Magazines » May/June 2009 Issue » Defining Drinkability
Fifty million dollars worth of beer commercials later, and we still don’t have the answer to one of life’s basic questions: What makes a beer drinkable?
Madison Avenue spent more than a year pounding the “superior drinkability” of Bud Light into our skulls. But the admen never told us what that means. Light body? Low alcohol? Lots of bubbles? Who knows?
Paul Hughes, director of Heriot-Watt University’s International Centre for Brewing and Distilling in Edinburgh, might know. He’s part of a growing field of beer experts who have devoted hours of research into the great “drinkability” question. These chemists, biologists, psychologists, academics, and brewers have conducted dozens of laboratory studies, analyzed hundreds of beers and written scores of papers. In 2006, Hughes himself chaired a two-day scientific symposium of the greatest minds in the brewing industry that focused entirely on the topic.
So, Professor Hughes, what’s the secret of drinkability?
“Honestly,” he admits, “there’s no good answer to this.”
First, no one can agree on the definition. The dictionary defines drinkability as “suitable or fit for safe drinking; potable.” Which suggests that any beer is drinkable as long as it doesn’t leave you with dysentery.
Beer judges say drinkability is a measure of the ease of consumption. Of course, one man’s award-winning IPA is another’s syrup of ipecac. Other experts describe it as a preference for a specific beer, or the desire to stick with it on repeated occasions. “Those that encourage you to go back for another sip, another order, can be considered to be more drinkable,” says Hughes. All bets are off, he adds, “if you wake up the next day checking your body for tire marks.”
Second, there’s no agreement on which ingredients make a beer more drinkable than another. Take alcohol, for example. With an imperial stout, you’re one and done. But some low-alcohol beers, Hughes notes, “can suffer from being considered thin."
Bubbles are good, a 1993 thirst study found. But too much foam was described as a “significant negative determinate of drinkability.” So was too much malt, hops, color, bitterness, aftertaste, aroma, flavor and presumably anything else that might lead you to gasp, “That’s a kick-ass beer!”
Freshness improves drinkability, so plus one for “born-on”-dated Bud Light. However, a 1979 Czech study of “organoleptic parameters” discovered that adjuncts like the rice that goes into Bud’s products actually reduce the drinkability of pilsner. So we’re back to square one.
Forget about the ingredients -- drinkability goes far beyond what’s actually in your glass. Nigel Davies, managing and technical director for Muntons, the British malt producer, developed a “drinkability map” that charts the role of everything from gender to social factors. “We may prefer a beer in one particular pub but not another,” he said, “or indeed enjoy it more with a certain group of friends around us.”
Curiously, there’s one area of agreement among researchers, a factor that Japanese researchers reported in a landmark 1999 study that conclusively established a direct correlation between drinkability and the rate of gastric emptying. That’s right: The true measure of drinkability is peeability.
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This article originally appeared in the May/June 2009 Issue of DRAFT Magazine
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