“The science of beer”
Dr Greg Organ
Senior Sensory Specialist
Lion Company
Wednesday 5 April 2017
Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney
Dr Organ began with a description of beer’s four ingredients – yeast, water, malt and hops – and the brewing process. To fully enjoy your beer you need to fully utilise your senses and the talk then moved to describing the role of each of the senses. The basics of sensory science were used to illustrate how the senses can be used to gain scientifically valid information through trained tasting panels. The sensory properties of the main flavours of beer were next described together with some of the chemistry involved. The talk concluded with a brief mention of Lion’s marketing campaign “Beer The Beautiful Truth”. During the talk some practical hints as to how to enjoy your beer at its best were included!
Dr. Greg Organ is the Sensory Specialist for Lion. After gaining a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Sydney he worked for two years at the Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University. After this he made a major change in research area and worked for two years on the chemistry and sensory evaluation of wine at the Australian Wine Research Institute, Adelaide. Since then he has been the sensory and flavour scientist for Lion for nearly thirty years. He is responsible for the training, procedures and operation of all of Lion’s sensory evaluation panels. He also does the more complex flavour analytical work for Lion and some research work into the flavour chemistry of beer. He is well known within the Australian and New Zealand sensory science community and has made many presentations to a wide range of groups on beer science.