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Hi Guys.

Sorry to post again.

Im curious into how people can smell the different types of fruits in the beer that they;re drinking. Like pear, apple etc. I just don’t understand it and I can never smell the specific fruit that is meant to be in the beer. I want to learn a lot about beer in all aspects. Aromas, fermentation, hops, just everything! Does anyone have a video or good tutorials on youtube that’ll start me in the right direction?

Cheers :slight_smile:

Scott.

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Put your nose in/near the glass and inhale. What do you smell?

If you pick up on a certain kind of fruit you name that one. Otherwise you just say it smells fruity. You’ll probably get better at it after a while.

Then after a while you become great at it, or you start faking being great at it by naming at least 10 different fruits and 7 kinds of herbs/spices plus some other obscure things in every beer you try, even in the most boring pale lagers. And then you’ll be able to call yourself sommelier, ciccerone or beer judge.

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It’s a forum. This is what it’s here for.

Taste is highly individual. If you don’t taste fruits, you might taste something else. On ratebeer we don’t really care much about reviewing “by the book”, we care more about how we like the beer personally. If you want to learn how to sensorically analyze a beer by the book, I think the BJCP might be helpful ( https://www.bjcp.org/ ).

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Note, however, that the BJCP are a bunch of idiots with their heads stuck up their collective arse, at least when it comes to defining styles and expectations.

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It happens to me way too frequently that I’m not able to recognise the fruity notes in aroma and/or taste, but in my case the reason is most likely that I don’t eat any fruits. So it’s like I can smell/taste , let’s say, 2 distinct fruits in the beer I just don’t have the experience/memory to link these sensations to…

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I find aroma to be very fleeting unless it’s really “in your face” so when rating a beer, I often rate aroma first while it still sticks out to me. I find it important to note the very first thing or two that “jump out of the glass” and then move on to the other rating aspects because before long the scent notes may become muddled to me. Other aroma notes may or may not present over time.
I attribute my lack of smell acuity to having smoked for many years (like a dumbass).
If you are or have been a smoker, you may be experiencing something similar.

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Apparently, being able to smell fruits in wine and beer is linked to the fruits you consumed as a child. Accordingly, I am not great at it. That said, grapefruit, orange and pineapple are pretty easy to spot smells. Of course, unless an adjunct is used, the smell is an approximation, merely something used as a reference… in the same way chocolate and coffee are referenced in nonadjunct-laden porters and stouts.

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Try reading a few review, see whats mention then have another smell, sometimes it can help pick out the individual aromas.

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Well, some more defined fruit aromas come from esters, and I guess that different people have different detection capabilities inherent to them for various esters.