Beer tasting

Beer tasting is a way to learn more about the history, ingredients and production of beer as well as different beer styles, hops, yeast and beer presentation. A common way is to analyse the appearance, smell and taste of the beer. Then a final judgement of the beer's quality is done. There are many scales for rating beer among beer journalists and beer experts. Different magazines and experts often use their own scale, for example the famous British sommelier Jancis Robinson uses a scale between 1 and 20 and the famous American sommelier Joshua M. Bernstein uses a scale between 1 and 100. However it is common for professional organisations such as the Wine & Spirit Education Trust to rate beer with verbal grades: faulty - poor - acceptable - good - very good - outstanding, corresponding to a scale from 1 to 5.