New Beer Flavor Wheel for Real Beer Drinkers
For centuries, everyone from physicians to brewers have used flavor wheels as a means of breaking down the many varieties of aromas and flavors of a particular substance or beverage. A new book includes a consumer-friendly version of a flavor wheel just for beer drinkers.
Many years ago, physicians sometimes used a urine flavor wheel to help diagnose patients based on the flavor of their pee. Now, while taking a giant swig of someone’s urine in order to determine what is ailing them sounds, well, pretty awful, this process was actually very helpful at the time in identifying dangerous diseases like diabetes.
Since those primitive days of urine-gargling doctors, flavor wheels have become rather prevalent in the world of craft brewing. Yet, most of these quasi-chemistry tables seem to cater to those more interested in dissecting beer than actually drinking it - that is, until now.
Beer writer Mark Dredge has developed a more consumer-friendly version of the beer flavor wheel to be included in his upcoming book 'Craft Beer World.' Although, Dredge says that he doesn’t intend for his beer wheel to act as a replacement from the traditional wheel, he does expect that it will give a layman’s insight to the origins of a particular beer’s flavor.
Looks good to us — just as long as someone doesn’t start spinning that godforsaken thing after one of our weekend-long IPA benders. Perhaps the author should have included the phrase 'you are the vomit god' in the center of it. Indeed, we smell a new book idea!