Grippy?
Does not sound good.
Watery?
Seldom good.
Grainy?
Good… unless it isn’t.
The topic is mouthfeel. When Katarzyna Wolinska-Kennard began working on a project focused on improving mouthfeel in beer, she realized the need for an established lexicon.
“It became clear that mouthfeel, despite being a key driver of customer preference and acceptability, has been somewhat overlooked,” she says. She calls it the silent ingredient—“hard to define, but it can make a powerful difference in the overall drinking impression.”
But there’s more to the story—including how the chemistry of beer and the decisions of brewers affect that quality.
“There was limited understanding of the relationship between specific compounds or brewing processes and sensory attributes such as drying, warming, astringency, and textural properties like creaminess, smoothness, and mouth-coating,” Wolinska-Kennard says. “This gap highlighted the need to explore the chemistry behind mouthfeel, identify the key contributing compounds, and develop methods to evaluate them. That’s what ultimately led to the creation of a fit-for-purpose mouthfeel lexicon.”