Why can't I find a beer I like?

For the TLDR; "I would like suggestions on different cornerstone beers, so that I can start over to try to assess a flavor pattern that I enjoy. Thanks for reading and suggesting. "

For some inexplicable reason, I feel the need to seek out a beer that I truly enjoy, despite the fact that I have tried more than a dozen that I haven't really liked. Just when I think I am getting closer to identifying which flavors I like and which I dislike, I discover that my whole basis for picking beers is seemingly flawed. I think part of it is just fun to me, investigating all the different beers, hoping that the next one will be the one for me.

For instance, I thought that I had found that I disliked hops and bitter flavors, I like sweetness and perhaps maltyness, and that dark beers were likely what I would enjoy. So many stouts are made with good sounding things (milk, chocolate, caramel, fruits like fig and dates.) I love all of those things... but the beer tastes like ass to me. I hate that smokey-ass, burnt-coffee taste that so many stouts, craft-brewed stouts seem to have. Porters are also generally said to have smokey qualities, so I suspect I won't like them either, after all.

I have tried Celebrator Doppelbock (not bad, but certainly not what I would qualify as a good taste), Aventinus Eisbock (the first flavor is definitely sweet, but it is so ridiculously over-loaded with flavors, and spicy that half of it got poured down the sink), lazy magnolia sweet potato stout (how you can make a beverage with sweet potatoes and it tastes like ass, is beyond me; but that is exactly what they did,) and countless other high-grade brews.

For one thing, how can other people taste flavors that are just not there for me. I don't understand; if I and another person was blindly given a piece of fruit, surely we could both identify it easily. Yet when it comes to beers, people list off a myriad of flavors that are just NOT there for me. I know it's somewhat open to interpretation, but is it really? Either the beer was made with those flavors or it wasn't.

I have my theories. For instance, why are there seemingly 8-billion different beers for me to choose from, where gargantuan stores with endless selections of beers and other liquors from all over there world, and yet there are like 20 essential soda flavors to be found. I think it is because nobody really, truly enjoys the liquors. The flavor of Coke was mastered with Coke, that is why there are not 400 variations of it. You have some dozen number of distinctly flavored sodas that are standards of any market within a given region, and they are accepted. The same is kind of true for beer; Bud/Miller/Coors are the Coke, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper of beer, but the difference is that there are not stores dedicated to selections of slightly varied flavors of Coke, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper. I think the big name beer brands, at least in America, are most popular simply because they are the least offensive to the broadest spectrum of pallets, they are of the cheapest of the commodity, economies of scale, and a little bit of luck. Yet people, who do not like the flavor of the mainstream brands, go for craft brews; craft brews that would be mainstream, if they were enjoyed by a broader spectrum of people. So is the only reason for the dedication to beer, that it contains alcohol? So if I have no real innate desire to be inebriated, will it be impossible for me to find a beer that I enjoy?

I forget where I'm going with this. Oh, yeah... well for one thing, I have never been a huge beer drinker. Since that is the case for me, I never had a time in my youth when I drank lots of shitty, cheap beer out of ignorance and poverty. So I am starting to suspect that I like shitty beer even more than craft beer. For instance, I'm drinking a bud-light platinum, and it tastes as least-shitty as any other beer I have had.

The Sam Adams Angry Orchard ciders are the closest thing I have had to an enjoyable beer.. and they are, well, ciders.

So after all of that, I would like suggestions on different cornerstone beers, so that I can start over to try to assess a flavor pattern that I enjoy. I generally like sweeter flavors. I take my coffee with 10 sugar cubes. Thanks for reading and suggesting.