Pat Fahey - Building a Sensory Program: A Brewer’s Guide to Beer Evaluation

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

BUILDING A

SENSORY PROGRAM

A BREWERS GUIDE TO BEER EVALUATION

Whether you are firing up your brewhouse for the first batch or producing well over 100,000 barrels of beer a year, Pat Faheys Building A Sensory Program belongs in your collection of brewing books. Building a culture of sensory is crucial to every brewerys success, and this book will help you succeed. Speaking as someone who has started a sensory program at a brewery, this book will not only teach you the basics but will carry you years into the development of your sensory program.

RILEY SEITZ,

QA/QC Manager, Surly Brewing Company

Building a quality sensory program at a brewery allows for a significant protection of the product. It aids in building the best profiles while allowing a brewery to ensure consistency throughout brewing. Building a Sensory Program is an excellent resource to take those first steps in creating quality products and maintaining them.

ANNETTE FRITSCH,

Senior Director of Product Development and Sensory, Boston Beer Company

The unerring ability to deliver to your customers exactly the beer that you promised them is the hallmark of the truly professional brewer. Only a solid and reliable sensory program can guarantee a brewerys ongoing success at brewing to target and making sure its beers are as delicious as the brewer hopes they are. Medals are cool, Instagram cred is great, but here Pat Fahey shows you how to ensure and track The Right Stuffactual quality.

GARRETT OLIVER,

Brewmaster, The Brooklyn Brewery

Editor-in-Chief, The Oxford Companion to Beer

Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing and Distilling

While sensory science has always been linked with the brewing industry, its practicability within small- to medium-sized operations has not been adequately addressed until now. Pat Fahey has filled a gaping hole in sensory literature by providing information and guidance to people and programs that do not have the luxury of extra time, resources, institutionalized knowledge, or advanced statistical backgrounds. The first step to building a sensory program is to taste the beer, the second step should be to read this book.

CRAIG THOMAS, MSc,

Sensory Research Analyst, Firestone Walker Brewing Company

The industry has desperately needed Building a Sensory Program for quite some time now and we should be excited that the details and approach of modern, practical, and scientifically grounded beer sensory can be accessed in a single place. Folks new to beer sensory will save months of self-directed research into dozens of unrelated sources and will understand the purposes and capabilities of a sensory program. Current panel administrators now have a volume of immediately useful information at their fingertips, and will find more than few new tips and methods to try out!

BENNETT THOMPSON,

Quality Manager, Half Acre Beer Company

When I was starting the sensory program at New Belgium in 1999, there wasnt a craft beer sensory community or applicable technical resources out there. So, while I was full of determination and enthusiasm, it was sometimes a lonely and uncertain endeavor. Pats book, Building a Sensory Program: A Brewers Guide to Beer Evaluation, is the culmination of the incredible progress thats been made since then and will be every sensory leaders best friend and guiding light.

LAUREN LIMBACH,

Wood Cellar Director & Blender, New Belgium Brewing

Most successful breweries I know have a very strong sensory program and consider it the most important tool in their quality program. Pat Faheys book covers everything you need to know about sensory analysis and how to build a sensory program. He relies on research and industry experts to dissect the biochemistry of the senses of taste and smell, and then lays out an extensive, detailed plan for building a top-quality sensory program that breweries of all sizes and types can use to improve their beer quality and consistency. It is a great read and a wonderful resource.

MITCH STEELE,

COO and Brewmaster, New Realm Brewing Company

A sensory program is essential to every brewery, no matter its size. In this book, Pat Fahey brings together a wealth of sensory knowledge that will positively impact the beer industry and beer quality. This book is a wonderful reference!

AMAEY MUNDKUR,

Program Director, American Society of Brewing Chemists

Starting or expanding a sensory panel can be costly and challenging for a brewery without clear guidance. Pat Faheys Building a Sensory Program is a comprehensive resource that clearly explains sensory science and the details necessary for assembling a successful panel.

KARL ARNBERG,

Sensory Program Manager, Allagash Brewing Company

BY PAT FAHEY

Brewers Publications

A Division of the Brewers Association

PO Box 1679, Boulder, Colorado 80306-1679

BrewersAssociation.org

BrewersPublications.com

Copyright 2021 by Brewers Association

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Neither the authors, editors, nor the publisher assume any responsibility for the use or misuse of information contained in this book.

ISBN-13: 978-1-938469-67-1

ISBN-10: 1-938469-67-4

EISBN: 978-1-938469-68-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fahey, Pat, 1987 author.

Title: Building a sensory program : a brewer's guide to beer evaluation / by Pat Fahey.

Description: Boulder, Colorado : Brewers Publications, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: Human flavor perception is incredibly complex and impacts daily decision making in the brewery. Building a Sensory Program discusses sensory systems, sources of bias, tasting techniques, required equipment, taster training, and panel maintenance. Learn about different testing methods, data use, and how to use sensory to adjust recipes and build or blend new beers. This book provides the reader a bedrock for an intelligently designed quality sensory programProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020054988 (print) | LCCN 2020054989 (ebook) | ISBN 9781938469671 (trade paperback) | ISBN 1938469674 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781938469688 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Beer tasting. | Sensory evaluation. | Program management.

Classification: LCC TP577 .F34 2021 (print) | LCC TP577 (ebook) | DDC 663/.42dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054988

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054989

Publisher: Kristi Switzer

Technical Editor: Lindsay Barr, Karl Arnberg

Copyediting: Iain Cox

Indexing: Doug Easton

Art Director, cover and interior design, and production: Jason Smith

Production: Justin Petersen

To Averie.

P at Fahey and I first crossed paths in the winter of 2013 when he popped into my office at New Belgium to introduce himself as Content Director of the Cicerone Certification Program. Cicerone had just started making waves in the brewing industry, and I was interested to learn how Pat was framing the task of how to unravel the obscurities of beer flavor. During our conversation I discovered that Pat is an active observer, capable of honing his creativity to find unconventional solutions to big questions. These characteristics made him uniquely qualified to tackle his work with Cicerone and, later, to write this book.