Brew Essence Sensory Training Kits

Sensory training is one of those things we all mean to do, but it typically gets pushed aside for more immediate concerns. It’s also not a one-and-done process, as the palates of even the most experienced tasters shift over time. While there are a few well-known products out there for training on common flavors in beer—both desirable and undesirable—it’s an area that has been ripe for additional development for some time.

Enter Keith Lemcke, former vice president of the Siebel Institute in Chicago, and his new Brew Essence brand of sensory training kits. The liquid flavor samples are designed to more readily mix with beer without excessive stirring, to minimize CO2 breakout. Smaller kits are available for the most common flavors experienced at different stages of the brewing process, such as the brewhouse, fermentation, or draught. The comprehensive kit features 24 flavors in total—everything from DMS and diacetyl to 2-ethyl fenchol (earthy) and isovaleric acid (aged hops)—for full-spectrum palate training.

But the primary selling point for Brew Essence isn’t just the training kits; it’s the free, online, guided tasting videos narrated by Lemcke on Youtube. For small breweries (or groups of homebrew judges) without a dedicated sensory specialist to lead training, these videos offer a structured way of preparing and moving through the kits, so that tasters can more easily make connections between what they’re tasting, and the language they use to describe it. —JB