I’m absolutely going to taste the hops and the malt and the extracts (yes even the extracts) before I throw them in to get a sense of what the “raw” ingredients taste like. I have a feeling I’ll learn a lot doing so.

I think brewing beer is more about precision and notation, but imagine the beer tasting palate you’d have if you developed an ability to understand what a wort will taste like when it’s fermented by tasting as you go. You’d be able to take almost any finished beer and pick out the malts, the hops, the yeast used, how it was fermented, etc. As a matter of fact, that’s why I’m brewing, to gain a better appreciation for what I’m tasting.

I actually had something interesting happen to me recently while brewing. After cooling the wort I took a sample for an original gravity reading but had to put it in a plastic water bottle since I forgot my hydrometer inside. I was going to pour the sample in to the hydrometer right after but forgot for 4 days. Last night I opened up the water bottle a burst of air shot out and the beer foamed like crazy. It had started fermenting in the water bottle from wild yeasts that were in there (remember, no yeast was added when I took the sample).

So what did I do? Drank it of course. It actually tasted pretty good and had a nice funk to it ; ) So taste away!