Drinking beer, which is what most of us do, is often an exercise in social excess, where discretion and taste are discarded in the pursuits of genius and invincibility. Eastside Milwaukee's Laurel Maney teaches the art of brewing. Tasting beer is far more restrained, an acquired skill of discernment that puts demands not only on the sense of taste, but of smell and touch as well.
Brewers call it sensory evaluation, and it's vital to their success.
Maney worked for the Miller Brewing Company for more than 20 years , and says her claim to fame is that she developed the recipe for Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss beer. In the sensory evaluation courses, she teaches people to detect different beer flavors and textures. They include desired characteristics such as maltiness and hoppiness, plus upward of three dozen faulty flavors, blemishes that brewers both macro and micro hope to keep out of the final product. Once a person can correctly identify particular off flavors, he can help a brewer better trace the errors in his process. It's not as simple as just double-checking the recipe.