from ibrew so I took a chance.

When I ordered mine, I also rec'd a tracking number. After about 10 days it suddenly told me the package had arrived in New York. Then a few days later it showed up in my mailbox. Not the world's best tracking service, but it got here.


Based on my experience, it hasn't been long enough for your package. Give it another week.

 

[doug293cz]

Closed again. Some folks just can't play nice. I'm sorry that this affects those of you that do.

doug293cz
HBT Moderator