I can't taste nuances

When Im watching someone review a beer on youtube they talk about what flavors they taste. If I have the same beer I usually cant pick up on all all the same things they claim to have tasted. Doesnt really bother me at all. As long I enjoyed the beer thats all that matters.

 

This is a great question. First off, to reiterate what has already been said a number of times, don't stress about this stuff. To paraphrase Marx's 11th Thesis on Feuerbach, 'Beer drinkers have hitherto only interpreted beer in various ways; the point is to drink it.'

Second, no matter what anyone tells you, palettes are different, and there is no hierarchy. Approach beer tasting interpretively. Like reading a poem. If you taste kiwi, then there's kiwi, even if nobody else on earth ever has or will taste it in that beer.

That said, there are some principles that I think are helpful in general.

First and by far the most important, before taking a sip of any beer, retrain your nose. Most of us don't really use our sense of smell for anything except figuring out if somebody has made coffee or bacon yet before we get out of bed. We certainly don't use it to assess food or get around the world much. We used to. Retrain. How can you detect the scent of plum if you have never really sat down and smelled a plum? Or cut grass? Or vanilla? Or fresh sourdough? Try to search out and isolate scents and really sit with them for a while if you can. Don't go by what people tell you certain beer styles 'should' smell like, but experiment. The more scents your nose has in it's repertoire, the more creative and interesting your tasting will be.

Second, don't read other reviews of the beer you're drinking before or during the tasting, and don't look at wheels or charts. You don't need people to tell you what a beer tastes like. You're the one tasting it! It needs to be expressive and organic. Coming from your own senses and experience. After the initial tasting you can revisit it and read other reviews and see the differences and go searching for scents and flavors others have found.

Third, drink slow and at the right temperature. I've never been a big believer in glassware (this is a big point of contention, so decide it for yourself) but temperature and breathing are huge.

Fourth, write. Just write. If you can only write "good" or "tastes like beer" to start, great. You'll grow. Force yourself to marinate a bit.

 

I'm with the OP. I can tell you if I liked a beer, but tasting all of those little things.. I just never seem to.

Licorice in stouts? I see this all the time in reviews and I've never once gotten any sort of anise flavor from any beer I've tasted.

 

I have not either and I been drinking them for over 40+ years. I hate black licorice taste and I can detect it at 10 feet. lol tis true.

 

Kalamazoo stout only, they use brewers licorice.

 

really wow, never had 1 and NOW I never will, lol thanks....

 

LOL, you should it's really good and the licorice really is a true nuance, very very subtle.

 

Expedition Stout too. Loaded with licorice/anise flavor, especially fresh.

 

well unless its shipped to Florida its not happening....I am happy with Founders, price wise not so much.

 

Ah didn't know Bells didn't get to Fla. If we ever hook up a trade I'll make sure you get some if it's around.

 

I did not get it from that beer. subjective I guess. Still I need to try it again and see.
time for a beer run anyway today.....I am off.

 

Are you by any chance a picky eater? Because I can tell you from experience that would be an impediment. Before I started reading reviews of Belgian quads and such, I had absolutely no idea something called a fig was anything other than a leaf, didn't know it was also a fruit, and would have pretty much never considered eating one. I had never eaten a date before I drank beer, or tasted grapefruit. I rarely eat bread unless it has a burger wrapped in it, so trying to wrap my head around the flavor profiles of oat bread versus wheat bread versus rye bread was bizarre (to me, bread has always been one of three types: soft, hard, or sesame). I am very much an eat-to-live person, not the sort who always gets excited for his next meal. Frankly, if it was up to me and I didn't have to worry about nutrition or calories, I would be perfectly happy having nothing but chicken for the rest of my life.

Eventually, after reading so many reviews of "grapefruit" IPA's and date/fig flavors in Belgian beer I decided to just go out and try to eat grapefruit, figs, and dates. It didn't take long for me to go "a-HA! so that's what they mean when they taste X flavor in Y beer." And as it turns out, I buy dates on a regular basis now, because they are tasty. So I can truthfully claim that beer has lead me to more nutritional and healthy eating habits . Apart from rye beer though, I still don't associate barley beer with tasting like barley bread or wheat beer like wheat bread. Wheat cracker sometimes, yes, but not bread. Frankly I just don't eat a lot of bread on its own.


But yes, the too-long/didn't-read version: as you get more experience tasting different things (including food), you will find it becomes easier to notice nuances in beer.

 

Nuances are exactly that, nuances. When you drink a beer you should turn your mind and palate into "what does this flavor profile remind me of?" If you've had a west coast IPA and immediately after smelling thought "grapefruit" then that sensory connection will be made with your taste buds. Same goes with all the other styles. The one I struggled with for the longest was hefeweizen. Banana and clove? I thought to myself. Now every time I drink one those are the first flavor profiles that come to mind. It's really a beautiful thing when you can pick up nuances! If your struggling I'd say to start with the adjunct beers like coffee infused stouts, framboises, and krieks. Those will definitely smack your palate around.

 

Sorry, but I think most of us can tell pine vs citrus vs floral even without looking at reviews. Also, coconut is usually very easy to detect. I don't mean to be less supportive than others, but these are not nuances in my opinion, these are massive differences.

TC - This is always a contentious question to ask, but are you a smoker?

 

Also this exactly ^^^^. I grew up eating all sorts of foods. My dad always had dates, figs, nuts, real licorice, molasses, and all sorts of other not so common foods around (to some people I suppose.) Also a plethora of fruits. If you're just a hot dog, hamburger, and pizza guy it certainly won't help.

 

Look at some of the IPA threads, you see different posts one Citrus bomb, one pine and resin. Same beer. I quite agree on the grapefruit and pine they are 180's.

 

True. The beers are probably all of that and some detect some elements more than others, but they can detect actual tastes. They aren't just "good" or "different".

 

Op, I was going to post something very similar. I am a non smoker, but my nose/palate just doesn't have the ability to detect 90% of what some reviewers do. For example, I just had a Founders breakfast stout last night. I smelled chocolate, and then tasted coffee, but thats all that I could honestly say I distinctly taste. I'd be lying if I said I tasted raisans, vanilla, fruit cake, jasmine, unicorn tears, Grade B (not grade A or C) organic free range honey, or non filtered heavy water.

 

Also OP, something to note: there is no hop called Citrus, but there is one called Citra---and personally I don't think it really tastes a damn thing like citrus. Citra to me is very much in the pineapple/mango spectrum of hop flavors and a lot of people here seem to agree, so don't get hung up on not tasting oranges or grapefruit in a single-hop Citra beer, because a lot (and I would actually guess a majority) of other beer drinkers feel the same way. I think Citra was a misleading name on the hop growers part. In the context of hop flavors, most people tend to put citrus flavors (especially grapefruit) in a different category from other "tropical" flavors, which generally get lumped together in their own group. Citra is currently the reigning king of "tropical" hops.

And I'm glad you could at least tell that Citra and Chinook don't taste alike. I would be very surprised otherwise, to me those are two of the most distinct hop varieties out there.

Yeah this happens all the time, even with grapefruit versus pine different people claim they taste all of one or the other in the same beer. Different people have different taste buds.