Ep88 — Beer Educator and Sensory Consultant Mirella Amato

So just for a little bit of context, I, when I started, before I was a, a journalist in beer, talking 15 years ago, and I was an enthusiast, and there was so much...

Because of what was happening in the US, cask actually, uh, got forgotten about a little bit because of the excitement of, of what, you know, big C craft beer.

Mm-hmm.

It's a term that I [laughs] I don't like anymore, but it, it describes a certain time and definitely works for those American beers.

But, um, what happened was there was this huge interest, and people started to get interested in tasting beer, not just having a pint down the pub and, like, getting into it.

And I went to a few sensory, uh, tasting sessions, beer and food matching, which I'd love to talk a bit about later on.

Um, and then people started doing qualifications, whether it was, um, the Institute of Brewing and Distilling, the IBD, and, um, Cicerone.

And now we have WSET, which we'll get onto because, uh, they've only been, recently been doing beer education.

But I'd like to get from you what is the value of, of beer education.

Why is it worth an individual, uh, first of all, investing that time and energy into learning to taste beer, uh, in more depth?

Because it's delicious.

I mean, the, the world of beer is vast.

There are so many styles out there.

And, you know, whether you wanna learn about tasting or whether you wanna learn about styles, some knowledge is critical because or else you're just limiting yourself in the beers that you're selecting, or you're taking a shot in the dark when you're trying a new beer, and there are so many amazing flavors to explore.

It's really, I think, there are not enough opportunities for people to learn about beer in the general public, and I have also found that the beer industry in general just doesn't support beer education the way that it should.

Uh, you know, in an ideal world, maybe it wouldn't be so critical for the [laughs] general public to learn about beer.

But, you know, I don't know how it is over here, but in North America, certainly you go into a beer bar and the, you know, the people pouring it c- aren't able to answer even the most basic questions about the beers.

And so it's, you know, the blind leading the blind, and that's not-

Hmm

... that's not a good place to be.

Uh, and certainly when it comes to craft beer, you know, when craft beer was started, it was tiny, and those of us who were into it were really passionate.

Uh, I certainly was, and it sounds like basically the timing you're outlining, you were as well.

And so we sought out opportunities, and we educated ourselves, and we, you know, took the time even to...

You know, I...

There were no beer courses when, uh, when I was starting out.