I haven’t been at this for very long, and I’m already starting to notice that all these posts are starting to sound the same. That’s one of the disadvantages of being a hophead, I guess. I mean, how many different ways are there to describe a hop bomb and still make it sound interesting?
Plus, even a cursory Google search of beer blogs reveals there are boatloads of them out there. Anyone with a computer and the Internet can start up a blog and write about anything they want. Why should beer be any different?
So I started doing some research on beer descriptors, hoping to punch up the vocabulary. While I did find some useful information which I hope to incorporate into future posts, I also discovered I am not alone in my frustration in trying to describe a beer. It hit me that I’ve been worried about being too technical. Rather, I’ve been worried that I haven’t been technical enough, and that for these posts to have any sort of credibility I’d have to do some serious study.
I’ve been too preoccupied about identifying each ingredient in every beer I try, and then translating that into specific color, aroma, and taste characteristics. In other words, deconstructing each beverage into its individual parts and analyzing each one. It sounded way too intimidating. Who wants to deal with that?
So, instead, I think I’ll take it easy on myself and just try to describe things as best I can. Sure, it’s interesting to learn about how a particular beer is made, and ponder how that specific combination of ingredients resulted in the beverage in front of me. But I think I’d rather just enjoy it, and tell you why, so that maybe you’ll want to enjoy it, too.