Our Service Offerings
Welcome to Sensory-Sensei, where we blend the art of beer tasting with the discipline and fun of karate. Our interactive and hands-on courses are designed specifically for brewery owners and operators looking to train their staff across all roles, including front-of-house, production, management, marketing, accounting, and other back-of-house positions. While we host ticketed events for individuals (Fundamentals Course), our other core courses are structured to cater to professional group training needs. Choose any course based on your interest and level of experience – there’s no need to complete one before advancing to another. Your teams journey to Palate Enlightenment starts here!
Fundamentals Course
Designed for consumers, beer enthusiasts, and loyalty club members, our White Belt course introduces participants to the basics of beer tasting like a professional.
White Belt
Fundamentals of Beer Training
- Understand the core principles of beer tasting, including how to evaluate appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression.
- Receive hands-on demonstrations of smelling techniques to identify and appreciate the complex aromas in beer.
- Participate in interactive games that illustrate how retronasal breathing enhances flavor perception, deepening your sensory experience.
- Engage in sensory sessions with different hop varieties to understand their unique aromatic profiles and contributions to beer.
- Sample and analyze three different malt types, gaining insights into their distinct flavors and how they impact the beer.
- Taste three distinct beers from various historical regions, exploring their unique characteristics and the historical context of each style.
Origin Series
Our Origin Series offers an immersive journey into the essential components of brewing—Malt, Hops, Yeast, and Water. Each belt-level course dives deep into these fundamental areas, combining interactive sessions with hands-on tastings to help your team develop a strong foundation in beer sensory analysis.
Malt Sensory Training
Yellow Belt
- Understand the Malting Process: Gain a foundational knowledge of the malting process, from grain selection and steeping to germination, kilning, and roasting, to see how each step shapes the flavor, color, and texture of the final malt and the beer it produces.
- Explore the Range of Malts: Taste and learn how base malts, kilned malts, caramel/crystal malts, and roasted malts influence a beer's body, flavor, color, and mouthfeel, deepening your understanding of each malt's unique contribution to the final beer.
- Flavor Vocabulary: Learn the precise language needed to describe the flavors and aromas you encounter in malts, equipping you with the words to effectively communicate what you taste in the finished beer.
- Taste three unique beers, each brewed with specific malts that embody the essence of their historically significant beer style.
Hop Sensory Training
Green Belt
- Understand the Hop Process: Learn how hops are grown, harvested, dried, processed, and stored before being delivered to breweries.
- Learn to recognize and differentiate between hop varieties, focusing on their contributions to bitterness, aroma, and flavor.
- Participate in an interactive session where you'll experience the distinct profiles of various hops from notable growing regions through tasting and smelling exercises.
- Learn how hops, and hop products, are used in various parts of the brewing process to achieve specific flavor profiles.
- Taste three distinct beers from various notable hop-growing regions, exploring their unique characteristics and the historical context of each style.
Yeast Sensory Training
Orange Belt
- Explore the Yeast Lifecycle: Understand the stages of the yeast lifecycle, from the lag period to the growth phase, fermentation phase, and sedimentation phase.
- Understand Yeast Fundamentals: Learn about different yeast types, their characteristics, and how they influence fermentation, flavor, and aroma in beer.
- Time and Temperature Effects: Learn how fermentation time and temperature impact finished beer, and learn controls for these variables to achieve specific flavor profiles.
- Explore Historical and Unique Yeast-Derived Flavors: Discover the historical role of yeast in traditional beer styles and taste three beers featuring distinctive yeast-derived flavors.
Water Sensory Training
Blue Belt
- Explore Water Profiles: Understand how different water qualities, including varying pH levels, influence beer, and how historically significant water profiles have shaped classic beer styles.
- Hands on Tasting Sessions: Engage in practical tasting exercises to recognize and describe the distinct flavors and aromas that water imparts to beer.
- Learn Water Treatment Techniques: Learn how brewers treat water to prevent off-flavors, including methods for adjusting pH, removing impurities, and balancing mineral content to achieve optimal brewing results.
- Sample Beers from Historic Regions: Taste beers brewed with water profiles from three historically significant brewing areas, such as Burton-on-Trent, to understand how water shapes classic styles.
Flavor Training Series
Our Flavor Training section is designed to elevate your team’s sensory skills, focusing on the critical ability to identify and analyze off-flavors in beer. Through our Brown Belt and Black Belt courses, your team will engage in intensive, expert-led training that hones their palates and prepares them for the most challenging aspects of beer evaluation. Perfect for breweries committed to achieving excellence in quality control, these courses provide the advanced knowledge necessary for mastering beer’s most complex flavor profiles.
Brown Belt 10 Flavor Standard Training
- Comprehensive Off-Flavor Analysis: Receive detailed training on ten carefully selected off-flavors from our extensive library of over 25 options, providing a solid foundation in sensory education.
- In-Depth Session: Engage in immersive, focused sessions that allow for deep understanding and mastery of the chosen off-flavors.
- Flexible Group Sizes: Designed for 8 Karateka (students) with the option to add more, offering personalized instruction that accommodates your team’s size and requirements.
Black Belt 20 Flavor Standard Training
- Extensive Flavor Training: Master twenty off-flavors through rigorous training that challenges your sensory abilities and prepares you for expert-level evaluations.
- Comprehensive Sessions: Participate in two thorough sessions within three months, allowing for a deep and sustained learning experience.
- Customized Flavor Selection: Choose the twenty off-flavors you want to focus on, ensuring that the training is relevant to your specific goals and industry needs.
- Flexible Group Sizes: Designed for 8 Karateka (students) with the option to add more, offering personalized instruction that accommodates your team’s size and requirements.
