Viewing it, we not only read the name and find out the producer, but also we try to understand the meaning of figure, written on the label. But there is one more unknown figure on the label. It means the beer density. The density is marked in per cents or Balling degrees.

Karl Napoleon Balling was a Chech chemist, who suggested this unit of measurement. What does Balling degree mean? Light beer has density to 14 %, but strong beer – more than 14 %! This figure turns out to be very useful!

 There are two basic characteristics of beer: its colour and head. Each sort of beer has its own peculiar tint. More over, it’s important to pay great attention to the beer tint and its transparency, presence or absence of colour spectrum. Light beer must meet the most serious requirements. Its colour spectrum must be pure, transparent and golden, but it mustn’t have reddish, brownish and greenish tints. Also the light beer mustn’t sparkle.

You can define the quality of beer on colour – the lighter the beer – the better its quality. The light beer produced at the enterprise is an index of its high level.

Dark beer can not be sparkle and transparent, can have the brown tint, but at the same time it can be the beer of a high-quality. It’s too difficult to define its quality on colour, but you can do it on its head.

High-quality beer has abundant, thick, fast and specific head.  Pour some beer into a big glass and then you can put into practice the rule of “double fours”. It means the best beer can have the heigh of head no less than 4 sm and keep it for no less than 4 minutes. It was taken to blow on the glass of beer since time immemorial. It wasn’t only the custom. If you blow on the glass of beer and its head disappearis, it means that it is beer of bad quality. More over, the head of good and qualitive beer isn’t blown away. There is one more well-known way: put the coin on the head’s layer. If the coin doesn’t sink – it means the beer is of the best quality.

Professional tasters consist the head of beer must “stick” to the walls of the glass. After having drunk the beer, the traces of beer head must be left on the walls of the glass. If it happened so, it means you’ve drunk the real beer.

Of course, you can define the quality of beer approximately. If you want to value the beer finally and to feel all tints of its taste and smell, the beer should be tasted. You should also smell it, because the sense of smell is of great importance.

Tasting the beer, first of all we breath in and breath out its aroma, because man’s sense of smell is much more sensible and versatile than man’s taste. If you want to value the quality of beer, smelling it, first of all you should define if the combination of all smells is in harmony with each other and then tast it.

Specialists use some characteristics for determination different smells of beer such as: pure, fresh, floral, hop’s smell, yeasty, sour or rotten.

It’s  too difficult to feel all these smells at once. If you want to feel the smell better, you should breath in for several times and then breath out. Besides, we are breathing the smells in while we are drinking the beer, because drink’s motion in the mouth cavity also makes us to smell.

By the way, we have the best feeling of this smell at those moment when we have already swallowed it. 

Try to smell beer – and if you have the pleasant feelings it means you are drinking the good beer and it is realty the beer of yours!

Without any doubt, you should taste beer! Having tasted, you can define the temperature and consistency and if it is sticky, tart and oil. Beer’s taste can be very different: sweet, bitter, salty or sour. The most important thing about beer is its suggestion, which is left after the first sip was done.

For example, lovers of  “sweet” beer prefer to feel its taste at once, but you can enjoy the “bitter” beer much more later, so lovers of the “bitter” beer have long pleasant suggestion of beer.

However, the majority of beer’s trades –marks have all these tastes in different proportions. So  “delicious” beer has the combination of the following tastes, such as: sweet, bitter, salty and sour. The skilled brewer can balance all these things. If he is mistaken a little, the delicious taste of beer’ll disappear.

By the way, if you  have the long bitter taste after having drunk the beer, it means the beer and its ingredients are of low quality or they don’t follow the technology. Taste different sorts of beer and look for your favourite.