How do I develop my understanding?

Check out a great book, " Tasting Beer" by Randy Mosher. A great read. Manitoba? Got local brewpubs or breweries? I have always enjoyed the beers from Unibroue, but they are way east, they must distro to all of Canada? Seems Winnipeg has 6 or 7 brewpubs or breweries?

 

I love all the answers so far. I used to sit with my beer and drink it while looking at a blank paper. Then I started reading reviews as I drank. Things began to click and so I started coming over to the forums where you can find anything you want to know about beer! Styles should not be intimidating and we love them here. New Beer Sunday is a great place to check out detailed reviews but also the fun stuff is always in WBAYDN. I show up there daily with the same two or three beers. Check out the beers that are the exemplars in their style. And then you will naturally gravitate toward what you like . =)

 

The scene in the Peg is quite small but there are some new things that have come up. Whether it is sustainable or not is another story.

As always time will tell just try to go out there and try everything and anything, and you'll have more opinions on beers with the more you have. Also plan a trip somewhere and change your surroundings to try other beers.

Not to sound like a broken record, BHUT... I got back from Minneapolis not too long ago which has a huge beer scene compared to Winnipeg. Go check it out, lots of Peggers do, and it's your closest best beer city by far that offers alot.



Cheers!

 

You are doing it already.
Ask questions;
Drink more variety.

 

While Barnhammer and the Peg are somewhat new and just getting their feet wet, (possibly Torque also?) another place is "allegedly" coming in May that would be Trans Canada Brewing http://www.tcb.beer/#intro

 

At the end of the day, it's about enjoying beer. For some folks (myself included) that means typing up a few hundred, maybe a thousand, words to describe it. For others, it's about just finding more and more beers you enjoy. I think most of us started as the latter. Unfortunately, there is no quick (and healthy) way to develop a better understanding quickly. But, that slow growth is a part of the journey. Drink more good beers. When you're sitting down to enjoy a beer, pour it into a glass and take a moment to assess your pour, and the aesthetics of the beer. Beer is meant to be drank, obviously, but developing a better understanding starts with the first visual stimuli. Then, take a sniff and a sip. Make sure to pause after each to find ONE thing you like or don't like. What's that particular flavor, that note? What particular thing do you no like in the flavor? Is it off? Or do you just not like honey in your beer? You start to find more notes here and there, and after a few months to years, you can pick up notes and nuances.

Half of being able to write a good review is being able to translate your experience into words. There are people out there who can really pick up on flavor nuances, but it takes a bit of writing skill to express that, especially through the internet. So to simply my advice: drink your beer with a purpose to pick out a note or two each review category, and read more. It'll help you diversify your vocab and syntax, and will have a tremendous benefit to your ability to share your interpretation of a beer.

Cheers!

 

I won't be saying much different than the fine folks here already have, but here's some words of advice anyway:

1) Don't be intimidated by others knowledge, tap it. Most people love to share their experiences, but if they come across as judgmental assholes...move on!
2) Trust your palate and progress with it. Don't buy in to what is popular just because that's what you "should like", buy what you do like and stick to those styles and move on as your palate guides you. Eventually, this patience will pay off and will have taken you on an amazing adventure to find out which styles you like and dislike, but most importantly you will respect and understand all (or at least most) of them!
3) If you can find a brewery that you like and trust, and that has a portfolio of many styles that are well done (i.e. Sierra Nevada, Deschutes), you can feel comfortable knowing you are sampling classic examples and move on from there. Perhaps not mind blowing at times, but a foot in the door and on the right path, and will probably come back full circle to.

However you do it, enjoy the ride. Cheers!

 

I'd say just be around, interact and maybe just ask. I've never made any transactions on BA here before but a in my larger facebook group, I've help as many people as I can out. Guy wanted a sixer of Zombie Dust a few weeks ago so I went out, bought it, packed it, sent him a picture of the receipt and date on beer and just asked that he pay that. No profit, no beer in return, just want others to enjoy the beer that they can't get.

Never traded here as I never show up here that often, seems that everyone is really cool though.

 

I'm here to tell you I live in one of the best distro areas in the us, and 90% of the beers here are shelf turds too. If you want to expand your horizons I recommend he king out some literature, and drink some beers while reading reviews of said beer. It makes it easy to say "oh, I taste that too" or " this dude is full of shit". Seriously, I never got tobacco in a beer before tonight. I had read it in alot of reviews before, but had never tasted it. Crazy.

 

Do drink whatever you like, but also don't be afraid to try new things. In fact, please do try new things. Try at least two to three examples of every beer style, at least several times. All of beer is an acquired taste, including individual styles. It's okay to not like everything, but you're doing yourself a disservice if you miss out on something you might come to like, so please try everything.

 

I started trading for top beers. After that I started homebrewing, then finally I started understanding. I'm not a craft beer snob, it doesn't bother me other people like only cheap mass produced bottles. I don't even mind having one myself from time to time if that's all there is.
I'm simple really, but beer is fun drink and make. I enjoy making up a recipe and seeing how it turns out. Especially when I achieve something I was aiming for.
See what styles you like the most, see what styles you don't care for. What's the right amount of alcohol for you? The right variety of hops. The right consistency.
Beers is hobby for me, making it, trying variety, rating them. Tons of fun!
Don't worry, drink up and enjoy no matter how cheap, expensive, rare, or common.

 

I am also a homebrewer like @Junkforadam and I would like to springboard off of his post.

One of the beauties of homebrewing is that it permits you to make and drink any sort of beer you like; you have full control here.

In my homebrewing I have traveled geographically and also through time. Some of the beers I have homebrewed are either not easy to obtain and in some cases impossible to obtain other than via brewing them yourselves.

Some examples:

I have recreated the original Michelob beer of 1896. Needless to say but this beer is not commercially available.

I have brewed a Tmavý Ležák (Czech Dark Lager) several times. I am not aware that this sort of beer is commercially available in the US; you would need to travel to Europe (e.g., Czech Republic) to drink this sort of beer.

I have brewed a Grodziskie (Graetzer) beer. “The once-popular style languished during Soviet occupation following World War II, seemingly lost forever after the last brewery in Grodzisk closed in 1993.” This beer is not commonly brewed so homebrewing is a BIG plus here.

So, if you want to beer travel without leaving your house then homebrewing may be a hobby for you.

Cheers!

 

@JackHorzempa I saw a grodzisk on the shelf yesterday.

 

The last commercially brewed Grodziskie I had was a couple of years ago at a local brewpub.

Which brewery produced the beer you saw? Is it available year round?

Cheers!

 

How I've used reviews here & elsewhere :
Look at the beers that you've had.

Find others that have a similar opinion/description as you.

When you find that, look at their other reviews of beer that you have in common

When you find those that share a similar opinion on most things in common, then follow them. When you are in doubt about purchasing an unknown beer (On the off chance you can;t just buy 'em all. ; ) ), or having trouble analyzing one you have, look at their reviews, to help figure it out.

 

One thing I'd mention is that when you're reading reviews, don't be intimidated when you read the long lists of flavors some people can pick up on. I'm still lucky if I can pick up on half the things the more experienced people here do, but it can still be a great way of learning to hone in on and notice different things, as well as to give you verbal descriptors for flavors you couldn't quite put your finger on.

I remember once trying my hand at a detailed review for a fairly oddball beer (a coffee barley wine) and being completely unable to define parts of what i was tasting. Then I read a few other reviews and was like "yes! - graham cracker and marshmallow. That's it!"

If you have the beer in front of you and you've yet to read any reviews, drink the beer first. That way you're adding information to your experience rather than priming yourself to perceive things a particular way.

There's a lot of hugely knowledgable people here, so it really is a great resource for both figuring out what you might want to try as well as helping you organize your thoughts after trying it.

 

I will check monday.

 

Albertan checking in. I got really into craft beer about 3 years ago and I'd say it's taken about that long to actually feel like I've developed a solid understanding of my local scene and the beers available here, and even though I've probably spent way too much time on this site there is still tons to learn. I'll admit our craft beer scene, while still not on the level of BC or Quebec, is probably still further ahead of Manitoba's. I started off going to bottle shops and feeling overwhelmed by the selection, of bombers particularly, without any understanding of freshness, aging, or online ratings. Reading reviews helped a lot though, especially with certain users on this site who have basically review every beer I've ever tried in Alberta and thousands more, so I started to agree with certain opinions they had. I didn't start off by looking for the rarest or most highly rated brews, like other's have suggested I just started out by trying as many different beers that I could find, starting to understand which styles I liked best, what breweries I wanted to support and what was a good value. Before I knew it I could walk into a shop and have a pretty good idea of what is tastiest, what is rarest, what is the best bang for your buck. If you really want to get a good idea of the best of the best you could check out the top 100 lists for Canada, US, Europe. You could even start trading with some of the guys, although that can be pretty overwhelming if you don't feel like you yourself have anything worth trading. I wouldn't worry too much about drinking the highest rated stuff to begin with though, because chances are you won't appreciate it nearly as much as you will later on when you're further down the rabbit hole.