How long does it take to develop a palate?

Couldn't disagree with you more, but perhaps we have entirely different notions over what a developed palate is. I have an in-law with quite the physical presence to put it politely, and he is always telling me how much he loves pizza whenever we go have pizza together. In the kitchen one day we were discussing our own recipes and he accused me of putting too much thought into it. For fun I challenged him to smell Oregano, Basil, Thyme, and a couple others blindly. He couldn't identify a single one. He also couldn't tell the difference between provolone and mozzarella, and he thought monterey jack was provolone. Now, who am I to challenge his love for pizza, his hobby, and his vast experience in trying a bunch of local pizzerias? Hey, no problem. Political correctness hat is now put on. But you know what, I can't help but think there really is a certain minimum threshold of knowledge and education on the matter that the average person (including me) is just not going to pick up from stuffing their face with pizza over the years, or drinking (or even worse ticking) a bunch of beers from some list. I see no respectable sense of a "developed palate" that is acquired from just eating, or just drinking. Even in large quantities over long periods of time. Education & knowledge is a necessary component.

We're talking about what goes into having a developed palate. Not what a hobby is. I'm not arguing that the OP or whomever doesn't have beer drinking as a hobby.

Very well said!

 

I think that having a taste for a diverse array of food, and an experienced palate when it comes to multiple cuisines also greatly benefits a reviewer when it comes to pinpointing tasting notes in a beer. If you are comfortable getting the nuances and layers of different dishes then that should translate to reviewing beer, wine, or whisky/whiskey.

 

A large part of it is genetic. Some people are more sensitive to certain tastes than others. Some are more sensitive to all tastes than others. One of the things that can speed up the process a lot is drinking with people who have experience and refined palates. They're able to point things out you may not realize is there, and when they do, you may be able to then pick up on what they're tasting.

 

Your pizza cheese and spice identification becomes the equivalency to my hop experimentation, or rather dry hopping Bud Light to further understand the nuances of hop variants. It's one thing to say "damn, this is hoppy goodness" (or tropical goodness if you want to induce @Yargamo vomiting) v. truly identifying the nuances you pick up from a particular hop based on your study of it individually. To further make the point, hop combinations in beer aren't random (hopefully), they are thought out to achieve a certain taste based on what each hop brings to the table and in what strength. You cannot construct a truly effective recipe without having become at least marginally aware of the taste and aroma profiles of each hop you intend to use, on its own merit.

 

Interesting question. Everything has been said by now, but I will underscore how important it is to practice (all joking about being alcoholics aside).

• Drink beer while reading people's whimisical, insightful, made-up and flat out wrong reviews of said beer. You don't have to agree, but try to be conscious of why you do or don't.

• Drink beer while reading the BJCP entry for the style. Also read up on similar styles. Seriously, pop an IIPA and read the descriptions for it and an American Barleywine.

• Drink beer and read the label or the brewery's description/blurb on their site. Even the really stupid ones that try to sound clever and just sound douchey will occasionally say the name of an ingredient, at which point you can look up info about that ingredient (e.g. Hop info).

• Drink beer and look at things like this, this, this, or even this.

Also, don't limit thinking about tastes and aromas to beer and don't sweat it; as in real life, everybody is just making it up as they go along. Some are just doing it with more well-defined criteria than others.

 

Everyone is different.

 

Another great post!!

In my homebrewing, when I utilize multiple varieties of hops my personal goal to try and obtain contrasting but complimentary flavors to the beer recipe. For example I like to combine Simcoe and Amarillo to obtain the contrasting but complimentary favors of piney and citrus. I prefer to not homebrew with two hops which feature citrus since for me that is a 'double-down' effect.

Cheers!

 

There's been a lot of great posts in this thread, and they all hinge on what's the underiyer in "palate development" and that is simply 'passion'. Everyone with a BeerAdvocate account has the passion to seek out good beer and enjoy it as fully as they know how. But how many of us has the passion to buy the beer appreciation books, to really absorb the material at bjcp.org or cicerone.org? How many of us subscribe to a collection of periodicals, host tastings and become sensory panelists at your local brewery or analysis lab? Are we brewing the stuff, joining a local homebrew club, or organizing legitimate competitions and festivals? How many of us have switched careers because of our sheer passion for this thing that we call beer? Have we worked to learn, and sometimes invent a language to explain what we taste? Have we studied organic chemistry, agriculture and physics.... for the mere love of beer for God's sake?

Palate development has much more to do with training the mind than it does with training the mouth. Everyone is already tasting well enough to do what the talented tasters do. But it does take a level of discipline, work ethic and willingness to do beer really, really well; and like all of us, I'm still on that journey- it never stops. But the neat thing about beer is that for most of us, this is our hobby, our folie, our simple pleasure. ...and we can take it as serious or as surface as we want. That's the beauty of beer. Cheers my friend!

 

You're very right about this. I still don't taste what some of these goofballs taste.

 

Was looking at some reviews of a local (overpriced) beer to see if people were raving or not....stumbled on this beaut!

"12 ounce can into snifter, no can dating. Pours pitch black color with a 1 finger dense tan head with good retention, that reduces to a thin cap that lingers. Nice spotty soapy lacing clings on the glass, with a good amount of streaming carbonation retaining the cap. Aromas of dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, molasses, toast, toffee, dark bread, vanilla, raisin, plum, fig, oak, light herbal, and roast/yeast earthiness. Damn nice aromas with great balance and complexity of roast/bready malt, oak barrel, and light-moderate fruity yeast notes; with good strength. Taste of big dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, molasses, toast, toffee, dark bread, vanilla, raisin, plum, fig, oak, light herbal, and roast/yeast earthiness. Light herbal/roasted bitterness on the finish; with lingering notes of dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, molasses, toast, toffee, dark bread, vanilla, raisin, plum, fig, oak, and roast/yeast earthiness on the finish for a while. Incredible complexity, robustness, and balance of roast/bready malt, oak barrel, and light-moderate fruity yeast flavors; with a nice roasted bitterness/sweetness balance and zero cloying flavors after the finish. Medium carbonation and medium-full bodied; with a very smooth, creamy, and lightly slick/chalky mouthfeel that is great. Alcohol is very well hidden with only a light warmth lingering after the finish. Overall this is an awesome oak aged Russian imperial stout style. All around great complexity, robustness, and balance of roast/bready malt, oak barrel, and light-moderate fruity yeast flavors; and very smooth to sip on for the big ABV. A highly enjoyable offering"

 

But I'd be willing to bet if I took "dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, molasses, toast, toffee, dark bread, vanilla, raisin, plum, fig, oak, light herbal, and roast/yeast earthiness" and mixed those actual things and gave it to this person, they wouldn't be tasting, smelling, feeling, etc. those exact things. I don't necessarily have a problem with giving tasting notes like this (although this one is especially egregious), but it is misleading to say that you are tasting/smelling/feeling all of these things when you are just picking out flavors that you can associate with those things.

 

I don't see the palate an either developed/not developed entity. Your palate is an ever on-going process and always evolving. Enjoy the ride!

 

Yea, why would I care what anyone thinks of the way I review? I do it for my own sake and have developed my own routine of going about the review in the most detailed way I see fit, so all of them sound very similar in structure.....

 

The better question is, does a more "advanced" palate mean that you enjoy the beer more? Some reviews really make me laugh with the amount of flavours people claim to pick out.

 

I can smell and taste mostly the strongest of flavors. My nose lacks a lot. To find the corriander flavor in one beer, I went to the spice rack, poured some in my hand, and licked it up. I found it in the beer after. Try all things and enjoy. Cheers.

 

except they weren't used... I have developed a routine on how I do my reviews over time and it's pretty much set in stone now, hard to change a process you use every single day...

 

When brushing your teeth, try not to brush your tongue. It can desensitize your taste buds. Those things can be factored in to your quality of life if beer and food is something to enjoy. I'm just not good at advice. Oh ok while drinking a new beer try reading the reviews on that beer. Try to find the notes that people can smell or taste. You might pick up on something that you smelled or tasted all along but couldn't quite place. For me, years back, this was raisin on the aroma part, when I realized it I slapped my forehead like "Duh!".

 

The more words you know, the easier it is to describe the ingredients to smell and taste. It's all knowledge.

 

As mentioned previously, I suspect that it's more about developing a vocabulary to explain the subtleties that everyone feels rather than developing a sense of taste. It's not so much that I don't feel differences, but that I have a hard time articulating what those differences are. One of the main reasons I'm active on Beeradvocate is to immerse myself in the language of beer in order to be able to more accurately reflect my opinions on beer in general through the written and spoken word.

With that said, I often feel self-conscious in beer-circles because I don't feel that my palate or vocabulary is up to snuff. So much so that I often make the joke that I enjoy avoiding bad beer more than I enjoy good beer.