Ep 20 - Sensory Part 1 - How To Assess Your Beer - Jethro Duarte-Holman

Everything you need to know on how perform sensory analysis on your beer, how to set up a sensory program and who should be involved.

Key topics covered

- A high-level view of what sensory is, what it aims to do and why is it so effective
- What are the key aspects and/or rules of sensory
- Who should be involved in sensory?
- How do you train people in sensory?
- Types of Test

Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Exciting Announcements
01:44 Introduction to Sensory Science
02:29 Special Guest: Jethro Duarte Holman
04:52 Deep Dive into Sensory Training
08:47 The Importance of Sensory in Brewing
17:57 Training and Mislabeling in Sensory
25:59 Involving Everyone in Sensory Panels
27:35 The Importance of Unbiased Sensory Evaluation
28:54 Training Your Team in Sensory Analysis
30:40 Recognising and Associating Flavors
32:02 The Role of Memory in Flavor Detection
35:57 Practical Tips for Sensory Evaluation
40:05 Assessment Types and Taste Gates
44:52 The Importance of Shelf Life Testing
47:41 Using Software for Sensory Data
52:22 Wrapping Up and What's Next


🌡️ Frigid.Cloud - The Ultimate Fermentation Control

📧 jethro@brewersselect.co.uk

🔗 Chris' LinkedIn

🎵 Horacio Colombo

🧈 VDK Testing

🧪 ASBC Method

Transcript

0:14

hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Modern Brewer Podcast with me, your host, Chris Lewington. I have a couple bits of great news to share with you. Firstly, those avid listeners who remember episode 1 will recall me bigging up the creator of the intro tune. More likely, listeners will remember 6, Should I Leave My Job? well, he has recently launched his music on Spotify and As I am sure we are all desperate to find new music to show our friends How cool we are. To find Horatio's new music You can either search Horatio Colombo into your Spotify search bar or click on the link in my show notes to it second bit of good news is I for the first time will be heading to CBC in Las Vegas on the 21st of April 2024. For any of the listeners who are attending, please make sure you hit me up on Instagram or LinkedIn or email. Everything is linked in the show notes as always. But this has been like a lifelong dream for me to attend this show. Uh, it's, can't believe it's in Vegas. That's kind of super cool. and I'm just basically really excited and I think it's a really unique opportunity for me to get to meet and hang out with the stateside listeners or from anyone around the world Who's attending CBC. So please hit me up and we can definitely arrange a meet up, maybe have a drink, maybe just see each other at a show, whatever works. I'm really excited to meet some of you people. So yeah, please make sure you hit me up. Now back to the episode for those who listened to episode eight with Tanya on building a lab for nothing. We'll remember sensory is one of the key pillars of. And for the most part, it's pretty much free to do. I'm confident every brewer in the world recognizes the importance of sensory. But when it comes to actually executing a sensory program, how scientific are you really approaching it? How well trained are you and your team? How confident are you that you truly understand flavors like Macaptan, Isovaleric, Diacetyl, Butyric Acid? And also how to detect them? their origins, and of course, how to control the levels. So in this two part episode, I'm going to be joined by sensory expert Jethro Duarte Holman. In the first episode, we're going to discuss how to scientifically approach sensory. No more headbrewers influencing the opinion of the group or signing it off by themselves. And in the second episode, we will deep dive into five key flavours and off flavours common in beer. Before we get into the episode, let me talk to you about a new, exciting and actually affordable piece of technology being implemented in craft breweries all across the world. We all know the importance of temperature and fermentation control in the brewery. You wouldn't start a brewery without it. What's funny to me is, that fermentations themselves are live, sometimes erratic and unpredictable. Yet our fermentation control systems are often rigid, archaic, and operated by manual switches or buttons. Frigid Cloud is the ultimate fermentation control platform. Adding into any existing cooling and temperature control setup, Frigid Cloud will allow you to monitor and control your fermentations, anytime, anywhere. And when you do get those inevitable, erratic, or unpredictable fermentations, not only will it alert you, but it will also allow you to take the corrective action before irreversible damage is done to your beer. But even more than infinite control over your fermentations, Frigid Cloud will revolutionize the way your chiller cools your tanks. Using a pulse cooling algorithm, Frigid As well as an automated load shifting, Frigid Cloud users have drastically reduced their chiller's energy usage, saving themselves thousands in costs while decreasing their carbon footprint. So if you're interested in controlling your fermentations anywhere, anytime, while simultaneously reducing your energy costs and carbon footprint, make sure you check out their free demo app on their website. www. frigid. cloud. There's also a link in the show notes and remember this can be fitted into any existing cooling setup so check it out for free on frigid. cloud. Okay so let's get into this week's episode. I'm really excited to be able to bring you Jethro's amazing experience and personality. He's a really well respected member of the UK craft beer industry and his past experience in sensory combined with his passion for it will make for a really educational and fun episode. Off air, we were talking about how podcast knowledge is so important in our modern society. And for me, this episode is a great example of that. So welcome to the show, Jethro. Hello mate, you alright? Yeah, good man, good. Jethro's living room. I'm having a great time here down in Brighton. This is full tech here. Yeah! Maybe the bails just come down on how cowboy this operation really is. I don't know, it's homely. Um, but anyway, Geoff wrote, for the listeners who don't know who you are, if you don't mind introducing yourself, that'd be great. Uh, hey, my name's Geoff wrote. If you You might know me, I currently work for a company called Locker and Brewer Select. Um, and we sell hops and more and more not, so not sensory, but we'll get to that later. Um, uh, so yeah, you might know me from talking hops and stuff. Uh, but in a previous job, previous life, uh, I used to work for a sensory science company where we trained sensory tasters, trained panels, helped people with some consultancy, uh, technical services and sensory. Um, so sensory was my life for a little while and uh, and previous to that I worked in for about over a decade in some breweries in London that had sensory departments and worked as part of the lab and the quality team running sensory programs and uh, setting up labs as well. So the sensory used to be my main thing. Um, so now, um, yeah. We're gonna talk about it. Yeah, how people set up what they do But yeah, I live in Brighton and my current job. I look after the south of England selling hops. So I went to the dark side But yeah, that's cool Yeah. Yeah, man. Absolutely Um, so, yeah, I mean, it kind of puts you in a cool position, doesn't it, I think, not being currently involved in, in the sensory world? I think that's why we agreed to do this, is because in my previous job I worked for a certain company and I would sell those company stuff. Yeah. And if I was to speak to you then, I would have only told you. to buy their stuff. It was great. But there's other companies out there that deal in sensory flavors or sensory training. And so I'm kind of a non bias experience person now. I think that makes sense. Absolutely. Yeah. And I love that. I think for me, I've been to a lot of talks. I've been to listen to a lot of podcasts in the broom world. And when it's someone, a sales rep from a company. It's so quick to turn into a sales pitch That actually would really turn like just make me completely tune out of what was being said and almost go against it It was just me So i've always been quite conscious on this trying to if we do have a sales rep there's often a brewer there sort of try and balance the uh Balance the act a little bit, but this is why I think this one's really good because You know, you've got all the excellent experience, but now, you know You, you're free and I'll point out free to say I'm pointing out the bad things as well as the good things. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Also, man, I think you probably just got me on 'cause I like listening to your podcast. Anyway, so yeah, , I, I cringe, I cringed Chris at a event the other day when I was saying that I actually do listen to his podcast. Yeah.. I drive to customers and, and I have it on in the car. Um, it's just great listening for, like learning a little bits and bobs and picking up things that maybe I didn't do in the brewery. Um, so yeah, he obviously was just flattered when I said that and he said, do you wanna come on the pod and ? It's that easy, by the way.. Yeah. Yeah, it's just flattery. We get you everywhere, . Um, so, but yeah, so hopefully we can chat about sensory in, in, in as much depth as we can and be completely unbiased, so, yeah, I love that. Yeah. So I mean. What is sensory what does it kind of mean to you and what what is sensory? Sensory is using this like ridiculous super skill that we've all been given which is to sense things through our eyes through our nose through Our taste through whatever that we we often overlook particularly in the UK I think UK brewers and and you can assess so much within a product You Or about a product that you could do with super expensive, uh, equipment within your lab or within your brewery. Um, to really kind of find minute detail when you've fine tuned yourself or you have put some time and effort into it. And I think sensory is amazing in utilising people and the skills that they have in, in terms of beer. Um, just you can really enable to stop disasters, um, uh, like aid in your process, make better beer. And, and, you know, it says the brand image as well, like someone is going to drink your beer. So you need to assess your beer in the same way a person is going to, not just under a microscope, which I recommend doing also. Um, so I think Sensory for me is the, the utilization of people, um, and the skills we have. To make better beer, really, if you will. But yeah, keep going. I think it's, uh, we always said it was like one of the three pillars of quality. It's like vis chem, micro, and sensory as well. I mean, you've probably got compliance, but we'll leave that later. Yeah, yeah, come on. That's a boring bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what? I haven't actually covered compliance yet. That would be a meaty topic, wouldn't it? It would be boring. No, we always share the offices, so I would never want to leave the compliance people out. But yeah, when, uh, when I worked in my most recent brewery in the lab, we had those three departments as their own department within the quality branch, so yeah. And that's where I was, the sensory lead. Um, yeah, but I dipped my toe into all the others while we were there where people are sick, but we had our own areas. Yeah. It's funny to me how scientific two of those three, and I'm not going to exclude compliance, two of those three areas are done, but yet sometimes sensory is, in a way, the least scientifically approached. But it has, to me, the most important ramifications across the brewery. You can detect so many things that you won't, either you don't have the equipment or you can't afford the equipment or the equipment can't measure it to the capability that a human can. And it's such a powerful tool. In a brewery, sensory. I think it, it, I think it's often, well the, they are the same, in like, you know, the, a lot of the, we're gonna talk about our flavours loads in this pod, I'm sure, but I often don't want sensory to just be about the bad things, but, I'm just gonna use some examples. You might be, um, assessing, uh, like, acid producing bacteria of flavours, and that's gonna lead on to your conversation with your micro. Alright. And look at your, you know, plate records, et cetera. So, like, they are all in one, but I definitely think that you're dealing with people. And, uh, people have so many variables and opinions and, and, and whatnot. And that you do have to sometimes take a little bit more of like a holistic look at it. Um, but yeah, I understand exactly what you mean. There is, there's less exact numbers unless you really drill into it. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. And am I, am I right in saying that humans can detect? More than most equipment can for a sense of some of the compounds and sensory Let's not say more let's say a massive range or more There's ones that there's loads that I think that your equipment in your lab would ever would never even notice see or Or you wouldn't be able to use to know it's there Do you know what I mean? So if you're not if you're not assessing with your nose Like if you based yourself purely off what your anton par told you Then your beer could tick every single box and get out the door of the brewery And at the moment a customer cracked it open would be not even receiving, you know, what what they picked up. Yeah, um, so uh, you definitely and and Things in your your plating that like there's there's aromas that you could get much before even with like tiny counts on the plate That you might not notice Um that your nose is going to pick up Within the process as well. Um And it's often the case that For example, we'll probably talk about D Test later, but people are going to be using their, like, Spectrum Thomas and they've spent many, many thousands of pounds on these to be assessing something that you could just do by using your nose. You know, uh, which is crazy to think, uh, Yeah, I'm not saying that you shouldn't spend all the money because that's fantastic, but, uh, you know, um, cash is king. Cash is king. I, I mean, yeah, I think I could do a whole, we could probably do a whole separate, uh, Podcast just on why I think IBUs aren't really a relevant measurement. Um, but yeah, I've spent a lot of my time doing those. Um, but yeah, I'll come on for that as well. Or we just slam IBUs for half an hour. That'd be absolutely great. Um, I mean, so for sensory, like what, again, we're going to probably take what you said about the holistic, uh, approach, like what are the key aspects? I mean, are there some rules to follow for sensory? Let me, okay. So the rules, um, you're assessing a product. So I think the first rule is the people that who are assessing it, like before you kind of want to talk about sensory is that you want to talk about training. I think, um, like you wouldn't use, uh, use equipment that wasn't calibrated because then your results are worth it. Far less to be honest. Um, so the first rule I think is that everyone doing sensory Maybe should we even say what sensory we already said what sensory is a little bit but people who are assessing The product whether that be like in process Like going I go stuff or final assessment and need to all be trained on what they should be looking at looking For or what they should know that they Um, no, that can just be disregarded. Yeah. I mean like what's the problem, what's not a problem or what's good and what they shouldn't be looking for. So a lot of my job, um, when I worked for the sensory company, um, was, uh, all revolved around training. Uh, I think what happens in a lot in, in breweries and whatnot is, so I actually, I did, I dabbled in a little bit of whiskey sensory, wine sensory, and I did some vegan meat. Product sensor. Really? Uh, like it is the same thing, isn't it? You? Yeah. Yeah. A tobacco sensory I've done as well. Um, but obviously we're only talking about beer . Uh, but, um, we sit in tap rooms often and we talk about different apple aromas. We get from things or we talk, we like could spend hours poetically talking about something. Um, when I, I think what's one of the main pillars that I think we should have is a more standardized lexicon or like, uh, and that's what training does for you is that. Like we all know what something smells like because we smelt it and someone told it to us like the smell of bacon If an alien landed and they'd never seen or tasted but you know, they just smell it They wouldn't have a name for it, but we all know what it is For example, like we see the color red and we know we call it red because someone told us that's what it was Um, and then we all decided correct. Uh, so, um A lot of the training that that I used to do was using Flavor capsules for training, um, that were, um, I'm not, I'm not going to recommend any particular company because there's a few that make them, uh, but they are essentially little capsules, normally, uh, like a, a tiny sugar, within, it looks like an ibuprofen, um, and it's, um, a pure, a pure flavor, so let's use acetaldehyde in this example, um, housed inside a, a cyclodextrin sugar that dissolves when it goes into beer, so This is getting too complicated, is this? No, no, it's good. Um, so these capsules are available to buy, um, and all you would do for a training is you literally dissolve this powder into the beer. The amount of sugar in there is nothing, you can't even taste that. Um, but the flavour, uh, is released and then your beer will smell exactly of what you put in there. Um, so if you put two acetaldehyde capsules in, you're going to get six times the flavour threshold of acetaldehyde in your beer. You can pass it around the room, everyone can smell it and go, Oh, that's good. Great, this is our salad hide, this is it right now. Remember it, think about it, and then, you know, next time when you smell it, you've had it. As opposed to just someone describing to you that it smells like a green apple. Do you know what I mean? Because there's a lot of that, and, and, there are other apples, aromas in beer and what not, that people drink and they get confused, or, like, there's a lot of confusion. And the moment you have confused tasters that haven't been trained properly, then you get confused data results, then you get People panicking for no reason and whatnot, so I think i've gone so off course questioning Actually, i've got a question for you too. How common is did you see before people had the training that they were mislabeling? All the time all the time and I think that's why it's really dangerous game getting people in your panel who you've not made sure Made sure are all on the level kind of I mean It's good to start anyway and get people in but often be wary of their results and what they're saying but yeah confusions or People often being really overly critical of product as well. Um, I think it's important to remember that we are more often than not making good beer than bad beer. Uh, okay, so let's go a little bit into the first thing that you're doing essentially is that you're stopping disasters. Uh, a lot of the time. So you're using people together, you're using to stop things from happening. So when you've been trained on things that you know are going to go wrong, or could go wrong, if you see the mid process, um, you're, you're going to act on it. So you're, you're putting like, um, critical control points in same as you would have other stuff. Um, and then there's also part of it, it's going to be that you're assessing final products. Um, so you're, Like descriptive profiling like true to type brands Um on what you've got making sure that you fit that every single time And that can be used for product beer release or that can be used for like mpd on your products if you also want to um, I mean There's so many aspects of it like we talk about raw ingredient sensory a lot at some point Yeah, but maybe as a timeline we could do We're freestyling a little bit, by the way, everyone. I mean, as always, yeah. Um, yeah, that's the things we're talking quite, we'll probably focus quite a lot on beer sensory, but there's also, as you said, raw material sensory, water sensory. Uh, there's a lot of different sensory you can do in the brewery, in the, in the brewery environment, but we'll all feed into that good quality product at the end. It's a good point. I didn't even, you know, when, when I was thinking about this episode, I didn't even consider that side of it. That's what I would recommend. I would recommend all breweries every day taste their waters. Because people ignore that completely. Looking for any discrepancies in what you might have had from the day before, or every single time. Um, because that can happen. Um, I'd recommend that every time your malt comes in, um, You know at least just screen it with your eyes obviously which you're doing anyway, but taste it See what happens and every time your hot supplier comes in I'm, obviously talking about myself here Grill them check their samples. Um, you know, what's this year's crop year looking like? Um, Might not be okay The earlier crop year might be better than this year You don't know until you've got it out on the table and you and you've you've had a little sniffing her up as your pod was cool um And the same for every single thing you open you need to be getting your nose in you know What you're looking at and this is really basic stuff that you're doing on your own But if you really want to go for it, you can get your sensory panel and you can get people around the table You can get people in if you're going high level and you've got the money you might have a sensory booth suite Um, you can do blind blind assessment on your raw ingredients Um, I'd say to anyone listening to this that, uh, if you're not utilizing the ASBC methods online, you're probably, um, missing out. Uh, there's like only, uh, uh, not a lot of membership to get that. And like, for example, there's like a ASBC method on, um, like more assessment that uses like, um, cafeteria or whatever and making those. It's worth checking out. I'm not saying do it every time, but even just as a little brain piece to understand like, uh, Differences between things and um, yeah, maybe we could talk about aspecies later or something. Yeah Yeah, um, but there's an effort but a lot of what we're going to talk about today. I think if we're talking about different um Different Points in how we use our noses. There's there's methods written down for them already. Not just me freestyling from my previous experience. Yeah Yeah, i've done i've used those. Uh, there's like hop steep and and malt steep methods I've actually used those before, uh when we were doing mpd Yes, just try and get an idea of what it would be like. I mean, it's not a perfect But it's it's a good it's better than not just rely again relying on what you think Something will taste like and what you think combinations will, what combinations will work for sure. I think it's a lot more accurate than doing that, but it's still not probably perfect In my current life. We work with, I work with, uh, like hot, hot breeders, hot developers, and, uh, when we do sensory on new hot that come through, um, we will do, we'll do the dry rub, uh, for a while until we work out what we like, but then we'll, we'll go to like sleeping within a coach or something and Hmm. And, uh, like, and again trying. Uh, combinations, or, uh, when new varieties come out, you'll literally be trying one to the other, so, uh, yeah, those methods are great. Yeah, really cool. I, for me, in my professional career, I found the training of sensory one of the most enlightening experiences, I think, as a brewer. Uh, you know, when you go back to one of my questions, do people commonly mislabel, mislabel them? I mean, I don't know if I necessarily did, but I was definitely not picking up some pretty substantial flavors, uh, in, in beer that I, I did after the training. But obviously I'm a brewer, so who, who should be involved in sensory and who should be getting trained in sensory? Good question. Uh, everyone. Um, I think what happens too much in breweries is You have a head brewer who's been a head brewer for a while or a lead brewer or someone that's particularly vocal who Loves who has an instagram where they open five different beers a week and they love talking to you about it Um, that's great. Like that's good, but people listen to those people too often And just because the loudest person in the room has the biggest voice. It doesn't mean it's the most valuable um and I think uh There's wisdom in a crowd Some most of the time sometimes not but a lot of the time so the more, uh, More notices you can get into the beer the more you're going to get from it And the more credibility given to everybody's opinion is really important. Um I I did a training course once so Um, so my training course I used to do just to put in uh here to explain a little bit more Um would have been run over a course of days normally In one brewery, I worked in every staff that was on the panel had to do a minimum of three days of flavor training Which would have included, uh, let's count up, so more than like four, four hundred flavour presentations over the course of three days. Um, and that would be like constant assessment on what they had got. So, if we're, what I would often do is, we'd lay out, you'd lay out like, uh, ten samples in front of someone. You'd, you'd introduce them all to every flavour. This is like, this is, uh, this is Macaptan, this is Dastol, this is, uh, Um, and then you would train them on a bit, send them out the room, um, shuffle the board and have them come in and say what they had, uh, say what was in the cup basically. So that our training methods were a constant repetition of recognition and assessment. So what that means is partly it adds a little bit of, you've got a bit of skin in the game and you don't want to lose. But it also means that while we're training we're taking data on everybody every single time. So we know who's good and who's not. So although I just said everyone's opinion is valid, there's our people who are, let's call them sensory samurais and their noses are going to be better than anyone's. I think what I'm trying to say here is that I did a training course once. It was a six day training course. So you can imagine how intensive it is probably learning 40 plus flavors that are present in beer. Um, and the most, there was a person on the course who got, I think it was like 98 percent correct, right. For about six days, which is insane. And the guy answered the phone, uh in sales ops like he and he couldn't care less about beer so Um, those people are really important. Everybody's important. Um So yeah, i'd recommend as many people as you can get involved as possible I know that's hard a lot of people listen to this pod might be from smaller breweries There might only be a few of you on site Um The more people possible and the more credibility given to people, uh, as opposed to only listening to the loudest voice is really important. Another point I, I was like trying to get people involved who aren't the decision makers in breweries is really helpful because they can be, whether you like it or not, there's going to be some bias. If ultimately that decision, if that beer is going to get stopped due to a sensory issue and you detect it. And you, you realized, well, this is for me, I'm talking literally from my own experience, I'd smell something and be like, I don't smell the flavor compound. I smell the problem that's going to happen in scheduling for the next week when I smell this and it's going to be paused. And now I'm like, I'm, my brains already ran away with what this means to me rather than what it actually is to be. And I realized cotton dawn that I was actually not very useful in a sensory panel in that capacity. Cause I really found it hard to turn that bias off and turn my brain off to things. So I, it was quite. I think it's quite important to have a breadth of people if you can, as you said, not just brewers, but also have those people who are, who are not actually intrinsically linked to what happens in the production. And if, and it also breeds a really good culture on site that everyone's engaged in the product that's coming out of the other side of the brewery. Just, you don't have to be the person on the brew deck that has, uh, an, uh, a positive change that can can be made or negative, uh, something stopped. It's also, well, I mean what you just said is a really, I suppose when you were saying earlier, what is sensory, um, wherever possible it should be blind and without bias. Yeah. Uh, because realistically it shouldn't have mattered the headache that you're going to have because your panel leader could have been giving you six month old beer instead of fresh beers and so that wouldn't have been as much of a problem. Um, so maybe something else that what is sensory It should be unbiased Yes, um, and uh, and yeah, uh, people are incredibly, uh, susceptible to someone telling you something. Um, it's almost why whenever we try and assess beers, try not to read the can before you drink it. Cause if someone tells you it smells of passion fruit and pineapple, um, then that tropical beer, obviously. Um, but also within, um, within panel as well, like I used to do when I was running panels, I would always try and, um, Get people to avoid chatting about what they had, uh Had assessed in their sensory session, you know before they spoke to anyone else because they go around and go Oh my god, there's one of those beers that sails forever this reason this reason Uh, then everyone's going to come in and mark it down for five different beers in there Because they don't want to be wrong or or because they are completely biased. So um, yeah should be Blind, wherever possible So I guess we go into How do you train people in sensory? So I know you talked about earlier having the off labor standards and you maybe you gave a little insight to how that looked when you were training people. But if in a, in a, let's say a brewery environment and you can't, isn't having that third party training, managing it for them, how can they go about starting a training program within the brewery? I'd say the, some of the biggest, the biggest stumbling blocks or roadblocks that people put in front of sensory is It's often money, because they think that they're going to have to spend all this money on, on the, the, the products for training, which, if you can get your hands on them, I highly recommend to like, second to none. Um, but getting people in the room together and talking about, um, what they're making, what you're making is really important. You know, if, if ever, if everyone just could put aside, if you don't have anything set up where you talk about your beer other than your head brewer drinks a pint of it after work. Um, if you get everyone together and you sit and you talk about it and you start to talk about the key characteristics and you're talking about the hot profile that you currently have. Um, getting everyone on the same page, setting aside some time that you do it, once a week, or three times a week, or however much you want to do it. Like, you go to breweries, like, like, I used to work with New Belgium in my old job, and, in, in the States, and they have, like, five people that, or I think it's three full timers that are running panels all the time and whatnot. But it just needed a few of you getting together and discussing, communicating, um, and, and at least picking up, um, Some reading material so that you know what you should be looking for, even if you can't get your hands on the flavor to smell it, at least read, uh, you know, some of the attributes that you're going to be looking for. I think that kind of was the reason, but, uh, and I remember cause I've done the, the, it wasn't you who, who did the administer the train, but I'd done the three day course, I think. And a lot of it was association again, you touched on it earlier, but that for me was really powerful. So it was, I know you said like, you know, you don't know red and red until someone tells you. And it, it wasn't just that it was like, this is, let's say, I think it was, it's just plug one of the L's DMS and. I think it's uh, like emulsion paint was one of them and I think people get it. It's like tin sweet corn Not dms is an emulsion paint, but keep going. Anyway, uh dms what's one of our i'm thinking of tin tomatoes tin tomatoes Yeah, yeah, so that was sweet corn tin tomatoes. So sweet corn I never get it. I maybe I get it now, but when they first I was like, no i'm not getting it and then the person said, uh tin tomatoes. And I was like, whoa, that is exactly what that smells like to me. So then that association was really important for me because I could be like, if I smelled tin tomatoes, I mean it was pretty high level, but if I could smell anything like tin tomatoes, I could be much more sure it was that. Whereas I think DMS and sweetcorn was really confusing in my head. Because that's just what it is for someone. Whenever we were training on that, we often used to do that. Like you want to add your own story, your own narrative, your own something. It doesn't matter how you get there as long as you finish saying DMS. It doesn't matter how you recognize or you got there, like your, your olfactory system, so your nose to brain, basically, um, is incredibly sensitive as we know, um, but, uh, it's, it's directly kind of touching in your head, uh, to your limbic system, which is like your memories, emotion, and like, kind of, uh, like responses. You know, all that to it, like innate stuff, but you find that your nose is incredibly, like, actionful and, and, and emotive. For example, if you smell an old partner's perfume on the train, it doesn't mean that they have to be wearing it, but instantly you're like, Oh my God! Uh, and you either, like, cry or, uh, I don't know. Uh, or, like, you might smell a particular food and it reminds you of a holiday, or you're like, yeah, it can, your smell can take you somewhere. Uh, so. So much. So I would often, um, whenever you're smelling something to try and think of, of what it means for you. Um, I'm just trying to think of some examples when I was learning flavour. So I, in my previous jobs, have done such extensive flavour training on so many different flavours that there's lots of strange stories. Alright, so ethylhexanoate is a fermentation of flavour. Um, Uh, and actually I was chatting with a brother about this the other day, he's done some training. And people were talking to me about all the different things, and I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Uh, and then I was like, I'm kinda getting something, it smells different to the reference sample, but I don't know what this is. Um, I haven't got something in my brain yet. Uh, and if I examine that, people often say like, oh, it's like a really overripe red apple. I was like, yeah, maybe. Um, and then someone said it smells like Red Bull and a student disco nightclub like carpet floor and suddenly I was like, oh my god I'm there And I've now smelled that on people's beer where they do have fermentation issues Um, and I go oh my god, it smells like a student disco nightclub I obviously don't say that out loud because the customer or the person's gonna think i'm absolutely mad So I go, oh there's several hexanoate in this product. So and there's lots of those. Um, Um, the characteristics on there are often, uh, like blackberry or, uh, like, yeah, blueberry, blackberry, grape, something like that. Um, and actually the time I got it, the first, I don't smoke at all anymore, I haven't smoked in a long time, but the first time I ever tried a cigarette was a cherry flavored cigarette on Hastings Beach, uh, with a friend, we escaped from a school trip. Um, and I just suddenly said, I was, someone said, it's a bit like tobacco as well, and I was like, oh my god, I'm there. I think there's so many of these things. If you add an aroma to your brain in terms of a memory or often a joke as well, sometimes if you, if you add a joke in when you're trying to remember something, um, it really enables you to, uh, this is an emotion. So you remember it quicker, uh, than just saying, this is this, say this. Constantly, repeat it again and again and again. It's about like getting your own attachment and. Oh, that got really weird then, didn't it? No, I think that, cos that, that's one of the things that I found really interesting was that, yeah, that emotive side of, and as you said, cos it's linked to your olfactory system, but yeah, it's, it's how emotive it actually really is. And, yeah, I think, I go back to that, the tinned I still remember smelling it and going, that's like me cracking that tin of tomatoes and then getting that big whiff. That was what, I had the memory that I was smelling rather than it's really weird to explain out loud I was like literally smelling a memory as much as I was smelling anything else And before that I found it really difficult That's dms is something that I I still really struggled to pick up which is why again the the power of a team because you'd probably be much more talented than I would in if that was a product if I like You know wasn't boiling enough to and there was still some of that around I wasn't getting that off or my milk store was doing A bad job. I probably wouldn't realize or know You DMS is one that you get when you're assessing beer. I recommend anybody kind of look online and the methods of this is Too often do people pick up Their beer and they put it straight into the nose. They take the biggest width and they go. Ah, I'm getting everything If you're doing sensory properly, you really you flirt with the beer and you start you you work your way in So the DMS is something that you pick up and We used to call it the drive by or tuning the radio so you're having the beer miles away from your nose And you you're passing it by very quickly and gently Or you're smelling it from a distance and it's more you'll get it there the moment you get your nose straight in that that glass It's gonna. It's gonna be really hard to pick up so Yeah, DMS would be one that that is often missed because people just get their nose straight in And they're hit with more With different flavors one of the more delicate ones. Let's say that it hits you from afar and not straight away um, and you touched on something that's really Like a really good point some people are blind to certain flavor compounds, right? So yeah, or they basically their threshold is much Higher than someone else's it's not you don't really know that until you do it But yeah very much so uh, i've worked with some people who are really really talented tasters Um, far more so than me, that uh, some of them are just like, I'm going to sit this one out. Or, well, you would never sit it out, but their, their, their opinions on that might be completely like, voided by the panel leader. Uh, although I kind of encourage people to not think about it too much, because some people will instantly say that they can't. They're like, Oh, I'm really blind to this and I would almost try to just pretend you're not to anything. I had a brewer the other day when I was doing some training. I don't do this for a job anymore, but sometimes I offer, um, breweries I work with on Hops a little bit of free consultancy. If they're, uh, please don't hook me up. If you like, do not contact me. Contact yourself in the show notes. Free sensory training for all. But I was training some brewers the other day, um, just while I was there on one of my visits. Um, and I met, we, I had some samples, some capsules that they, they purchased and I was just, was using them with them. Um, and someone was saying they were blind to dust or which isn't that common to be honest. Um, yeah, they were telling me that they were and that they didn't do the D test for that reason in the brewery. And I was kind of like, I don't know if you set yourself out too quickly there, like I'm pretty sure you, you, you probably can. Um, and I did him a like massively highly dosed sample. Um, alongside one medium and one none. Um, And uh, sent him out the room and he came in and he spotted it straight away. So it was probably just that he's maybe not that good at it. Do you know what I mean? Like he's still there, his threshold's maybe not the same as everyone. And it is the case that some people are amazing, um, tasters. I spoke about the Sensory Samurai earlier, who did so well in his assessment. But it's like a muscle, it's a skill, you learn it, you get better and better. Like when I first started training, I was, let's just say, the higher end of average, to be honest. Um, I'm like not a talented taster, but. I ended up doing it so much that I'm putting a lot of effort in that you end up being Like it's it's it's it's a muscle that you have to work and work and work and whenever you're teaching people on particular flavors you start Um high and work low as you you get down. I described it as a bit like You get to know a flavour in the same way you get to know a friend in a, in a quiet pub. Uh, but as you become better and better friends, you'll be able to listen to them when you're in a, in a, in a late night venue or something. And there's other noises around, and there's background noise or things like when you learn flavours you'll learn it. Normally people try and learn it in a really light lager, but if you're doing good sensory training then by the end of the courses you'll be learning it in strong IPAs and dark beers and whatnot. There's a lot of background noise in those. People spend too much time, um, practicing on, uh, on just, they go to the shop and buy Budweiser or something. But, uh, I guarantee you that most of the Brewers Businesses podcasts probably make more, um, uh, flavourful beers. I don't mind me saying, sorry any Budweiser listeners. Yeah, so, have you got any examples of, like, assessment types in sensory? Uh, okay, so, assessment types that you kind of want to be introducing to your brewery just on a day to day, and this is funny because I'm aware that some people who listen to this might be one man bands, or they might be, you know, Working for, you know, brewers that sell something in a supermarket or something. But, um, I already kind of touched on raw ingredients earlier. So, there's that. We mentioned water. Uh, I'd be ta Basically, the more you can taste your product throughout the process, the better it's going to be. Because beer is an ever wonderful changing thing. Um, and, uh, I would set up. Certain, let's call them, taste gates throughout production. Uh, so maybe that's, uh, well, at the end of fermentation, maybe a couple of days after a dry hop, certainly before you're going to transfer into your BBT, um, and maybe before, well, yeah, before you pack for sure, because you want to know what's going into that can, keg, bottle, cask, whatever, um, is, um, is of what it needs to be. I'd say until that point though, you're probably okay with just doing, kind of. Some people say stop, go, go, no, go. You're just saying yes, no, this is possible. Um, and at that point in time, you're not assessing, you're not describing particularly, you're not saying like, I'm going to give this all these amazing attributes. You're just identifying what you shouldn't be looking for. And you're saying this is, or this isn't. Um, it's also really important. I think when you're doing taste gates, so a good example of a taste gate might be your, like your D test, your diastole test. So at that point you're only assessing. Four Diastal, you'll have a quick smell of everything else, but you're just saying, is this present and can I continue on with my process? Probably worth checking for us hide at the same time at that point.'cause that's when it's present, but that's another thing. Um, so Taste Gates would be throughout the process. And, and, and if you've, maybe we could link to some sites and in the show notes on this definitely that are gonna have a list of what you want to be checking for. Um, but you're looking for fermentation or flavors at that stage. Um, in time. Um, and you're literally just saying yes, this is good to go, or no. And when we say no, we're not saying no, dump the batch. Uh, we're saying no, this needs even more time, or this needs a conversation. So let's call it go and pause. Do you know what I mean? And also remember that if ever you do press pause, don't worry. There's not, you're not gonna, like you were saying earlier about having a headache about all the problems that's gonna be caused. Unless you are the head brewer, it's not your problem. Uh, so what I mean is that is don't fill the weight of the entire yeah, like at the end of the day It's only beer Um, and you know, but we need to think about it properly. So let's say go and pause to assess and address If there is a problem, but more often than not the pause just means we need to spend a little bit of time on that And we'll do a detest tomorrow and i'm sure we'll be fine Um, or if need be we need to route a tank or something like that Um, so you're just you're setting a point in time that you might need to make a change um I'd say when you start to get further down the line, maybe when you get into your bright tank or something Um, you're going to be want to do some more like true to True to target. I think i'd probably prefer to say true to brand You Um, on, on your product. So that would mean before you were going to do this, you would sit down together and do, and so out a, this is exactly what our product, our, our brand is that we make, and, uh, you can do that in this in depth or as little as you want, um, If you have the time and you can do it fully, I'd do a full descriptive profiling on it. And you can end up with different spider charts for your hop characters and intensity charts. And you can tie that in with, you know, with your actual lab tests that you've done on your, like, the bitterness of the beer and that can be used alongside. Which, um, we used to do in my brewery, we would use full descriptive profiling periodically on a beer to make sure it's not completely strained. But for beer release, we used to just go alongside. Um, a, uh, a program that had generated, uh, a, a description. So it would be like, this beer is, has some floral aroma, but mainly grapefruit and citrus, and some bitterness, that, that is lingering, and mild sweetness, and, and it, but it would go through like the, the visual, the aroma, the taste, and, and the like general. Um, so, I'd say in a, in a Bright, you at least want to be doing beer release by just like treat your brand. Um, uh, and then, yeah, after I would head into more of the descriptive stuff with finished product in package. Um, I'd also say that it's really essential. Ugh, that not enough breweries do it if they taste old beer. Yeah. Like, like, the, people, it leaves, they taste it in the brine, they go, Ugh, God, this is great. Like, I'm not surprised, yeah. You've done such a great job. Really, everybody, come and taste this. This is great. Um, and people don't, don't stop and think enough of how long it takes for this beer to go into supply chain and get to a customer. And then also sit in a fridge or on a, someone's shelf for another two months. Like, uh, my, my pre, when I, um, I actually changed some of the policies within the brewery that we had. I, I said we should keep all the beer for a year Even if it goes out of date in six months, like fortunately we had the shelf space So it didn't make any difference, but it was there if we needed to and we used to assess it and have fun with it as well Um, but pick up, um, well like schedule in a can, uh, like once a month And see how it's aging. Um, there's like certain we might talk about some off flavors later But some certain off flavors that are developed in the brew house that you only see in package products Um, so I would like very much encourage shelf life testing Um, and and if you really want to go for all out, I would do ambient and refrigerated as well and see what happens um Uh, and and and with that you could do go no go if you want Would you buy would you not buy but if you really want to you could do some more descriptive profiling and um, and rank rate, uh The different hop hop aromas and whatnot. See how it goes within time Um talk about you know, how much the sweetness increases Um Cause yeah, that's essentially when your customer's gonna get it. You need to put yourself in the place of the actual drinker and not, not us, not we. We are fortunate enough to drink it as fresh as you could possibly ever get it. I actually really guide now, I don't work in breweries cause I, not guide, I enjoy my life. But I, I do miss that point of like, sneaking down to the, the BBTs to get an actual pint. Oh, that's so good. It was good man, it was good. Nothing better. Don't get it, I drink, yeah, I drink. Nothing better. Yeah, nothing better. Nothing better. There's other great things about life when you move onwards, but if you work in a brewery always remember that moment. Yeah It's been good, man. It was good. Um, but yeah, uh, definitely shelf life testing Um, I suppose another test type that we could I just keep thinking of test types in my head now rank rating is a Is a big one. So just um You know zero to ten on on different attributes. Yeah, so that that's often If you're like laying up an assessment you might You can list as many attributes as you possibly wanted to and rank it zero zero to whatever um There you go, yeah, that's what we used to do quite a lot of Rating I suppose this is a reasonably relevant point. If you want to talk about software. Yeah, yeah. Because I imagine you're talking about something different to what I'm talking about. Uh huh. Um, I am going to just say on this podcast right now that this is not a sale pitch from me, because I don't work for this company, but there's a piece of software out there called Giraffe Lab that I'd recommend to every brewer. I don't say buy it, it's fucking expensive if you get the full one, to be honest, but there's If you can afford it, mind boggling, um, but it's a really good software that you can, I think they've got a free version. You get a free trial and then you pay more and more, the more functionality you get on it. Um, but it's a sensory software for your brewery that you can, uh, you can, uh, batch track on it and, and, uh, test it throughout its life and different test types on there. Um, during COVID we used it a hell of a lot cause it's available on your phone. So, so this could do, you know, During COVID, I actually was sending out, um, packs of packaged products in like pack techs, six packs of, uh, of product that they, uh, The um, taster at home didn't know was fresh or aged or that we were watching for a particular quality reason and stuff and they were still unable, able to do it on their phones. Um, and when we, within our sensory booths, we actually just had, um, little Amazon pads with their app on it as well. So I'd say if you're looking into some software that you can use that maybe isn't going to cost the earth and be really functional, um, that's good. You don't need to, like, I popped to a brewery the other day, I was talking about some, a customer. Um, and they got out their intense excel spreadsheets that they were currently working off uh with every single batch and it was Every single batch had its own sheet that then had tabs at the bottom from a template and it was all their different taste gate points, so Batch two eight five seven had its own excel and then a tab at the bottom had we tasted it here Yes, no here. Yes. No here. Yes. No standard descriptive. I was like god, this is complicated You Um, but they had developed, everyone wants to do it different and that's what they developed and they were probably saving money because they weren't paying for special software. Um, I, we sat down and made some edits because I was a bit like, this seems a bit messy but, um, good for them. Yeah, yeah, and it can, do you know what, I think a lot of it, sometimes when you can't afford or you don't want to spend the money on software It can become discouraging to not do the actual task. And I've got a whole episode on data logging, because I know and feel very passionate about how important it is to create data that you can then analyze. Have you done that already? Uh, the podcast? Yeah. Yeah, not on sensory software, but it is on data. Oh god, there's me saying I'm an avid listener. Yeah, I know, it's okay. I've only done the good ones, you know. Oh, hops, that's cool. What are they? Uh, data. Boring! Next! Sorry, um, I'll make sure I do go back and listen. There's a really good point though, like, what gets measured gets managed. Um, and if you're not making note of this For example, like, a lot of what this comes down to is problem solving. And in my previous lines of work we had many problems. And the moment something happens, same as with everything, you go, okay, so has this happened before? Did it happen in this particular tank? Did it happen at that time of day? Who was on shift when that transfer happened? Oh, turns out it was Jack every single time. Um, and, and batch tracking with, with these taste gates and with your final, um, you know, descriptive profiling, if you are going to go that far, um, cause you're going to want to look back at these and see your trends and whatnot if you can. So, yeah. So there's water cheesy saying, what gets measured gets managed. I say it a lot for what I do with Brewers Also because it's this, that concept applies to literally everything in a brewery. So whether you're managing water readings, for example, if you're managing water, if you're measuring it, you're managing it. If you're not measuring it, then Don't look at that. So this is, it's the same thing. Um, it applies to everything in brewing actually. Yeah. And then I think I go always one step further. It's like you measure it and then you also have to monitor it. So you have to have, you know, some sort of data recording. So it's great when everyone gets together to do the sensory, but if there's no record of it, it does become, you don't learn from it. You're, in my opinion, you're just losing out on an opportunity to learn down the line. Just tracking it and sitting down with a lot in the past when I was in the lab, I Meet with the head brewer once a week and we'd we'd go over everything that we tasted as a team that week and that would lead into brewing decisions or um fixing problems or issues or Issues i've opened so many cans in my life. Um, we're like we need to go back We need to take me back Problems to be discussed on this But yeah okay, so that's going to wrap up this episode of the Modern Brewer Podcast. But don't worry everyone, Jethro is going to be back in the next episode where we're going to be discussing in depth on some flavours you might detect in beer. And also some common mistakes in sensory. So, it should be a nice deep dive into, the actual compounds themselves. So, thanks so much for listening to this episode. I'll catch you on the next episode of the Modern Brewer Podcast.