Hi there! My name is Kaylan Meyer I am a senior at Central Washinton University. I am currently working on two degrees in Craft Brewing and A Wine Industry Management Specialization, and a minor in business. This quarter I chose to do my Craft Brewing Practicum on sensory, specifically how much we are able to train our sense of smell and taste when it comes to beer sensory. I want to see how much I can hypothetically improve my tasting skills, and truly see whether tasting skills are just a natural gift that some can do better than others, or whether you can train yourself to be the best.

I was really inspired to do this as I have proven myself to be a natural when it comes to wine tasting and being able to smell and taste things about the wine in an in-depth way, and I have really come to have a passion for this process. But, on the other side of things, I am not as good at beer tasting as I would like to be and am looking for a way to do so. What better way than a project where I get to see if continuously training my senses with Hop aroma kits improves my senses in a span of four weeks.

To get started I took to the internet to obtain a hop aroma kit from Haas in Yakima. This is what I used to train my senses throughout this project smelling through their twelve scents all created to mimic various hops and flavors within beer.

Beers from left to right:

1. Bouy Czech-style pilsner.

2. Dru Bru Kolsch

3. Elysian Space Dust IPA

4. Deschutes Lil squeezy juicy pale

Tasting notes for Bouy’s Czech-style pilsner before using hop sensory:

Tasting notes for Dru Bru’s Kolsch before using hop sensory:

Tasting notes for Elysian Space Dust IPA before using hop sensory:

Tasting notes for Deschutes Lil’ Squeezy Juicy Pale before using hop sensory:

Ever since my tastings I have been taking about five to ten minutes a day smelling through the Haaz sensory tasting kit in hopes to train my mind and sense of smell to recognize those types of smells easier in beer.

Final Taste Tests After Using Hop Kit’s:

Tasting notes for Bouy’s Czech-style pilsner after using hop sensory:

Tasting notes for Dru Bru’s Kolsch after using hop sensory:

Tasting notes for Elysian Space Dust IPA after using hop sensory:

Tasting notes for Deschutes Lil’ Squeezy Juicy Pale before using hop sensory:

Overall conclusion:

I would say the hop sensory kits worked when it comes to being able to associate smells within a beer to the smells within the kit. Being able to make those type of aroma associations within my mind happened much faster and easier than I had been able before the use of the hop kits. I went into this rather doubtful of whether hop kits would help me improve my tasting abilities, but am more than happy to say I am pleasantly surprised with the amount detail I was able to identify on my tastings just because I could name more of the things I was perceiving.