Lesson 6 - Sensory Analysis

The beer flavour we experience is caused by our brain’s interpretation of signals sent by flavour receptors in our nose, throat, and mouth. These signals are sent in response to stimuli from compounds that are in the beer or are evaporating from it.

Over the last century the brewing industry has been working to identify and describe as many of these compounds as possible and determine their flavour threshold. One man in particular, Dr Morten Meilgaard, is synonymous with the work. Dr Meilgaard has also contributed to what some consider to be the definitive text on sensory analysis. If this lesson has stimulated an interest or you would like more background to the discipline, this book is suggested reading.

Meilgaard, Civille, Carr, Sensory Evaluation Techniques (CRC Press 2006)

We discovered the flavour wheel and introduced the international flavour terms from the wheel earlier. As well as a description of the term, for some flavour terms there are flavour reference standards. The flavour standards are chemical compounds or materials which when smelt and/or tasted give the same sensation as the flavour term. For example, cis –3 –Hexanol is the flavour standard for cut grass while the flavour standard for vinous is white wine. For some terms, like kettle hop, this is not possible as the flavour is a result of a range of compounds.

There are a range of flavour standards available commercially from FlavorActiV and Aroxa. We do not have the space to show all the internationally agreed flavour terms, along with their classes and tiers.