quality control
Sensory panel
Assess beer against its own specification using trained tasters, screened and calibrated against known spiked standards.
Also called tasting panel, quality control tasting.
What is actually happening
Panellists are screened for sensitivity to specific compounds and calibrated with spiked samples, because thresholds vary enormously between individuals — some people cannot detect diacetyl at all, and their opinion of a beer’s diacetyl level is worthless.
Well-run panels use blind, randomised presentation and statistical designs such as triangle tests, because an unblinded taster told what to expect will find it.
What goes wrong here
Risks rather than certainties. This step does not cause these faults; getting it wrong can.
- Diacetyl — A buttery compound with a very low threshold — normally a sign of rushed fermentation, but traditional at trace levels in some Czech lagers.
- DMS — A cooked-vegetable note from a malt precursor that a vigorous open boil should have driven off.
- Oxidation — The universal ageing fault: oxygen degrades beer into papery, cardboard-like staleness, and dulls everything that made it good.
Related steps and concepts
- Forced ageing test — The complementary predictive test.
Also at the quality control stage
See the whole process in order on how beer is made.
Last reviewed 2026-08-16.