When I take a sip of beer—professional or homebrew—one thing it has to have is flow. Not flow in the sense of pure liquid dynamics, but flow like a great mountain-bike trail or a long wave with a perfect tube—a quality similar to what psychologist and author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi referred to as “flow state,” where distractions melt away and one can achieve immersion in the activity at hand.
Maybe it’s strange to think of beer this way, as beer is almost always tied to social activity or (among certain crowds) consumed in tiny amounts among large groups that produce nothing but choppy and disjointed experiences. But when I’m drinking in a contemplative way and considering the beer at hand, flow is the first thing I look for.
There are plenty of things that can take me out of that flow state while enjoying a beer—flavors that are either unexpected or unpleasant, rough edges or textures that cause me to ask a question about the experience, clashing notes that produce noticeable dissonance, levels of intensity that seem out of place, etc.—and when brewers ask me for feedback, it’s usually one of the first things I mention. Classical off-flavors aren’t intrinsically “bad,” for example—they’re undesirable when they pull you out of the experience of that beer and make you wonder why you’re tasting that flavor. Don’t break the flow.