The Beer Aroma Wheel

Aroma wheels provide a terminology for the sensory description of products. They were developed to help people responsible for quality control and product development to communicate using unambiguous terminology.

30 years ago, Meilgaard [14] developed the beer flavour wheel. Its development was an important milestone in establishing an accepted terminology for the sensory science of beer. It still serves as the basis for the selection of terms in descriptive profiling tests today. Sensory science has since come a long way in terms of accumulating knowledge and developing sensory standards. In order to guarantee a consistent use of language, the existing beer terminology therefore needs to be reviewed. In Meilgaard’s flavour wheel, olfactory, gustatory and haptic sensory perceptions overlap and several terms are not clearly matched with sensory perceptions.

Furthermore it is important for the communication with customers that they, too, understand the terminology. In some cases, it can be difficult to assign terms to the individual classes. This assumes that tasters come equipped with the

knowledge of a beer connoisseur.

This article presents a beer aroma wheel that is structured according to sensory standards. Even people who have no knowledge of the way flavours in beer develop can use it to describe sensory perceptions. Alongside this, a beer aroma

wheel is shown that supports assessors in the description of positive and desirable characteristics of beers. Initially an overview of the sensory language in accordance with European standards is provided.

BrewingScience - Monatsschrift für Brauwissenschaft, 62 ( January/February) 2009, pp. 26-32