Consuming craft beer is easier than ever. Southern Wake County and the Triangle as a whole boast a seemingly endless supply of local breweries. This bounty means we consumers can figure out what we like in a beer and find others that replicate that same flavor profile.
Learning how to evaluate a beer makes it easier to consistently find tasty beverages. When judging a beer, consider four aspects: aroma, appearance, flavor and mouthfeel.
Understanding Flavor
In professional scoring, flavor accounts for the most points. An evaluator will taste for flavors from the four main ingredients of beer: hops, malt, yeast and water.
Hops: Grassy bitterness, tropical fruit, pine sap or floral notes.
Malt: Contributes flavors ranging from uncooked bread dough to coffee grounds.
Yeast: Fruity or spicy flavors.
Water: Certain waters can add mineral notes, make beers taste more crisp and bitter, or accentuate the malt found in malty beers.
Scoring Happy Place
Happy Place Golden Lager is a beer brewed in the German Helles style, the most consumed style of beer in Germany.
When you take a whiff of the beer, you have a malt-derived graham cracker, white bread dough and table water cracker. The hops give the impression of sage, freshly mowed lawn and wild flowers. There is also a faint red apple aroma from the lager yeast used.
When you drink the beer the sweet malt character is balanced by the bitterness and grassy herbal hop flavor. At 4.5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), Happy Place is an easy-drinking brew.
