Fried taste buds

You need to take a break for a bit and drink beers without intense hopping.

Lupulin Threshold Shift (LTS) decreases your tastebuds' ability to recover from the hard hitting you've been giving them. Indeed, drinking one strongly hopped beer can decrease your ability to taste a second beer that doesn't rely on hops as well as decrease your ability to get the full effect of a second beer that is also strongly hopped.

After about a week you'll be able to bring back the hoppy beers occasionally but don't drink them all the time or you'll be right back where you are now.

It’s a bit like an exercise program. Taking regular breaks is essential for maximum effect.

 

Gin and tonic? It is summer after all!

 

The problem with IBUs is that they don't predict bitterness in beers very well. But that’s a reasonable starting point. However, now would be a good time to explore beer styles that don't emphasize the hops (lots of style descriptions in the Beers 101 section will give you a feel for the balance of malt and hops in a particular style).

For the week, just focus on malty beers until the tastebuds rebound from the punishment you've been giving them.

Then you can re-visit the IPA/DIPA world but just not every single night with every single beer. Give your tastebuds a regular break.

 

Have a cold glass of water and watch Street Outlaws tonight.

 

I would drink some lagers and I mean some dopplebocks, some shwarzbiers some ambers some viennas,some porters some stouts and then after all that I would go back to IPA's.

 

psssst...over here, on your other shoulder...you might not be able to find hoptimum in a week so you have to drink it now

 

Does this also relate to drinking something like 3 IPAs in a row, and the 4th IPA tasting totally different? Mind you they are all the same beer. I'm going crazy over here. I don't think I can judge beers fairly anymore. 3 taste perfect. Then the fourth seems to lose any hop essence, and I'm stuck with a medicinal type malty taste. It can even be three lighter style of beers. My tongue gets coated in crap. It seems like I need a tongue scrapper around after that 3rd beer of anything....

 

Bourbon for a few days does it for me. Time off helps, too, if an option.

 

Yes. That’s pretty much it. You are pounding the hell out of your tastebuds. Some of them get exhausted and some sort of give up because they just can't carry their share of the load anymore. Just as with intensely exercising your muscles, gotta give them a rest.

 

Switch to anything Belgian. I do this and it works. That method or take a three month beer hiatus..

 

It's all good. I took a beer break a last year and I'm doing one now. My palate was F.U.B.A.R. Fresh hoppy beers were tasting like a malted mess. So I did that little break, by time I was done Hoptimum came out. That may have been the worst idea after that long of a break. Those 100 IBUs were like 1000 IBUs. (I know your palate can't pick up more than 100 something IBUs, so this is clearly an exaggeration.)

 

Ha , been there. Bourbon and Miller Lite is the answer, no hoppy shit for 30 days. Been to the point IPAs made me gag, resetting is a major bitching, but it is a completely self inflicted injury. Want some HDR?

 

Well some think it would kill off those that let you taste the hops.... :-) So be glad it won't work!