You can always pick a craft beer enthusiast by the haul of beer they are carrying. There are 16 different bottles in one box, because they only ever buy 1 of each beer to ensure they can stretch their dollar and their palettes as far as possible. Let’s face it, we are all guilty of it and there is nothing wrong with trying LOTS of different beers, but is one beer really enough to get a good handle on how good a beer is?
Well if you are like me, you often keep an eye out for what all the “cool kids” are drinking on the web and reading all the reviews. You hone in on a Funky Little Saison and make a few mental notes and next time you hit the bottle shop you trawl through all the shelves of IPA’s, Stouts and find the elusive bottle. You pop that in your box and continue hand selecting the best beers on offer and make your way home. Proud of your haul, you snap a picture of them all spread out over the table and post it to Instagram or your favourite Facebook Group. Your craft beer friends make comments like “great haul” and “where did you pick those up” and you feel very chuffed with yourself.
Some time shortly after, you crack the lid on this Farmhouse Ale and pour it into your craftd glass ready for a tasting and snap a quick pic so you are ready to post your beer review. The first taste, well it doesn’t impress you, in fact it doesn’t taste anything like what you expected. You quickly scroll through your phone and find the review that your mate did last week where he talked about Grapefruits and wonder what happened to the mouth puckering tartness that was promised on the label. WTF is going on? I didn’t pay $15 for a 500ml bottle of Solo. You take a few more mouth fulls just to be sure and now that you are, you are wondering what the hell is going on. You look for the Best By Date which can never be read, and wonder if it is off. The bottlo is you local and you know he moves stock quickly though, so it should be fine. Why can’t I taste what every one else can then? Did the Pilsner I had before it effect my taste buds, or is my palette just so used to tartness that I can’t taste it anymore?
Damn it, I was really looking forward to that. I wonder if I just had one more bottle and I could have tried it with a Stir Fry instead of before dinner, would it have tasted any different?
Well if we assume it wasn’t off, or past it’s used by date, I think the answer could be YES, it could taste quiet different on another day. You see I think our taste buds change, and I am not talking over years, I am talking from day to day and week to week. I reckon you can have the same beer on 3 different occasions and it tastes different each time you try it.
Recently I have tested this theory by going back and buying beers that I had some time ago, and trying them again. I have even looked up my past reviews and read them and compared them to what I am tasting now and whilst the guts of it doesn’t change, certainly some aspects of it do. One flavour might be more or less pronounced, or you might pick up something different on the nose.
I challenge you to take this test and revisit a beer you haven’t had for a while and compare it to your past review and see if it differs. You might be surprised what you find.
Of course one way to avoid this happening is to buy at least 2 of each beer that you try and have one now and one later. That has to be a good thing anyway, doesn’t it?