A procedure is described for the routine gas chromatographic analysis of beer headspace volatiles which requires minimal operator time. The reproducibility of the procedure is illustrated for 12 components. A method for predicting triangular taste panel performance, using the t-statistics calculated from the“Per Cent of the Total Peak Area”(PTPA) and pooled standard deviations from 25 replicate analyses, is introduced. Correlation between the PTPA method and triangular taste panel results is demonstrated.