Davey Landeros
My name is Davey. Yeah, I’m a beer snob, but I prefer to be called a beer nerd. I’ve been brewing, drinking and studying craft beer since 2011. My column for CityBeat, “Revenge of the Beer Nerd,” is going to be an interesting take on some of the details and nuances of beer that tend to go unnoticed by most consumers. My goal is to help people engage with their beer and understand the art, science and history of the industry.
To kick things off, I want to share a little anecdote that happened recently at my favorite brewery. It wasn’t the first time it’s happened. It will probably happen again. With a heavy heart, I must reveal that… gimme a minute for dramatic effect... I tasted an off-flavor.
An off-flavor is usually the result of chemical reaction that occurs during the brewing or packaging process and leaves an undesirable flavor or aroma. Most of the beers that we consume have small levels of off-flavor compounds that are, for the most part, undetectable.
Off-flavors are both relative and subjective, so they’re only a flaw if it detracts from the beer itself. It’s possible that the tastiest parts of one beer could very well be the detriment of another beer. In fact, some beers are designed intentionally to have pronounced characteristics that would be considered off-flavors in another beer. Sour beers, for example, are a perfect example of beers that intentionally possess qualities that resemble an off-flavor in other styles of beer.
Back to my experience, I was reminded that I’d encountered this particular off-flavor very frequently during my formative years of brewing. With great reluctance, I decided that the metaphorical itch on my palate was, in fact, an off-flavor.
So what did I do? Nothing. I calmly finished my drink, smiled at the beertender and ordered a different beer, which tasted fantastic like all the other times I’d ordered it.
All in all, it was a pretty uneventful occurrence that was quite possibly all mental. Maybe the gum I was chewing on the drive over wasn’t completely removed from my palate. Maybe the glass wasn’t 100-percent rinsed. It could be that a particular keg had a little speck of the previous beer that got missed during cleaning. It’s possible that there was a misreading of equipment that led to this whole thing.
The more that I thought about all the variables that could have affected the flavor of the beer between grain to glass, the more I started to realize how infrequently I actually tasted off-flavors when drinking San Diego beer. Ultimately, I may never know if something was wrong in my brain or in the brew. I’d have to do a whole range of sensory analysis and evaluate multiple pieces of equipment in order to figure that out.
My opinion of this brewery was not altered because of a relatively minor mistake. If anything, my small off-flavor experience was just a little reminder about the characteristics that helped me fall in love with craft beer: real people actually trying to make something interesting and tasty. Sometimes things go wrong and part of appreciating the “craft” of beer is remembering that it’s made by actual people with hearts, minds, souls and flaws.
To expect anything different from the beer in my glass is silly.