Bren’s Beer-o-meter

Posted on May 16, 2010 Bren

No Comment BOOKMARK

Beer is good! Science is good! Beer and science is double good!!

beer and book Brens Beer o meter

So this is my mission: to apply a sense of order and structure to the often highly subjective forms of beer rating. Now I know taste is subjective, and this is precisely why I am laying out my measures for the world to see. So when you notice I gave Bud Light a 5 and Newcastle Brown Ale a 20 you will be able to identify exactly why I gave such a rating. The rating scale is broken into 5 different categories which have a scale of 1-5, 1 being the lowest. The scores from these 5 categories will then be combined to create a total score, with the highest possible score being 25.

The categories:

1. Taste- Ok if you’re drinking it, it better damn well taste good! Now there are a ton of variables we can evaluate ranging from the beer’s hoppy-ness to it’s fruity or caramel undertones, but for the sake of not sounding like someone so smug they enjoy the smell of their own farts, and since there are so many flavors of beer that it is impossible to fairly compare them based on their individual flavors. This scale will focus on how well the different flavors mix and how pleasant the taste left on your tongue is after the initial swig. For example, Bud Light has a rather bland overall taste that is not complex and leaves that generic “beer” hops flavor on your tongue after drinking it. Given that this taste is not inspiring or interesting, but isn’t necessarily bad or off-putting, Bud Light would receive a 2 out of 5 for this category.

2. Texture- Got to love that body! Yes, this is where we look at how well that beer feels sloshing around in you’re mouth. Here we consider the weight of the beer, its carbonation, and its texture. What we are specifically looking for is a beer that has a balanced body and doesn’t come across so light that it feels like you’re drinking tap water, and not too heavy where it feels like liquid lead in your gut. Now we realize this relies highly on the type of beer (i.e. lager, ale, stout, etc), so when considering this aspect of beer analysis we will focus on comparing the beer to others within its category, but we will not discern between whether the beer is a light beer or not (if you’re determining which beer to drink based off of how it makes your ass look, get off this site). To continue with my Bud light example, Bud Light will be compared with other lagers such as Heineken, Coors/ Light, Miller/ Light, Corona, etc. Since most all lagers have a relatively light body, we will look at how it carries that light frame and, once again Bud light comes up lacking. This poor excuse for a beer has the same weight as a soda and even though that means you can hammer them down in beer pong it leaves you wanting and unsatisfied. In comparison, Heineken is able to balance its light body so that the drinker doesn’t feel too full but still feels like they actually consumed something. So unfortunately Bud Light gets a 2 again for this category.

This is a bad beer body. If you think this is nasty, try to imagine all the nasty I had to see when I searched for this image.

This is a bad beer body. If you think this is nasty, try to imagine all the nasty I had to go through to find this pic.

3. Appearance- Does it look good naked (try not to apply this to the picture above)? Any creative marketing dude can come up with a fancy label and a cute design, but to tell how a beer really looks you have to strip it down and throw it in a glass. Under this test, we at the Bren and Sven laboratory look at the beer’s head, color, and clarity. Once again we will compare the beer to others in its own class because we all know those big dark stouts are going to have a much thicker head than the light lagers, and that kind of comparison just isn’t fair. Continuing with the Bud Light example. When this piddly little lager gets thrown into a glass it looks clear with a slight tint of amber and a light fizzy head, therefore in terms of appearance it gets a 3. For a higher ranking, we would like to see a little deeper amber color and a slightly thicker head (That’s what she said!).

4. Aroma- Like wine, different beers will have different smells, and the quality and complexity of a beer’s aroma can make all the difference in how it tastes. What we are looking for as we get a nose full of suds is a rich scent that compliments the beer’s appearance and enhances its taste and texture. If a beer is designed to be light and crisp, the aroma should convey that with a light hoppy smell with fruity or herbal undertones, but if the beer is designed to be dark and filling it should have strong malty scents with undertones of caramel, tobacco, toffee, or other bolder flavors (sorry, came across as a bit of a smug fart sniffer there, but how else to you describe scents?) . Bud Light for example is designed to be light and “drinkable” so nearly any aroma of beer has been removed from the neutered brew, and all you’re left with is a stale urine smell which you will have to experience again when passing the poor drink about an hour later. So needless to say Bud Light gets a 1 for aroma.

This beer smells like change. Deceitful, unwanted change.

5. User Friendly- Look we all recognize that Guinness is a great beer, but if you’re going to a buddy’s house for the game its not really a beer you want to bring over, thus it is not a very user friendly beer. User friendliness measures the idea of how often and easily a beer can be consumed. If a beer is too strong, heavy, expensive, or limited, it can be awkward and can ruin the bromantic feel of a game night. Settings make all the difference in what kind of beer you want to drink and a beer that scores high in this category is going to be one that works best in most all settings. Though it pains me to say it, this is one category Bud Light does decently in. Bud Light is a beer you will feel OK bringing over to a buddy’s house. It’s relatively cheap, easy to drink (please note that I did not say pleasant to drink), and works well at parties, sufficient to say its got a solid bromance factor to it. As a result of its general mass appeal it deserves a 3.5 in this category. To get a higher score the beer would have to say something about the guy that brings it. If you bring a pack of Heineken to a party everyone knows that that beer is a little more expensive and complex… which as we all know directly reflects on the size of one’s wallet and penis. Bud light just says ” Hey I’m beer, just drink me and don’t think about what else you could be having!”

We want to see the bromance in the beer!

So there you have it. We now have a viable beer rating scale that we can refer to as we journey down this path of inebriation and evaluation. We also now have a bench mark of mediocrity and our first beer review with this scale: