In a significant development, Cyclops Beer – the industry body which produces tasting notes for over 1700 cask beers – has now extended its remit to include all beer. The Cyclops tasting notes are a quick and easy guide to how a beer looks, smells and tastes and how bitter or sweet it is. Previously the Cyclops Beer scheme only covered cask and bottle-conditioned beer.
Great tasting beers not available in cask
“Cyclops Beer decided to make this fundamental change as there are so many great-tasting beers on sale which are not available in cask.” said Stephen Gould from Cyclops Beer.
“We’ve increasingly been asked to accredit lagers, craft keg and other beers. Now seems the right time to broaden Cyclops and make our clear and easy-to-understand tasting notes available for the wide variety of beers that you can find in pubs, clubs, beer festivals and the off trade.
“There has never been a better time to drink British beer and we want to encourage drinkers to discover some great-tasting beers, regardless of whether or not they are available in cask.”
First keg beer…Longhorn IPA
The first keg beer to have been accredited is Longhorn IPA from Purity which you can see on the Cyclops website
Paul Halsey from Purity commented “Cyclops is a fantastic and informative system and we are delighted to see Purity Brewing Company beers listed with Cyclops. The best things in life are simple yet effective and Cyclops is the perfect example. It is a great way for our customers to understand the beers we produce and decide which of our beers most suit their palate. Cyclops’ move into keg beers is great news for Purity with the recent release of Longhorn IPA and the forthcoming release of our hopped, craft lager beer – Lawless.”
Lagers vs ales
Colin Cordy, MD of St Peter’s Brewery has also welcomed the move to accredit lagers saying “We are delighted that Cyclops have decided to include craft-brewed lagers in their descriptor programme. It will be interesting to see how the lagers compare in terms of ‘See’, ‘Smell’ and ‘Taste’ versus the ales already participating in the programme.”
Today’s keg beer drinker…tomorrow’s real ale consumer
Tony Jerome, CAMRA’s Head of Marketing commented, “Although some real ale breweries are experiencing exciting growth, overall beer sales in Britain are in decline. It is therefore important for CAMRA to support generic beer promotions such as Let There Be Beer and the Cyclops expansion into non-real ale products, to encourage more consumers to drink beer. Today’s keg beer drinker could be the tomorrow’s real ale consumer.”
Cyclops Beer tasting notes
The Cyclops Beer tasting notes use symbols and clear descriptions for each beer so that drinkers can see at a glance how bitter or sweet it is and gradually build up a profile of beers that they enjoy. Cyclops helps to demystify beer by reducing jargon and technical terms so that consumers don’t need to be an expert to find the beer that is right for them.
Breweries are invited to send their beer to Cyclops for analysis, their tasting notes are then added to the Cyclops website and the CaskFinder App and made available for the breweries to promote their beers to consumers.
The colour of beer
Cyclops is also placing greater emphasis on the colour of beer and all tasting notes at www.cyclopsbeer.co.uk will clearly show whether a beer is golden, amber or dark. Many of the beer records will also display an icon to show whether it is available as cask, keg, bottle, bottle conditioned or canned.
Another new feature is to display information on the primary hops and malt when this has been provided by the brewery. “We are catering for those beer drinkers who want to know which hops and malt are used to brew their favourite beers and if the brewers are willing to provide this then we are happy to add it to the beer records. Why shouldn’t consumers become more aware of these key ingredients in the same way that they know which grapes are used to make the wines that they enjoy?” said Stephen Gould.
