At the very beginning of lock down—oh excuse me let me use the cute marketing term: “New York on pause”—I watched a video with Garret Oliver tasting beers and just stream of consciousness describing them out loud. Not only did the words he chose intrigue me, but the order in which he described certain aspects was very enlightening. So, I decided to try it myself.
Well, turns out I am trained to immediately look at/comment on appearance, which is, maybe one of the least important attributes in a beer. So, I added a blindfold. I did a lot of talking in the very dark world behind the blindfold. But when I took the thing off…I couldn’t remember what I said! And so enters, the camera.
After watching back my tapes (football coach style) I realized they might be helpful for others starting their tasting journey. Whether studying for Cicerone, or BJCP, or just interested in getting more focused with your palate the most important thing about tasting is: sometimes you’re going to feel ridiculous. Like I do. In these videos. But also, most times I’m tasting with people.
Just in this short series you can see how much faster and more precise I get….and how much better at framing a shot, ha! Enjoy…and be nice! If you’d like to see more videos of tasting practice and some Master Cicerone studying you can subscribe to my fancy new channel here.
PS- I know it goes #1, #3, #4…I accidentally edited over #2 so I’ll redo it……eventually!)
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