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The New IPA: Ch. 5

 Chapter 5 is focused on Flavor Perceptions. Thinking of your own perceptive process may be a good place to start before diving into the content. Some points to consider are ...

  • How do I perceive flavor? Do I perceive flavors over a duration, or do I perceive flavors in terms of prominence?
  • We can put our perception into words by using comparative descriptors. Does your diet trend toward one of the five flavor profiles (salty, sweet, sour/acidic, bitter, umami/savory)?
  • How do regions relate to perceptions?
I perceive beer flavor over a duration. Breaking the process down into aroma, front palette, mid palette, back palette, aftertaste helps clearly differentiate each component. For instance, Space Station Dream Lab Batch 2 by Equilibrium and Other Half presented pine and pineapple on the aroma. Small grapefruit bitterness on the front palette, a tropical fruit basket explosion on the mid palette, bittering on the back palette, and a creamsicle-like fruit exuberance followed in the aftertaste. This beer served as a masterclass in hop timing. 

My diet trends towards salt, bitter, and sweet. I find my tasting descriptors to be well-developed in these regards. But with farmhouse ales and saisons, I have work to do. 

My descriptors are limited to what I've experienced. For those that have never tasted the heavenly Cholado Colombiano, describing an oat cream IPA with this descriptor may be confusing. But deepening your descriptors through experiencing different regions and cuisines can only help when relaying information to a diverse customer base. Get out, smell a hay-filled barn or something. Personally, I want to visit the Yakima Valley during hop harvest.

Okay, the content starts here...

Total protein in the grist impacts flavor. Protein can bind or absorb flavor compounds. For instance, a high protein and high carb beer can handle more intense dry-hop rates. The higher the carbs, the more viscous a beer will be. This viscosity retains volatiles.

Polysaccharides (beta-glucans, pentosans, and dextrins) are the carbohydrates that increase viscosity. Make a beer too viscous, combine it with too intense of a dry-hop, and the beer may become astringent. Janish says that at Sapwood Cellars, they often use maltodextrin to avoid astringency. Maltodextrin added post-dry-hop may enable the dry-hop to volatize on a less viscous solution, which would release the green astringent garbage while leaving behind fruity compounds.

Flaked oats are rich in beta-glucans. If an IPA recipe with oats produces too much astringency, lower the oat rate or swap flaked oats for malted oats. Janish also recommends swapping 2-row with chit malt because it's richer in beta-glucans.

You will lose hop aroma with too high of a yeast pitch rate. However, a high yeast pitch rate will lower hydrocarbons (earthy, spicy, woody, resinous compounds) in the final beer. If you're working on the oat cream IPA recipe that was mentioned above and you wish to reduce astringency, use a high yeast pitch. Myrcene will be stripped away. Or dry-hop during active fermentation. Early dry-hop additions during active fermentation may create more flavorful, less aromatic beers. Perhaps a dry-hop after fermentation may spruce up the aromatics. 

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