This Is My Blood: Winter Haze

"Tasting's goal is to retrieve as much information as possible from that beer before you."

We're finally getting to the meat and potatoes of this book. How does one taste beer? There are steps. Let's run through them.

1. Pour the beer into a wine glass (remember, the type of glass affects what you think of the beer), but only about 1/3 full. This is to leave room for the aromas to build inside the glass. Also, you're supposed to pour the beer directly into the bottom center of the glass, creating some foam. As someone who has been to many a keg party where tilting the cup and pouring down the sides were essential to transferring beer from keg to cup, this is antithetical to everything I've ever known.

2. Make sure the beer is the appropriate temperature. Lagers and ales are supposed to be a bit above freezing, while the heavier beers are supposed to be "cool" but not cold. If the beers are too cold, put them in the microwave. Just kidding. You can just hold the glass and let your body heat warm it a little bit.

3. I mentioned this in a comment last week, but next you're supposed to hold the glass with your non-dominant hand and awkwardly swirl the glass counterclockwise for 30 seconds. This allegedly creates a Pavlovian response after you do it enough times—oh, it's swirling time? That means I'm in tasting mode.

4. Grab a blank sheet of paper, and get ready to write down everything you're thinking. Choose a quiet place to do all this (quiet places do not exist in my home currently, guess I'm outta luck).

5. After the pour, leave the glass on the table, and see if you can smell anything from there. Grab the glass and brush it past your periphery. Allegedly the aromas have a different character from this distance than if you were putting nose directly into glass. It's called "drive-by tasting."

6. But then now we do the up-close sniffs. As we talked about already, the aromas are tied to memories. Chase them to the source. Then try think of specific vocabulary words, and write 'em down.

7. Now take a step back and observe the beer visually. Does the foam look appetizing? Does the color make sense? Etc. I guess you're doing this after the sniffing so that you aren't getting those senses muddled.

8. Finally, after acting like an asshole for like two solid minutes at this point, you are allowed to take a sip. But don't swallow yet!!! Let the beer hang out in your mouth, and wait as the flavors change gradually. First, it's acidic, but then the sweetness hits you, and then finally, it gets bitter. (Sidenote: if you are a hirsute individual like myself, make sure that you get all the dribbles of beer out of that beard at this step, you sloppy fuck.)

9. Slowly swallow, making sure those rear taste buds are getting the jolt they need. Also, pay attention to the retronasal aromas heading back up into the nose. Plus, don't forget about the mouthfeel throughout this process—creamy or astringent? Also plus, is there an aftertaste? Is it different than the duringtaste?

10a. Take everything you've written down, 10b. ???, 10c. PROFIT.

Of course, I didn't do any of this today. It's the start of a four-day weekend for me. I was tired. I just wanted to watch Watchmen. I just wanted to split a beer with Pam. I didn't want to be in tasting mode.

NOTES

BEER: Winter Haze

GENRE: American Pale Ale

ABV: 5.2%

BREWED BY: Dock Street Brewery

LOCATION: Philadelphia, PA

PURCHASED AT: Port Richmond Bottle Shop @ IGA

PRICE (AT THAT LOCATION): $4

PAIRED WITH: The Hooded Justice episode of Watchmen, hooooooly shit

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

BEER COUNT: 19.5, since today I only had half the beer (trying to make up for that extra Extra that I had yesterday)