Over a month ago, Annette and I attended the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego.  One of the most interesting and valuable sessions we attended was an “off flavors” training, where we tried several different beers “spiked” with different compounds and off-flavors, like DMS and Acetaldehyde.  The point of this session was to help train our palates to detect various flavors in beer, which is helpful for anyone that makes beer (either at a professional or homebrew scale) or judges beer.  With a more fine-tuned palate, it is much easier to spot defects.

We thought this session was so much fun and also so informative, that we decided to replicate it here at the brewery!  If you are a home brewer, beer judge in training, or, you are just interested in building your beer tasting skills, then this training is something you won’t want to miss!

The plan is to begin the session with a little pizza social, starting at 6:30 pm.  We will then move on to the sensory training at about 7:15.  Training will cover the following eight flavors:

• Acetaldehyde
• Isoamyl acetate
• Diacetyl
• DMS
• Geraniol
• Papery
• Trans-2nonenal
• Infected

Once again, here are the details:

Date:  Wednesday, June 20th
Time: 6:30 to 8:30 pm
Cost: 20 dollars per person (paid when you arrive at the brewery)

UPDATE as of 5:30 pm 6/11/12 – Sorry spots are filled.  We are planning to schedule another one on an upcoming weekend.  Please let us know if you’d like to be on that list.  Thanks for the great support!