The art of beer tasting notes

In the tasting room in Everards' Leicester brewery stands a metal board crammed full of short descriptions of beers on magnetic strips that staff label 'the lexicon of brewing'.

These adjectives relate to the company's pioneering beer tasting notes scheme, Cyclops, that since its inception in 2005 has been applied to over 600 products from over 120 brewers. As Everards accredits more beers, this glossary of beer terms, divided into taste, smell and appearance, is added to, and magnets are hastily reshuffled.

Cyclops is developing at a steady pace. What started as a pipe dream to simplify beer tasting notes in pubs has now been adopted broadly across the trade. For a small fee any brewer can get their brews on the scheme. New terminology has even been created for talking about Cyclops itself - Punch Taverns requires any product on its guest beer scheme to be 'Cyclops-ed'.

It has got too big for Everards, the brewer having now recruited the Society of Independent Brewers, the Campaign for Real Ale and Cask Marque to help run it.

As Everards and these industry bodies are now forming a not-for-profit business to run Cyclops, I thought it was high time to join an Everards tasting panel, help 'Cyclops' some beers new to the scheme and find out just how far this initiative can go in helping pubs sell beer.

Beer after breakfast​

I arrive at Everards' Narborough site mid-morning, the optimum time for tasting beer after a breakfast during which I followed Everards' advice of avoiding any strong flavours such as coffee or tobacco. As we make our way to the tasting room through the imposing stainless steel of the brew house, operations director for brewing and sales Nick Arthur explains that Cyclops is "firmly in stage one".

This first stage, he says, involves building up a critical mass of brewers on the scheme.

The second will see licensees and their staff engaged with Cyclops, getting to grips with using the tasting notes to inform customers and drive beer sales.

In the third and fourth stages, customers will become au fait with Cyclops and lastly it will be rolled out to the off-trade as well as the backs of pump clips in pubs.

The beers to be Cyclops-ed today are five from the Pot Belly Brewery in Kettering, Northamptonshire. The brewery has supplied samples of Pot Belly Best, Aisling, Beijing Black, Pigs Do Fly and Crazy Daze to be sipped, sniffed and examined for colour by a panel including Arthur, quality assurance manager Mark Tetlow and marketing manager Erika Hardy.

The panel may be composed of different brewery staff each time but Tetlow has been a constant - the brewing expert and driving force behind the Cyclops-ing process. "That's a lot of beer drinking," he jokes.

Before we get down to the business of the new beers, we take a run at Everards' flagship, Tiger, which of course has already been Cyclops-ed. This introduces me to the process, but the tasting panels usually start with a beer members are familiar with anyway. This is to provide a 'control' - something on which to base judgements on the other beers.

How it looks​

First, Tetlow pours us a glass each of Tiger and holds it up to a light box to check its colour.

We agree that it's an auburn brown colour, a description found amid the myriad labels on the 'see' section of the board.

How it smells​

Then we move onto the smell. I am instructed to swill the beer in the glass, which has been only half filled to allow the aromas to circulate without escaping.

Toffee, caramel, malt and spice are all suggested. Everards keeps to three descriptions on the Cyclops notes though, so we opt for toffee, caramel and malt.

"We have had brewers ask to make it more verbose, more of a descriptive sentence than notes," says Arthur, "but we always advise against it."

How it tastes​

Taste on the Cyclops notes is explained in two ways - in a few words and also in a simple sweetness and bitterness rating showing marks out of five sugar cubes and five hops on the finished notes.

Tiger has a very precise balance between sweetness and bitterness, resulting in three sugar cubes and three hops on its Cyclops notes and the description "sweet/ bitter balance".

It is important that licensees understand these processes, what the notes mean, and how to use them, says Arthur. There is recognition in the trade that proactive sales techniques such as Cyclops are useful.

"Licensees have a thirst to do something but they're not sure what that something is," he points out.

"We need to start telling them it can be Cyclops."

Cyclops can provide barstaff who may not otherwise be well trained in beer service with an easy-to-use mechanic for informing customers about what they are ordering.

Is it just a sticking plaster over the gaping wound of the on-trade's workforce being under-trained? I ask.

"True to an extent," replies Arthur, "but do we just accept that barstaff are rarely going to be trained adequately or do we actually try to do something about it?"

It's a very fair point. Moving onto producing the sets of Cyclops notes for Pot Belly Brewery (pictured, bottom), it was clear that having been Cyclops-ed could really help such beers to be sold profitably by licensees. And, as the lexicon of brewing expands, so will the beer range barstaff can promote.

What Cyclops provides for a pub

Cyclops offers a set of tasting notes on the back of the pump clip or elsewhere to help staff offer advice to customers on beer.

The theory is that this interaction will help drive sales.

The notes are kept very straightforward, divided into taste, smell and appearance sections. Because all brewers are invited onto the scheme, it is easy to compare beers using the consistent style of the notes.

Licensees can download the notes from a comprehensive database at www.cyclops.co.uk​