How long does it take to develop a palate for craft beer?

The only "expert" palate is your own. Everyone will differ. As far as I'm concerned, I think it is a learning process forever.

 

I think it is just an ongoing thing, there is no set time as your palate can change many times over your drinking career.

 

Many, many years. You won't get a "right" answer to your question because there are too many variables. You would be able to shorten your palate development if you took courses in detecting off-flavors, worked in a brewery, and traveled around the world drinking beer, trying to drink all different beer styles and representations from each country.

 

Remember when you were a kid and certain foods were disgusting to you? Our palates change over time and so do the things we like. The perfect case in point is that I used to not be a fan of IPAs when I started drinking craft beer, but now I have a deeper appreciation of them. It had nothing to do with building up a tolerance for them because my very first IPA was Ruination and I liked that one a lot. But then I tried others and they weren't so great to me. Now I hardly meet an IPA that I don't like. Now pumpkin beers on the other hand...

 

When does an expert become an expert on anything? I think you're palate is constantly evolving.

 

Same here. Absolutely disliked a lot of IPAs early in the game. Love the hell out of them now.

 

Didn't one of Jared Diamond's books (Outliers) say it takes 10,000 hours of doing something to become an expert? Looks like i may still have some work to do. . .

 

Malcolm Gladwell...
You might have more than 10,000 hours to reach expert status

 

the beautiful thing about beer, is that everyone is different, and there is something out there for everyone.
I'm pretty new myself, and its been a growing process for me.

 

Assuming that you leave 8 hours a night for sleep (and hangover recovery) that equates out to roughly 1 beer per hour every hour for the next year and 8 months. Let the beer training begin, see you all in August 2014.

 

There are people who seek out and drink beer strictly for personal pleasure. There people whose fascination with beer leads them to study beer styles and characteristics beyond the pleasure associated with personal consumption.

The first type of person becomes an expert once he understands himself and his own relationship with beer. I think this takes most people at least a couple years (probably longer), but continues to evolve indefinitely. Your palette evolves, but it can’t be rushed or you’ll simply overload your capacity to experience beer fully. For example, you can’t give a beer beginner every style over the course of a weekend and expect him to process that experience. He may like one or two of the styles. He should focus on those first

The second type could take a longer or shorter amount of time because it is a field of study. You can't rush your personal relationship with beer, it an organic process, but you can understand beer as an academic pursuit through focus and diligent study. A person can intellectually process various flavor profiles without having much of a personal relationship with them. A cicerone has to understand styles that he doesn’t care for and be able to advise clients on choosing a beer even if he dislikes the style personally.

 

Oops, right you are.

 

1 second!

 

Not long. As I recently mentioned in another thread, my wife went from drinking Stella out of the bottle to drinking DFH 90 min from a pint glass very quickly. She didn't need to "try fruit beers first" or other stereotypical suggestions people make towards female craft drinkers. She tried the good stuff and never looked back. I remember after a couple of weeks of having some DFH 90 which was at a local place near us at the time, she went back to a Stella. Her face was priceless.

Anyway, I digress. The answer to your question can be "very quickly."

 

It takes forever. You should never stop learning and therefore you should never stop developing your palate for craft beer as long as there are brewers and drinkers with imagination. Craft beer is still evolving and will continue to do so, and therefore your palate should evolve along with it.

 

I've been drinking craft beers for 15+ years, and I'm no expert. I think to be an expert in the eyes of other people who might listen to my evaluation of any particular beer, then I'd have to drink a lot of that beer to be able to create a mindset of the unique qualities of the beer, and to be able to tell when it's old, off-flavored for whatever reason that could be attributed to the ingredients, etc.

I think a real expert compares the qualities of a beer to his own preferred tastes of his favorite beers in any given style and passes that judgement along to his listeners. It's merely an opinion, and it's up to the listener to determine if he wants to accept that evaluation.

 

Agree with the posts that say it is an ongoing learning experience and it changes over time. All that really matters is your own palate, and if you are discovering new things even with familiar beers, that's not a bad thing. I think you can develop a taste for craft beers quickly, but then it becomes understanding and that is an evolutionary process.

One thing that helped me understand the flavors better was home brewing. When I can taste and smell the ingredients on their own, it really created an improved understanding of how the flavors/aromas play in the finished beer. I think even if you don't home brew, it might help getting some ingredients to taste. I found tasting a crystal malt or smelling Cascade hops in the ingredient state was a big help. Flavors imparted by the friendly yeasts - that's more difficult.

 

for me, it was one sip of Bridgeport IPA

 

Zero credit to the reviews. I've seen plenty of reviews of damaged beer where the reviewer didn't know the beer was damaged.
It's comical sometimes. People at beer shops ask the staff about beer recommendations and will read BA or RB reviews and put the beer down when they see it doesn't have a 95+ on BA.

As for your palate, some just have a better palate than others. The only way to learn is to taste your beer properly. The goal for beer drinkers shouldn't really be to become an "expert." That is a daunting task and will take the fun out of it. Beer is to be enjoyed to the fullest and the more you worry about detecting the tiniest nuances, the less you will enjoy your beer. And that's what it's all about.

If you really want to study, I highly recommend talking to BJCP Judges and taking the BJCP course. Some people can do it in a month, and for some it takes many years.