Waiter, There’s Cat Pee in My Beer (and other funny beer descriptors)

Just thought I’d share a few beer descriptors with you guys:

http://www.beersyndicate.com/blog/waiter-theres-cat-pee-in-my-beer/

Anybody have any other funny descriptors that aren’t too common?

I got strong tomato sauce flavor and aroma in a bottle of lindemans cassis lambic.

Ha!  I’ve had the cassis, but will have to try it again now!

The only beer I know brewed with tomatoes is Mamma Mia Pizza Beer.  Haven’t tried it, but want to!

http://www.mammamiapizzabeer.com/main.php

That sort of makes sense. 4MMP is present in high levels in tomato vines, blackcurrant, tomcat urine and many new world hop varieties. It would make sense that a blackcurrant lambic might have flavor similarities to tomato sauce, especially a sweetened one.

Many beers with high rates of Simcoe, Citra, other New World hops are just cat pee to my wife. She is much more sensitive to it. I get the pine and fruit.

it definitely had to do with the sweetness. I suspect it wouldn’t have been nearly so distinctive if it wasn’t syrupy

Same here.  Simcoe especially.  She gets nothing but cat pee and/or sweaty gym sock.  It’s rare to find an IPA she can tolerate.

Simcoe is definitely the cat urine hop.  It smells just like a home that has an intact adult male cat that loves to mark his territory.  Citra and Chinook have the same foul odor to a lesser extent.

I think it depends on how its used. Try it as a whirlpool addition

+1.  It’s funny how differently people perceive hop aromas. Occasionally I’ll pick up a slight cattiness from Simcoe, but mostly pine and fruit as well. I get none from Citra. But I’m really sensitive to the onion/garlic thing, which I strongly dislike.

I don’t get cat pee at all, just blackcurrant skin. But I’m the same way with the onion/garlic/Asiago thing. Anything more than the faintest hint and the beer starts to become savory to me and I can’t bring myself to drink it.

I’m curious to see what others will think of Wai-iti once it starts becoming more widely available in the US. I just get straight up, concentrated blackcurrant from that hop. I wonder if others will get a lot of cat pee from that one.

Yeah, I haven’t used Wai-iti yet - I’m curious to see how I perceive it.  The only ‘over the top’ catty hop (to me) I’ve tried was at a brewpub a few years back. This place had a NZ single hop APA on tap, and it was crazy catty to me. I wish I could remember the variety but I was out of town with a big group and didn’t remember the name. It was weird because I don’t generally get that from other hops, even the supposed catty ones.

Horse Blanket and barnyard come to mind.  That ain’t the hops talking.

I’ve never skinned a blackcurrent and imagine it’s very tedious. And anyway, it’s very difficult to get fresh blackcurrents in the US, so I always wonder where descriptors like that come from.

My favorite - I know a Grand Master judge who describes floating particulates in beer as ‘sea monkeys’

Black currants are in the ribe family, and the leaves are catty when disturbed. Yeah, here it is.
http://www.flavoractiv.com/products/catty-beer-flavour-standard/

Black currants also spread the white pine blister disease. Michigan was known for the stands of huge white pines that were logged off in the 1800s. The rust has been a problem to those coming back.
http://www.bughillfarm.org/blackcurrants.cfm

Some in the club say that some farms are grandfathered here, but new planting is not allowed. That is all I know.

Well that, and Schramm’s Black Agnes mead made with high amounts of Black Currants is killer! I do know that.

Simcoe and Citra are nothing…the worst cat piss hops are CTZ.

After years of experimenting and getting burned, I am sticking with Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo, and Chinook (in that order of preference) for my American IPAs.

I do like the bigger New Zealand hops, like Pacific Gems, but I call those I brew with them British IPAs.

And I love Cluster hops.  Get no cat piss out of them whatsoever.

I love Cluster as well.  Eau du feline in Cluster appears to be more terroir based than the other “catty” hops.