Originally published in the September/October 2003 issue of Zymurgy magazine
by Mark Tumarkin
On “Saturday Night Live,” Billy Crystal’s character Fernando used to say, “It’s better to look good than to feel good, and dahling, you look mahvelous.” Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far with beer. How it tastes is certainly more important than how it looks, but appearance can tell us a lot about what’s in our glass before we even take a sip. That is, if we bother to really look at it. Appearance is underrated even when it comes to judging beer. On the 50-point scale, appearance is given a mere 3 points; one each for color, clarity and head (including retention, color and texture). This slight attention to the visual aspects of the brew has always seemed too meager to me.
Perhaps this feeling that we should attend more closely to the visual aspects of beer began with my experience judging meads, where appearance is worth 5 points in the total scale. While this does not seem like much of a difference, it is important. Mead is more similar to wine than it is to beer, and is judged more like wine than beer. As beer judges, our first action is to put the glass to our nose and inhale. In judging wine, one starts by holding up the glass and looking at color and clarity, the disc or meniscus, body and legs. A tremendous amount of information is available for consideration before the glass ever approaches the nose or lips.
My feelings regarding this matter may have originated in an e-mail exchange I had several years ago with Hans Aikema, a Dutch homebrewer and judge, about how the Dutch judge beer. Dutch homebrew judges give appearance 30 out of a possible I 00 points. While I think that this places too much emphasis on appearance, I would like to see North American judges give it a bit more attention. Indeed, appearance used to be worth 6 points before the BJCP score sheet was redesigned in the mid-1990s.
To be fair, there is a danger in placing too much emphasis on appearance. With some inexperienced judges, appearance can overly affect their total assessment of the beer, for good or bad. I have heard this called the halo effect. We should also consider the flavor implications when observing appearance, looking for clues about what we’ll taste.
Seeing the Light
While the appearance of beer is important to the brewer, drinker or judge because it often indicates product quality, the way beer looks in the glass hasn’t always been an issue. It is only relatively recently that beer has even been served in glass containers. Historically, beer was consumed from containers made of leather, pottery, metal or wood. All these materials were opaque and the beers themselves tended to be dark and cloudy as well. Under those circumstances, appearance just wasn’t very important.
With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, several developments occurred that would change this. First, coke and kilns allowed for the less expensive production of pale malt, which had previously been very expensive. This allowed for the common production of paler, lighter beers. Secondly, mass production made glassware cheap and abundant. It may not be entirely coincidence that Bohemian crystal and Czech Pilsners come from the same area. Although Bohemian crystal had been famous for centuries, in the early 1800s industrial production made glassware much more readily available. With the growing popularity of the new light-colored lagers from Pilsen in the mid-1840s, a beer’s appearance became much more important.
Britain saw a similar increase in availability and decrease in prices. This was a large factor in the move from brown ales and porters to lighter, pale ales.
Once glasses came into common use, drinkers could see their beer as they drank it-and as with many things in our culture, looks became very important. The patrons began to evaluate the beer in front of them for color, clarity or haziness, the head or foam stand, all of which provide information or clues as to the quality and character of the beer about to be consumed. For many, if it looked cloudy or otherwise imperfect, it must taste imperfect as well.
At the Judge Table
Now let us return to modern times. When we judge a beer, we compare the beer in front of us to the BJCP Style Guidelines in an attempt to see how closely the beer we are judging matches the described standard. A judge starts getting information about a beer even before it is opened. This starts with a bottle inspection: we look at the bottle for fill level, neck rings or floating objects, and the absence or presence of yeast at the bottom. This inspection can tell us such things as whether or not the beer was bottle conditioned, or can indicate a possible infection or oxidation in the beer.
As the beer is poured and comes to rest in the cup, we begin to gather a great deal of visual information starting with color. Color results primarily from the malts used in brewing. When we’re considering a particular style, color is a vital source of information about how close the beer comes to the standard. For example, you wouldn’t expect to see the dark browns, reds or blacks from highly kilned specialty malts like chocolate or roast barley in a Pilsner, just as you wouldn’t expect to taste these flavors in this style.
In addition to ingredients, brewing process and technique can impact color. Maillard reactions have a huge impact on both beer color and flavor. The products of Maillard browning are perhaps the major source of beer color as well as contributing to malty rich flavors (both in malt and the resulting beer). Caramelization is a related but different source of color. A long boil time can cause the malt to caramelize, giving a darker color to the beer. The longer boiling can also have a corresponding impact on the flavor of the beer. While this would lend an appropriate rich maltiness to a Scottish Ale, it would not fit the appearance or flavor expected in a Kolsch.
Oxidation of polyphenols, or tannins, also has a major impact on both color and flavor in beer. Although most judges are familiar with both the positive (sherry/nutty or dark fruit notes) and negative (papery/cardboard staling) flavor impact of oxidation, many are not aware of the color implications. Polyphenols react with oxygen in the boil to contribute red or brown darkening to the beer. This is well known to wine judges who will often tilt the glass on its side and look for telltale browning at the thin edges of the wine.
While judging, we look for a color range consistent with the style. Some styles have a very narrow range of color, like the afore mentioned Kolsch, which has an SRM range of only 1.5 units, from 3.5 to 5 SRM. Counter this with a style that has a much broader spectrum, such as Eisbock. The BJCP guide lines allow for a huge 32 SRM unit spread, from a moderate 18 to a very dark 50. In addition to the malt color and boil time, other aspects of the brewing process can also affect color. Fining or filtration can remove beer-darkening particles. Oxidation, in the brewing process or in the bottle, can darken a beer and impact flavor.
All is Clear
Clarity is another factor we look at when judging beer. A brilliantly clear clear Czech Pilsner is a thing of beauty. Each bubble is displayed in perfect detail as the sparkling light reflects through the glass. For such a light beer, this level of clarity is expected in order to meet the style guidelines. On the other hand, some beer styles are expected to be cloudy. Part of the allure of pouring a Hefeweizen is to swirl the bottle to rouse the yeast sediment into suspension, producing a cloudy, churning beer. Aside from styles that are naturally cloudy from yeast or high wheat content, there are many things that can contribute to poor clarity or that help to achieve brilliant clarity. These include techniques such as good recirculation and lautering, filtering to remove protein or yeast particles that can contribute to poor clarity, or fast wort chilling to coagulate and drop out hot and cold break materials.
Fining or filtering are both used to remove as much of the particulate matter as possible including yeast, polyphenols, proteins and tannins. While removal of these particles improves clarity by addressing both chill haze and permanent biological or chemical haze, such methods do not generally impact beer flavor. However, a beer with good clarity can be cleaner tasting and is certainly more stable for long-term storage. Also, there are certainly implications of haze that go beyond appearance to impact flavor.
We all know that the first three rules of brewing are sanitation, sanitation and sanitation. Good sanitation is critical to avoid bacterial infections. These infections can greatly affect the appearance of beer by causing cloudiness, neck rings, floating objects or gushing. In the U.K., where cellaring beer is an art, a hazy pint will often be refused for fear of bacterial infection. Bacteria can feed on proteins that won’t be consumed by yeast. Over time, that haze can lead to flavor degradation and gushing over carbonation as the bacteria party on.
Fun With Foam
Head is the final factor in appearance that we evaluate when scoring beer for competition. We look at head in terms of formation, retention, color and texture. The head is created by bubbles formed as carbonation breaks out of solution and is trapped by proteins and other foam-forming compounds in the beer. Some grains such as crystal malt, malted and unmalted wheat, dextrin malt and flaked barley can improve head formation and retention. One rule of thumb for good head retention is to see if approximately one half the original head remains after one minute has passed.
A number of factors can kill or reduce beer foam. Glassware contaminated with dirt or detergent residue prevents head from fully and properly forming. High gravity beers may form little or no head due to the thinning qualities of alcohol. Some fining agents such as bentonite can strip head forming proteins from beer. And, while a good head is important, too much head can also be a problem. This can be caused by a variety of things such as over-carbonation, bacterial infection or excessive proteins. Excessive head detracts from the overall appearance and appreciation of the beer and even blocks a judge from assessing the aromas of the beer.
A perfect head comes in many forms. Wheat beers throw heads that are tall and fluffy. Beers like Guinness that are poured on draft with a mixture of nitrogen and CO2 produce a thick and luxurious head above a bubbly cascade inside the glass in a show that can last for a minute or two. Some beers will leave delicate rings of foam down the side of the glass following each sip, producing a so-called Belgian Lace.
Drink With Your Eyes
As you’ve seen, much can be learned about a beer from its appearance, even before you taste it. Judges consider many factors when judging the appearance portion of a beer and some of those same factors come into play when friends sit down to enjoy a pint of brew.
Beyond what the brewer does, beer appearance is also affected by presentation and pouring. Think about the many and varied styles of Belgian beer glassware. For the proper sensory impact, each beer should be served in the proper glass. Or consider the long, slow pour as the barman in an Irish pub pulls a perfect pint of Guinness versus the German barmaid as she upends that weizen bottle into its large, tall glass. So, next time you find yourself with a glass of beer, take a good, long look a t it first, and then remember Fernando as you think, “Dahling…You look mahvelous!”
Mark Tumarkin has been brewing since 1995. He is currently a member of the AHA Board of Advisers, an active BJCP judge and a member of the executive committee for his homebrew club, the Hogtown Brewers, in Gainesville, Fla.
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