Beer Doctoring Guidelines derived from the Dr. Beer Seminar results.

Back in 2001 I had this idea to help our club members learn to recognize and identify beer flavor flaws. If I could get a good beer doctoring kit I could feature one characteristic at each meeting, so I went in search of such a kit. Unable to find one that wasn't out of our price range, I came upon the Doctor Beer website (http://www.drbeer.com - run by Jay Hersch). There was a set of pages there describing what Jay had done in putting on 7 or 8 seminars on such a topic. What I did was to analyze them and determine what I thought was the most effective way to put together a doctoring kit. To make it easy to use, I wanted to be able to use the same amount of any of the dopants without having to refer to a guide sheet or remember different amounts, so I prepared 50 ml of each dopant as described below so that for the normal flavor threshold I would add 1 ml of the dopant to 12 oz beer. For each monthly meeting, I would purchase (yecch!!) a number of 22 oz Bud Lite's, doping 3 or 4 with the threshold amount (2 ml), another with 1.5 x the threshold (3 ml), and another with 2 x the threshold amt (4 ml). There were also 4 or 5 undoctored bottles.

So, I would bring these beers and a package of 2 oz cups to the meeting, setting up an equal number of 1 oz samples of undoctored and 1 x threshold doctored beers, and everyone would take a sample of each. More than half were able to detect the flavor flaw being highlighted, and for those who couldn't detect it they got a sample of the 1.5 x doctored beer. Most were able to detect it, and virtually all those who couldn't were able to with the 2 x sample.

This spanned a period of about 18 months, and all the participants really liked the experience. I'm getting ready to do it again soon, as we have several new club members, and others have expressed an interest in repeating the experience. I can't think of anything I would do differently. This is what we did and it worked well for us.

Characteristic	Dosage Rate	Ingest?	How it was accomplished
Alcohol	15ml pure ethanol	Y	Remove 15ml beer, add 15ml ethanol to 12 oz.
Estery/Fruity	250ul banana extract, 30ul Strawberry extract, 30ul Lemon extract, 20ul Orange extract	Y	12.5 ml Banana extract, 1.5 ml each of Strawberry extract & Lemon extract, 1 ml of Orange extract in 33.5 ml ethanol. Use 1ml solution in 12 oz.
Nutty	90ul almond extract	Y	4.5 ml Almond Extract in 45.5 ml ethanol. Use 1ml solution in 12 oz.
Diacetyl	90ul butter extract	Y	4.5 ml Butter flavoring in 45.5 ml ethanol. Use 1ml solution in 12 oz.
Stale	open bottles to air, recap, heat under heater for 5 days	Y	as is
Clove	2.7 eyedropper drops clove extract	Y	6.75 ml clove extract in 43.25 ml ethanol. Use 1ml solution in 12 oz.
Grassy (hoppy)	80 ul Hop Oil Extract	Y	4 ml non-isomerized hop oil extract in 46 ml ethanol. Use 1ml solution in 12 oz.
Phenolic	12mg Phenol	N	600 mg Phenol + ethanol to make 50 ml. Use 1ml solution in 12 oz. DO NOT INGEST
Sulfury	37.5 mg Potassium Metabisulfite (K2S2O5)	N	1875 mg K2S205 + ethanol to make 50ml. Use 1ml solution in 12 oz. DO NOT INGEST
DMS ***	0.11ul (made by diluting 50uL pure DMS to 50ml w/ pure ethanol, then adding 110ul of this to each bottle)	DMS-N Corn-Y	try adding juice from canned corn – use 1ml, 2ml, 3ml, ... samples until you determine the flavor threshold.
Sour (Lactic)	360ul 85% DSP Lactic Acid (i.e. food grade!!!)	Y	18 ml 85% Lactic Acid in 32 ml ethanol. Use 1ml solution in 12 oz.
Sour (Acetic)	1.75 ml white wine vinegar	Y	1.75 ml in 12 oz.
Astringent	1/4 tsp tannin in 50ml water. 10ml of this added per bottle	Y	2 1/2 tsp tannin in 50 ml ethanol.Use 1ml solution in 12 oz.
Gypsum	1/8 tsp	Y	1 1/4 tsp gypsum in 50 ml ethanol.Use 1ml solution in 12 oz.
Skunky	Previously dark stored, good fresh Molson in sun 3 days.	Y	as is

*** We could not find pure DMS to use, and did not do this one.