So what does pine taste like?

Your sense of taste is largely based on your sense of smell. In other words, something tastes like it smells. Not much more I could offer in way of explanation. No way I'd suggest eating grass, or pine needles to get real-life experience, although pine cones are edible.

 

Smell and taste follow. You can take a sniff of pine, take a sip of an IPA and see if the sip follows. Ive seen shows that show how to do this , it's interisting when people are blind folded they they lose a lot if the ability to identify even simple everyday items. It's a learned thing to, it can be taught. Take a sniff, take a bite, does it follow or not? Probably U Tube videos out there, but it's certinly not hard to see how items like cut grass, pine , chocolate and fruit are identified.

 

Many times people are describing a taste that is what the descriptor smells like. For example, I know what evergreen trees smell like and what pine resin smells like, and I can taste that in some hops.

Oh, and BTW, I grew up on a farm. I know very well what grass tastes like!

 

This. Also, there are beer brewed with spruce tips so you can absolutely understand the pine taste.

It is all about description. Some hoppy beers can have a noticeable "green" taste. Well that is a really abstract description so reach for the next closest thing pine, grassy, floral, etc. It's the same way that some belgian/sour beers have a "horse blanket taste". You shouldn't lick horse blankets but have a beer that has that smell/taste and it is spot on.

As another example Gamay wine has a extremely distinct mineralty that taste like how it smells after it rains on gravel. I've never sucked on gravel but I can tell you Gamay can taste just like that smell. You would be doing the wine/beer a disservice to leave these flavors out of your description just because you think the description sounds funny.

If you want a pine forward beer try an IPA with 100% Centennial hops.

 

And this is a prime example where palates differ so much. I find Centennial to have a bit of bitter orange rind to it, Two Hearted, Racer 5, Founders Centennial for me are very similar. I'd also say I equate earthy IPAs to Chinook hops, or blends thst use Simcoe or Moasic. Those last two hops as a single hop can be but are not always a bit cat pissy. It's no coincidence they're cousins and very similar from the start. Perceptions are different, I find Citra light bright and fruit forward , I've heard others describe this as an earthy hop, no right or wrong just different.

 

To me pine always was a more bitter pungent note in the beer. Like the above posts, we all taste things differently so each of us has a unique response but for me it was always that, hard to explain but when I taste it I know.
Cheers

 

The hops I feel are the most pine forward are centennial and cascade. Centennial gets the slight nudge because cascade also has a distinct grapefruit note. I had a 100% centennial DIPA recently and it was like chewing on pine needles.

 

Except for the beers that are brewed with spruce tips (and those beers are a definite pine taste), no other beers (hops) taste like pine to me. I suppose when a person is asked to describe what the hops in a specific beer taste like, pine is the closest available descriptor thus the word 'piney' is born.

Of all of the flavor descriptors attributed to hops, grapefruit is the only other one that has a definite accuracy. Tangerine, floral, dank, etc. never come forward to my taste buds, and it's always a 'stretch' to figure out how those words ever got attached to hop flavors. They are flavors that are simply 'in the neighborhood' of reality.

 

The sense of taste has 5 basic components; sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami (savory).

Pine would fall under aroma.

Flavor is a combination of aroma and taste.

I had a spruce beer at Ft. George in Astoria OR, and I didn’t get pine, I got a very citrusy flavor, and my brain said cascade hops, even though it had no hops. The first growth of Sitka Spruce is what they use. Different from some of the Spuce beers in MI that taste of turpentine to me.

 

Get thee to a pine forest and indulge thyself with tree droppings or pluck them fresh.

 

If you haven't tasted grass or pine needles you haven't lived. Time go outside.

 

Would suggest some sensory evaluations. ( beer tastings) Also the book by Randy Mosher " Tasting Beer" . One more, get some hop tea for nosing. Hops with hot water poured over them. Maybe with some friends or a beer class as well as split open some fresh hops( in season now) and stick your nose in them.

 

I've eaten grass, pine needles, tasted sap from fresh cut conifers, acorns, hickory nuts, fresh cut hay, sassafras leaves and roots, gensing, cherry leaves, growing barley, alfalfa, milo, tobacco, dandelion root, Queen Anne's Lace root (wild carrot), and carefully selected wild mushrooms just as a start. I grew up out in the woods at the edges of many beef, dairy, and, tobacco farms. Flavors have always interested me. The smells were easy. Having become a beer and wine professional was a natural happenstance in this progression of curiosity.

 

Make sure they are tree droppings and not bird droppings. Both are common from trees.

 

Try one of these.....
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/17980/96964/

 

Honestly, it took me a LONG while to "get" the pine thing. The dank, resin, and grass descriptors are pretty easy in comparison. My advice? Keep thinking about these things when you drink hoppy beers, because you can't force yourself to recognize the character, but what you can do is open your mind to the possibility that the character does exist.

 

In addition to beer, I'm a big carbonated water drinker. My very favorite is grapefruit flavored Perrier in those little cans. I haven't had it in years, since it's more expensive than other brands, but I remember it having a very strong Christmas tree flavor and aroma. So much so that many people in my family didn't even like it! I'd recommend picking up a case of that water if you want to know what pine tastes like.

Because of that experience, I've always considered grapefruit and pine flavors very similar. It's no coincidence that many of the hops considered piney are also perceived as grapefruity or citrusy by others.

Edit: I believe the flavor is specifically called "pink grapefruit".

 

Chinook and Mosaic definitely have strong pine notes, totally agree.