---
title: "What Is Drinkability in Beer and How to Recognize It"
description: "Everyone seems to understand it, but no one defines it the same way, although brewing research has been trying to pin it down since 2005 with the first review of the concept published in the journal of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas."
url: https://www.thebeertimes.com/en/what-is-drinkability-in-beer/
date: 2026-10-07
modified: 2026-10-07
author: "Carlos Uhart M."
image: https://www.thebeertimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/drinkability-three-beers.jpg
categories: ["Culture"]
tags: ["Cultura", "Culture", "Drinkability", "Sensory Analysis", "Tasting Beer", "Tomabilidad"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# What Is Drinkability in Beer and How to Recognize It

Drinkability is the quality in a beer that invites the next sip and the next glass. Spanish-speaking brewers call it tomabilidad, their adaptation of the English word. It does not measure whether a beer is complex or award-winning.

![Three beers of different colors, a dark beer, a red beer and an amber beer, served on a table](https://www.thebeertimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/drinkability-three-beers.jpg)*Serving beer*

It is an informal word among brewers, judges and sommeliers, and it belongs to the vocabulary every beer lover ends up hearing alongside [the basic beer terms](https://www.thebeertimes.com/terminos-para-entender-cerveza/).

It has no single definition. Brewing research has been trying to pin it down since at least 2005, when Mattos and Moretti published [a review of the concept](https://doi.org/10.1094/TQ-42-0013) in the journal of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas.

Contenido

- [A Definition Science Still Debates](#A_Definition_Science_Still_Debates)
- [What Can Be Measured and What Cannot](#What_Can_Be_Measured_and_What_Cannot)
- [What Determines a Beer’s Drinkability?](#What_Determines_a_Beer8217s_Drinkability)
- [Drinkability Is Not a Synonym for Light Beer](#Drinkability_Is_Not_a_Synonym_for_Light_Beer)
- [Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)](#Frequently_Asked_Questions_FAQ)
  - [1. What does drinkability mean in beer?](#1_What_does_drinkability_mean_in_beer)
  - [2. Does a highly drinkable beer have to be light?](#2_Does_a_highly_drinkable_beer_have_to_be_light)
  - [3. Can drinkability be measured?](#3_Can_drinkability_be_measured)
  - [4. Which flaws reduce drinkability?](#4_Which_flaws_reduce_drinkability)
  - [5. What is the difference between drinkability and a sessionable beer?](#5_What_is_the_difference_between_drinkability_and_a_sessionable_beer)
- [Recommended](#Recommended)

## A Definition Science Still Debates

Gastl, Hanke and Back, researchers at the Technical University of Munich in Weihenstephan, proposed a definition.

In [an article published in Brauwelt International](https://brauwelt.com/en/topics/market/185-topics/miscellaneous/623761-drinkability-balance-and-harmony-of-components-as-well-as-an-incentive-for-continuing-to-drink) in 2008, they wrote that drinkability involves a special harmony and balance, along with an incentive to keep drinking.

According to that work, the factors that affect it range from the sensory experience and the drinker’s cognitive influence to the way the body ingests and absorbs the beer.

In 2011, a Czech team led by Čejka and Dvořák published a review of the concept and a method to evaluate it in [the journal Kvasný průmysl](https://www.kvasnyprumysl.cz/artkey/kpr-201111-0001_Pitelnost_piva_a_metoda_jejiho_stanoveni.php). In it they quote one of the conclusions reached by Mattos and Moretti.

> A beer preferred by a brewer need not necessarily be preferred by the majority of the consumers and need not be a best seller.

For them, drinkability is the total harmony of flavor, aroma and appearance, and the customer has to look forward to the next glass.

The Czech authors add a methodological caveat. A conventional tasting captures conscious opinions shaped by tastes and habits, while drinkability depends mostly on physiological reactions the drinker does not control.

That is why they propose observing how the beer is consumed over time, on the hypothesis that the more drinkable beer is drunk faster and that the volume consumed in a given interval correlates with its drinkability.

The method they propose is a comparative test. Each taster receives about 100 ml of two beers to try and then drinks freely from both, alternating between them, while the volume consumed of each one is recorded. The first 100 ml do not count, and the difference is analyzed with the Wilcoxon statistical test.

For some variants they recommend a shared room with tables where conversation is allowed, so that people drink more unconsciously than in a tasting booth. This is how they sum it up in their conclusions.

> The principle of the new technique for testing beer drinkability is a correlation of the drinkability with the volume of beer drunk within a certain time period followed by an evaluation using statistical methods. The statistical methods used together with the elimination of influencing factors guarantee the objectivity and the high information value of final results in the form of statistically significant differences in the drinkability of the beers tested.

The same review summarizes earlier work. In 1979, Ferkl and Cuřín asked tasters to rate their desire to keep drinking after 0.5 and 1.5 liters on a scale of five levels, one of the first methods for measuring drinkability. On the work of Guinard and his team, published in 1998, the review writes the following.

> The authors concluded that the drinkability, the refreshing ability and thirst quenching attributes have a strong correlation. The sharpness of the beer and the fine bubbled foam were statistically significant attributes correlating with the drinkability.

## What Can Be Measured and What Cannot

A group at [the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences](https://pure.fh-ooe.at/en/publications/fluid-flow-in-the-mouth-as-a-measurable-aspect-of-drinkability/) summed up the problem by splitting drinkability into two parts. One is conscious and rests on measurable attributes of the beer. The other is subconscious and brings together social and psychological factors.

That team focused on the measurable part and ran numerical simulations of how beer flows inside the mouth to relate its rheological properties to mouthfeel. The study abstract defines its aim this way.

> The aim of the study is to develop a hybrid tool which offers the opportunity to describe and predict mouthfeel only by virtue of the rheological characteristics of beverages and liquid foods.

In Weihenstephan, Gastl’s team combined a human sensory panel with a taste sensor, an electronic tongue, to study which components make a beer more or less drinkable.

They started with bitterness, because it weighs heavily on drinkability, and varied alcohol, pH and dextrins along with different levels of iso-alpha acids. Talley sums up their results this way.

> One of the most interesting results, especially with regard to session beer, is that elevating the ethanol content leads to a weakening of the bitterness signal. (…) The results do indicate that quality bitterness and astringency in particular can be affected negatively by changes in pH and alcohol level.

Other researchers, such as Kojima and colleagues in [a study published in 2009](https://doi.org/10.1094/ASBCJ-2009-0910-01) in the Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists, analyzed the relationship between throat sensation, flavor and the swallowing movement when drinking beer.

To do so they developed a noninvasive system that records the movement of the Adam’s apple, the electrical activity of the throat muscles and the sound of swallowing.

## What Determines a Beer’s Drinkability?

Quality is the first condition. Brewer Jennifer Talley, in [an excerpt from her book Session Beers](https://www.foodrepublic.com/2017/09/19/beer-drinkability/) published by Food Republic in 2017, points out that off flavors break the harmony of a beer.

She cites high levels of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) as a negative factor and notes that diacetyl in the aroma is often read as a sign of heavier body. Storage defects such as [beer oxidation](https://www.thebeertimes.com/en/causes-and-effects-of-oxidation-in-beer-everything-you-need-to-know/) work in the same direction.

Among the sensory components that push it up or down are carbonation level, the relationship between sugar and pH, style, hop bitterness and aroma, phenolic compounds and esters, protein content and alcohol.

In the brewhouse, Talley describes a common mistake, extracting astringency from malt tannins at the end of sparging, when the pH rises above 5.8. Even heat treatment leaves its mark, as [the sensory impact of pasteurization](https://www.thebeertimes.com/los-efectos-de-la-pasteurizacion-segun-el-tipo-de-cerveza/) on ales and lagers shows.

Nagao and colleagues, Japanese researchers cited by Talley, observed in 1998 that as the stomach fills, satiety increases and beer becomes less appealing. The Czech review adds a later finding from the same group.

> In 1999, the same authors found out that the speed of stomach emptying correlates with a positive beer ranking.

Time of day, age, culture, drinking habits, foam, temperature and glassware round out the list of variables Talley links to drinkability.

## Drinkability Is Not a Synonym for Light Beer

In the United States, the word drinkability became tied to a light beer through an advertising campaign.

In October 2008, Anheuser Busch launched the slogan The difference is drinkability for Bud Light, backed by a USD 50 million advertising campaign, and in 2009 it put the phrase superior drinkability on its cans and bottles, as reported by [the AP news agency](https://archives-new.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2008/Dec/14/bz/hawaii812140329.html).

The company presented the term as a flavor that was just right, neither too heavy nor too light.

According to Advertising Age, [as cited by Newser](https://www.newser.com/story/66562/drinkability-bad-for-sales.html), Bud Light sales fell 3% in the first half of 2009, its first negative year in 27 years of history, and the company decided to tone down the word.

The definitions from Gastl and the Czech team speak of harmony and set no alcohol limit. By that standard, a light beer can have poor drinkability if it has flaws or a harsh bitterness, and a beer with more body and alcohol can invite another sip if it stays balanced.

Talley recalls that in Utah in the early 1990s, “drinkability” was used to describe lower alcohol beers with light or moderate hopping, an idea closer to what is now called a sessionable or session beer, such as [Founders All Day IPA](https://www.thebeertimes.com/founders-all-day-ipa-notas-de-cata-y-maridajes-recomendados/).

## Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

### 1. What does drinkability mean in beer?

Drinkability, adapted into Spanish as tomabilidad, is the quality of a beer that invites you to keep drinking it. The Czech team of Čejka and Dvořák describes it as a harmony of flavor, aroma and appearance that leaves the drinker wanting the next glass.

### 2. Does a highly drinkable beer have to be light?

Not necessarily. Lightness helps, because high alcohol and harsh bitterness wear you out sooner. What matters most is balance and the absence of flaws, so a well made beer with body can be more drinkable than a light lager with off flavors.

### 3. Can drinkability be measured?

There have been attempts. In 2011, Czech researchers proposed measuring it through drinker behavior, starting from the idea that a more drinkable beer is drunk faster. Other groups study the sensation in the mouth and throat when swallowing, or combine tasting panels with electronic tongues.

### 4. Which flaws reduce drinkability?

Off flavors such as dimethyl sulfide (DMS) or diacetyl, which is perceived as heavier body. Also astringency, harsh bitterness, alcohol heat and cloying sweetness.

### 5. What is the difference between drinkability and a sessionable beer?

A sessionable or session beer is one with low alcohol that lets you drink several on the same occasion. Drinkability is broader. It describes the urge to keep drinking and can also be found in stronger beers.

## Recommended

- [How to train 25 beer descriptors with everyday ingredients](https://www.thebeertimes.com/en/how-to-train-25-professional-beer-descriptors-using-common-and-everyday-ingredients/)
- [The illusion of diagnosing processes when judging beers in a competition](https://www.thebeertimes.com/en/the-illusion-of-diagnosing-processes-when-judging-styles-in-a-beer-competition/)