A taste for science led to career researching the perfect pint

Ciaran is Sainsbury's beer technologist which, among other things, involves sampling potential new beers two or three times a week.

"My job isn't as good as people make it out to be," says Ciaran, 28.

"It's not like we are sitting around in a pub having a pint. It is all pretty technical and detailed stuff. We are analysing the beers and spirits."

Ciaran decided to follow a career in beer after he read about a course in Brewing and Distilling at Heriot-Watt University.

"After A-levels I was looking around for what university degree course to do and this one sounded really interesting."

With a science background, Ciaran says he was always interested in the process of making beer and after graduating he worked as a brewer for Fuller, Smith and Turner in London before joining Sainsbury's last September.

Now he is involved in developing all Sainsbury's own label beer.

"Developing beer is the most exciting part of the job," says Ciaran.

"This usually starts with tasting sessions where

I taste the proposed samples against those of the supermarket competition and also some branded competitors which can run into quite high numbers of samples."

Ciaran says he does sometimes struggle with sensory fatigue, which means he can struggle to taste the flavours.

"Sampling beer can tire your taste senses quite quickly so you can sample about 10 or so beers at a time and then you need to rest your taste buds, it helps to have some water in between samples, and also crackers."

Beer tasting is different to wine as the bitter receptors are located on the back of the tongue, so in order to fully assess the hops, he has to swallow the beer.

Research is also part of the job, keeping an eye on what is happening and any new trends that are emerging among pubs and bars which lead the beer sector.

"Cider is still big following the adverting campaigns of the likes of Bulmer and Magners, but also premium ciders. They are very refreshing particularly at this time of year," says Ciaran.

The job also involves a lot of travel to production facilities and, as spirits are also his remit, visits to Jamaica for rum and France for Cognac and Armagnac are also on the cards.

As millions of pints of beer are drunk during the World Cup, Ciaran is already looking ahead to Christmas and next year.

Ciaran is one of 50,000 people employed in the brewing industry in the UK which is worth some 52.2bn.