Aroma / Nosing Kits

I’m curious what “Spirituous” smells like.

 

I have not used any aroma/flavor kits so I can't contribute to the discussion.

@beer_beer, I take it that you use these kits solely to smell them?

I am aware that there are beer sensory kits which are intended for tasting, you place some in a very light flavored beer (e.g., Bud Light) and then drink the flavored beer. Here is one example of a kit:



One aspect to keep in mind that there are two 'stages' of olfactory sensing. Orthonasal is where you sniff the beverage and retronasal is how you perceive aromas via your mouth (which has a 'back-channel' to your nose). To obtain a complete sensory experience it is beneficial to actually consume (e.g., drink) what you are experiencing. Just sniffing does not get you completely there.

Cheers!

 

Below is something I posted in a past thread:

“I attended a Sensory & Flavor Training presentation at the 2015 National Homebrewers Conference and in that presentation they gave you a base beer plus four others of that beer doctored with off-flavors: DMS, Diacetyl, Metallic and Chlorophenols. I could only take small sips of the beers with Diacetyl, Metallic and Chlorophenols because they were awful for my palate. I actually finished the DMS beer since it was not objectionable to me. I suppose all of the Rolling Rock beer I drank ‘back in the day’ got me accustomed to this alleged off-flavor.”

Cheers!

 

FWIW that is my understanding.

I have heard folks discuss that they were members of a homebrew club and that they would make a club purchase of tasting kits and then conduct a group session using them. By several/many people chipping in you defray the cost on a per person basis.

Cheers!

P.S. For extra clarity I did not mean to imply that kits that are for just aroma (i.e., sniffing) have no value. It is just that a tasting kit provides a more complete sensory experience.

 

Some people get a little too carried away when describing aromas of a beer, in my personal opinion.
My senses are not nearly as fine tuned as they were 30 years ago.
Straw vs. hay? Stonefruit vs plums.. and so on.
I get the basics, malt, toasty, pine, grapefruit but much more than that, it smells like beer to me.

 

Interesting kits there. Very specific. Could be a lot of fun at a party! In the 1st kit there should be a #25 sample called "Teen Spirituous". It dawned on me that one of the major side effects of Covid-19 is a dampening or crippling of either taste, smell or both. I've read a few scientific articles and some medical research news that those lost senses can literally be re-trained. Test results show that basically smelling or tasting just a handful of specific concentrated compounds (cinnamon, vanilla, patchouli (not tasting!), thyme, peppermint, etc), each for about 1 minute per day can help bring back a good portion of these senses. The research is ongoing. Cheers!

 

Since Covid my sense of smell has gotten a little worse, not to mention my allergies usually leave me congested most of the time.
I can pick up aromas/smells up close most times though, but nailing down specific smells has gotten tougher.

 

After her bout w covid, my wife retained her sense of smell but her taste buds are still out of whack.

 

Yep. All back to normal now. And thankfully my sniffer rebounded quickly. Cheers!

 

Well, I do homebrew (will be making batch #501 in a couple of days: 1896 Michelob). A word of 'caution', smelling raw hops (i.e, out of a packet) will not be the same as brewing with the beer. The aspects of boiling and fermentation will impact the aroma/flavor profile. And while you can chew on malt to 'evaluate' it there is a similar effect that mashing, boiling and fermentation will impact the aroma/flavor profile.

I would not discourage you from buying some hops and malts to learn more but it won't be the same as perceiving those ingredients in the finished product (i.e., beer).

Cheers!

 

I use ganja/terps as my nosing kit.

 

Oh yes I'm aware, when I first figured that out it made perfect sense. I have had some IPAs that smelled just like some green and it's why we pick up so many fruit forward notes in hops. It's all in the terpenes.

It's same in the beer/weed world. Have growers constantly trying to grow better/new flowers.