Massive Palate Shift

Bizarre palate changes are normal, as I continually learn in my beer adventures. Some beers that are perfectly crisp and tasty one day are sweet boozy messes the next. The palate is fickle.
My current position on IPAs is that they are one of my two favorite styles, but I am very picky about them. Most of them are either too bitter, too sweet, too malty, or two one-note.
Actually, my favorite style now is pilsner, but I imagine you're in a similar situation with IPAs. You've had them too often, you got burnt out, and you're reaching out to something that's different and offers new flavors and complexities that you very much enjoy.

 

Some of your taste buds were overworked.

You gave them a vacation.

Now they can pull thuir own weight again..

Just go back to regularly hitting them hard with lots of Lupulin until they are exhausted again.

 

For me, I have to pair my beer with food and that means that I like lighter and cleaner styles. I love a good bitter hop bomb but not every day. The most massive shift in my palate happened when I stopped being able to discern the pine flavor in IPA's. The pilsner is an excellent choice if you want to reset your palate but still indulge in hops. You will also find that drinking the same beer every day can make your palate cringe a little after a while even if it's a great beer. Take a break, pair with food and change up styles with the seasons to keep the palate fresh.

 

Yes, I've experienced major palate shifts. They don't compare one-to-one with your experience, but the overall idea has been the same: A beer, beer style or family of beer styles that has been my favorite suddenly became a bit stale to my taste buds.

One cool thing that happened over one period of palate fatigue is I became way more open to trying new styles and revisiting old styles I didn't much care for. That led me to appreciate styles I previously didn't like.

I still have favorites, but now I truly enjoy everything. If my palate shifts a bit, it's no problem shifting with it. And those styles that became stale? They stopped seeming stale over time and came alive again.

@drtth may have been slightly kidding, but he's right: Just keep drinking. You'll find your way.

 

Yeah, I'm actually experiencing this myself right now. I've become incredibly burnt out on the super bitter, west coast style IPAs like Stone's Enjoy By (Which used to be my favorite style of IPA). For a while, like most here, it was all big, boozy stouts, and hop bombs.

But now? All I want is a good lager or pilsener. I'm just a little fatigued with the huge beers, and something more subtle like a good lager just tastes like liquid bliss right now, in a way that I never would have thought possible.

 

I hope to experience this on Wednesday, greatly looking forward to it, I'm about as reset as I can get.

 

Kidding? Only slightly.

If she really wants to get back to drinking those massive hop bombs on a regular basis those bitter-sensing tastebuds have to be whupped back into exhaustion so they don't keep pulling their own weight.

 

I've never experienced this for some reason. Sure, from one day to the next I might appreciate one particular beer differently, but overall my style preferences and favorites within a style remain pretty consistent.

Actually, as a homebrewer I really appreciate a beer that I do not tire of easily. When you are brewing a 5 to 10 gallon batch of beer it's a necessity.

 

I think I have not had it as bad as you did, but sometimes some beers are off. It is good to switch things up regularly. Try other spirits, wine, port, rum, bourbon, whiskey, rye.

Cheers!

 

All of this has happened to me recently right around the holidays. I ended up cutting way back on beer to the point where a six pack would last me for quite a while and then I slowly worked certain beers back into the rotation. I found that I all but lost the taste for many IPAs and like HorseheadsHopHead I noticed that I was way more picky with them and felt like Goldilocks, looking for the one that was just right. I started going for Lagers and what not again and a beer I used to enjoy regularly, Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold, I revisited it and it was phenomenal to me and really hit the spot. I picked up Deviant Dale's recently (my first time having it) and that seems to be working out so far as well, but it is definitely on the maltier end of the spectrum.

The palate is a fickle beast but I will enjoy this ride and see where it takes me next.

 

Our palates are definitely sensitive. I took 4 days off from drinking all together this past week, and my first beer back, a Pilsner Urquell. WHY IS THIS BEER BITTER?

Ive said it before, but I can no longer trust myself and anymore I question reviews all together

 

Yeah on any given day the flavors may seem different from the last. That's one reason I make it a point, whenever feasible, to review the 3rd bottle from a 4 or 6 pack or to revisit the review when I find a second bottle.

As for all the reviews taken together, those ratings would generally be more stable and closer to the mark since they are averaged across lots of reviews. That's why I start with the numbers and then look at reviews from people whose tastes are similar to mine when looking for a new beer to try.

 

Hell ya, it's quite easy to crush your palate with IPAs, been there done that. I've had it last for months. I went on a hop binge in Vt many years ago, drank a ton there and I came home with a trunk filled with hops. Cases of Heady, many growlers from Hill Farmstead, bombers of Lawsons. By the time I was home a week I was giving growlers of HF away for free. I couldn't drink AAL without gagging, I recouped on wine and bourbon. I'm careful with hoppy stuff , and I no longer suck up everything hoppy, I'm very picky. I'm more likely to drink Pils, Lagers even AALs. Palate shift is a bitch.

 

Yeah, the best way to overcome this is to constantly switch up styles, gravities and flavors as well as have something multiple times if you can. Everything I do here on NBS is just presented as a "first look", and it always takes me a few times to fine tune my impressions of a beer.

 

I find that if I drink hoppier styles (IPA, DIPA, Imperials) daily my palate adjusts and I can tease out nuances behind the hops. If I drink malt driven brews for a few weeks and then pick up a highly hopped one it's like someone put too much hot sauce in the gumbo and all I can taste is the heat.

 

That's actually a perfect analogy for me. I'm a bit of a hot sauce fanatic, buying the fancier artisanal stuff much like I do with craft beer, and I can fully appreciate them because my palate is so adjusted to the heat. But when I take a month break from it... Oh boy... All I can say about any of them is "tastes like burning".

 

I had a long bout with strep throat in April and, whether it was coincidence or not, I lost my ability to enjoy those uber-hopped IPAs from MA stalwarts like Trillium and Tree House during that same stretch. It all tastes too acidic and astringent now, like overly-pungent and tangy guava juice or way-too-acidic pineapple juice. Not enjoyable at all as I can't get past this singular dimension of flavor. Even the aroma gets me. Probably less palate-shift and maybe something more to my overall sensory system but it has stuck around for a looong time. Since then I've gone head-first into pilseners, lagers, "old school" west coast style IPAs, porters, barleywines and stouts. Odd, but I've enjoyed the forced redirect.

 

probably from start of August for a few months i wasn't getting the full flavor of IPAs which really disappointed me. i started drinking more bourbon (on rocks), irish whiskey, bourbon (with hot black tea) and stouts. it came back to me after that.

BUT then i had pneumonia/bronchitis/ear infection starting about December 28 and i only started feeling normal around January 20. i didn't have a single drink that entire time so now IPAs are ripping my tongue up and i love it. ahh that feeling of a great IPA

 

I hear ya, I just got over a bout with pneumonia and bronchitis , and my taste buds shifted too. I've had a really hard time with beer, even simple ones. I just sipped wine which I also love, didn't seem to be a problem there, but even simple AALs was like drinking battery acid, I'm supposing it was the carbonation.