Decades ago, when craft beer was the wild west of flavor and ingredients were hard to come by, assuming someone knew what to do with them, studying the quality of beer was unheard of. Sure, the big breweries probably had food scientists in their employ, but I’ll bet you a beer that was to ensure consistency for the sake of revenue. The small brewer’s who tinkered in their garages with salvaged dairy equipment back then couldn’t afford labs and likely relied on tasting alone to evaluate new beer. This school of hard knocks approach helped later generations brew smarter and to finally learn what beer could taste like.

Every brewery, no matter how small, needs a sensory program so that bar patrons won’t become the QA team by default. Thanks to Draughtlab, the education and tools are far more accessible to small breweries and aficionados than they have ever been.

My next guest is a sensory scientist who spent nearly a decade at New Belgium Brewing. She now helps breweries large and small set up sensory programs and to taste all the bad beer so we consumers won’t have to.