Recently I got to thinking about beer judging abilities, and the various senses that are used to perform evaluations: sight, smell, taste and feel.  I focused on how much judges rely on “sensory memory” and how that might be improved or increased.  Sensory memory, for the uninitiated, is experiencing something over and over again and committing that experience to memory (for instance, tasting a Belgian Witbier multiple times to help you remember all of that style’s sensory attributes).

Now, this experiment may not necessarily make one a better judge, but I think it could (with practice) lead one in that direction, though none of this is scientifically conclusive.

Want to play along?  Start by visualizing something fairly common- a cup of coffee.  I think about 100% of you reading this are able to conjure up an image in your brain of a cup of coffee.  Easy-peasy.

Now, let’s take it to the next step.  Force yourself to smell that imaginary coffee in that imaginary cup.  It may take a little time and concentration, but it shouldn’t be too difficult.  I suppose it helps if you are a coffee drinker, but I think even non-coffee drinkers should be able to accomplish this.

Now take the next step.  Think about that coffee flavor; concentrate on it so hard you can actually imagine the taste of the coffee.  Congratulations, you’re exercising your sensory memory!

For this next round, let’s take it a step further.  First, visualize a ripe banana.  Next, imagine the smell of the peeled banana.  Now concentrate on the taste of that banana.  This shouldn’t have been too difficult.

Now it’s time to work on your sense of mouthfeel.  There are few edible things that feel like banana being chewed, so if you are a banana eater, this should also be easy.

Interesting how that works, isn’t it?  Here are some other fairly common and random things that have distinctive aromas and flavors.  See how many of them you can successfully smell, taste and feel in your imagination.

·         Honey

·         Peanuts

·         Vanilla

·         Butter

·         Cinnamon

It stands to reason that the more one is familiar with any given consumable item, the more likely one will be able to successfully see, smell, taste and feel them in one’s imagination.  The more one is exposed to a wide variety of aromas and flavors, the better beer judge one is likely to be.

The downside to this experiment is that it can’t be objectively measured; its success depends purely on voluntary, personal feedback.  There is no way to prove or disprove that people are successfully smelling, tasting, and feeling any of these sensory suggestions, based on imagination alone.

Relative to this, we are reminded that humans are fallible and imperfect as beer judges.  Until there is a robot or a computer that can evaluate liquids organoleptically, human assessment is the best we can do.  It’s up to humans to do the best they can do.  It may start with building sensory memory.