Craft Beer: Real Flavour
Craft beer is flooding Ontario in the best way possible. I suspect our growing thirst for quality pints has more do with real flavour than beer itself.
The flavour industry's concoctions have silently seeped into almost all the processed food and drink we see on grocery store shelves. Added flavours -- whether clearly marked as “artificial” or deceptively marked as “natural” (natural flavours can still be synthesized in a laboratory) -- are so common that we've often never had the real equivalent of whatever beverage our beverage is imitating. When's the last time you had a ginger ale? I mean soda water with ginger juice? Try it! Your taste-buds will sparkle, especially if you splash in some rye.
The flavour industry's concoctions have silently seeped into almost all the processed food and drink we see on grocery store shelves. Added flavours -- whether clearly marked as “artificial” or deceptively marked as “natural” (natural flavours can still be synthesized in a laboratory) -- are so common that we've often never had the real equivalent of whatever beverage our beverage is imitating. When's the last time you had a ginger ale? I mean soda water with ginger juice? Try it! Your taste-buds will sparkle, especially if you splash in some rye.
Added flavours are everywhere because they're cheaper than food that is itself flavourful. Flavourful food usually needs good soil, careful farming techniques and local distribution, which cost money most of us are not willing to pay.
The pull towards craft beer is the pull towards to a beverage that contains hundreds of natural flavour compounds steeped from real ingredients and then chemically enhanced by fermentation. Craft beer tastes delightful because of it's rich and nuanced symphony of natural flavours. And like a symphony (or syngustony?), different natural flavours work together like instruments to produce a sensory experience that is dynamic and changes over time. Some natural flavours waken our taste buds immediately, some only appear after we've swallowed, and still others appear sometime in-between. Some flavours appear as high notes, others a low notes.
The pull towards craft beer is the pull towards to a beverage that contains hundreds of natural flavour compounds steeped from real ingredients and then chemically enhanced by fermentation. Craft beer tastes delightful because of it's rich and nuanced symphony of natural flavours. And like a symphony (or syngustony?), different natural flavours work together like instruments to produce a sensory experience that is dynamic and changes over time. Some natural flavours waken our taste buds immediately, some only appear after we've swallowed, and still others appear sometime in-between. Some flavours appear as high notes, others a low notes.
Drinks with added flavours can't fully match the chemical complexity of drinks from real ingredients, and they pale in comparison to the hyper-complexity in fermented beverages. Food scientists know this so they run taste tests to identify marker flavours -- flavours that play a pronounced role in the overall taste of a certain food. An orange-flavoured drink, for example, has an orangeness about it because it contains a version of what scientists have identified as a significant orange flavour-chemical found in real oranges. But real oranges have hundreds more chemicals that work together to create the full taste you can only get in the fruit itself.
A complex taste-experience is partly why real flavours are so much more enjoyable than their imitations. Another reason is that real flavours come from micro-nutrients, including antioxidants, which we've evolved to enjoy because they promote healthfulness.
I love craft beer, but what I love most is authentic flavour. I'd drink craft beer even if it didn't have an intoxicating effect (I wish this beer existed). Ontario's thirst for craft beer is a sign of an even deeper thirst; a thirst for real flavour. This thirst can drive beneficial changes in the food industry if we're as picky about the quality of flavour of all our food and drink as we are about what's on tap.
I love craft beer, but what I love most is authentic flavour. I'd drink craft beer even if it didn't have an intoxicating effect (I wish this beer existed). Ontario's thirst for craft beer is a sign of an even deeper thirst; a thirst for real flavour. This thirst can drive beneficial changes in the food industry if we're as picky about the quality of flavour of all our food and drink as we are about what's on tap.