24 Bad Beers

Yesterday was my final class in preparation for the Beer Judge Certification Program Exam. I have less than two weeks until my knowledge of beer and tasting/judging ability will be put to the test.

Since much of the job of a beer judge is to recognize, indentify and articulate what is wrong with beer, yesterday's class was devoted to off-flavors. Jackie and Alberta Rager doctored samples of Bud Light (chosen for its lack of flavor) with chemicals provided by the Siebel Institute to three times the normal detectable levels. So, in a nutshell, I spent yesterday afternoon drinking Bud Light that was not only bad, but three times as bad as it needed to be.

The flavors ranged from butyric (rancid butter) to papery (like chewing up paper to make spit wads in grade school) and earthy (smelled and tasted like the container of nightcrawlers you'd buy at a bait shop). In order of tasting, we tried butyric, mercaptan, ethyl acetate, indole, grainy, caprylic, papery, infection, diacetyl, acetaldehyde, DMS, lactic, metallic, earthy, isoamyl acetate, geraniol, spicy, ethyl hexanoate, acetic, hefeweizen, vanilla, bitter, and almond. While not all of these flavors are flaws, all can be if they are inappropriate to the style of beer being targeted. But, really, most of them are always bad, and spending an afternoon intentionally drinking one after the other is grueling.

I never thought I would complain about a Sunday afternoon spent drinking beer . . .