Beer

Beer is an unusual but increasingly popular note in niche perfumery. A beer perfume does not smell like a spilled pint; perfumers isolate the pleasant parts of the drink: the grainy sweetness of malt, the green bitterness of hops and the yeasty fizz of fermentation.

What a beer note smells like

Depending on the style it can be light and sparkling, like a cold pale lager with a bready, slightly honeyed foam, or darker and more toasted, like stout. Hop accents add a herbal, grapefruit-like sharpness.

How perfumers create it

The effect is built as an accord: malt and cereal materials for the grain, hop extract or green notes for bitterness, and aldehydes, which smell bright and effervescent, to suggest bubbles.

Where you will find it

Beer notes appear in playful fruity fragrances, where they are paired with apple, grape or citrus, and in boozy woody scents alongside whiskey, rum and tobacco. Choose one if you want a fresh, sociable summer scent that does not smell like anything else on the shelf.