The Beer Wheel
When people who enjoy beer talk about their favorites, you’ll hear some
of the same words over and over. Terms like mouthfeel, aromatic, grassy
or hoppy have become part of the standard language of beer. In the
1970s, Dr. Morten Meilgaard created the Beer Flavor Wheel. The wheel
has 14 categories broken down into 44 flavors. The wheel was a way to
standardize a language through which beer tasters can agree on a
word-to-flavor correlation.
Scientists have found more than 1,000 identifiable flavors in beer, yet an experienced taster can pick out perhaps only 100.
Dr. Morten’s wheel gave beer tasters a common vocabulary and caught on
all over the world. It is now used as the standard reference by the
European Brewery Convention, the American Society of Brewing Chemists,
and the Master Brewers Association of the Americas.
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