3 way ipa

Funny. I get pretty much zero pine and a lot of orange.

 

Yeah, I tasted more fruit than pine also.

 

Orange peel, yeah.

 

Drinking the last can out of my 4-pack, and now all I'm tasting is cool pine. Weird how so much of taste can be what you're predisposed to perceive. Or maybe pine and citrus flavors are a lot more closely related than they sometimes seem.

 

In group tastings, I used to find it very interesting that people's palates were different (how come they can taste something and I am not picking it up) and then it hit me: everyone has a slightly different palate.

For this year's 3 Way: I was picking up kiwi, a little orange but more like a Seville Orange nor Orange Julius/Sunny Delight orange. Piney? Not so much in the taste but in the nose, like when pines start doing their thing and my car is covered in pollen.

Oh...... I chew tobacco, chug fish sauce, and seriously can handle spicy heat. I think I have a few broke or mutated papillae.

 

I've wondered about that phrase "everyone has a different palate." Why is taste different from vision or hearing—or is it? If our senses evolved to help us survive—with taste playing its part to help us find nutritious, and avoid toxic or deadly, food—then wouldn't our palates at least start out all pretty much the same? I guess what we do to them with hot sauce, tobacco, high-IBU IPAs, etc. probably changes that over time, but I'm not so sure that palates are like fingerprints.

Anyway, it was really weird to me how all I was getting from those first three cans of 3-Way (even the flat one) was tropical fruit, mostly orange. Then that last can seemed different. I'm sure I was subconsciously focusing on finding the pine that @distantmantra mentioned, and sure enough that was all I could taste. This is one reason I don't read reviews before trying a new beer; I think it's pretty easy to be influenced by other people's perceptions, even if you aren't aware that it's happening.

 

But just like how everyone can generally see the same things, color blindness, different sensitivity, and age degradation can mean we don't all see things in quite the same way. In addition to permanent variables, temporary things like eating, drinking, smoking, etc. can mean the same beer tastes differently on different days.

 

Is the dress white and gold or blue and black?

 

..........and a slightly different take on senses. Let's take hearing for example. Most of us are born with a sense of hearing. Some of us (not me) find out early that they have an 'ear for music'. Some had to learn that over time (listening to Rush, pulling out your child's instrument in a 70 piece orchestra). Some never get it even with countless music lessons (name omitted here). Over time some of us lose that ability (too much time standing next to feed pumps, hanging at the gun range, that awkward period in the 80s when I was really into bass driven hip hop).

I would not go as far as to call it my fingerprint but what I got keeping the hat from covering my eyes is certainly individual to me.

 

Bravo, you made me look that up.

 

What follows is pure speculation-no evidence to back it up. I think it's a pretty sensible conjecture, though. I see two likely reasons for taste being different from sight or hearing. First is simply the fact that it's a weak sense relative particularly to eyesight. If we all had blurry vision, our individual interpretations of visual stimuli would probably vary a great deal.

Second, as you said, our senses developed to help us survive. The sorts of dangers that we can sense visually tend to be more universal dangers: precipitous drops, large objects/animals speeding towards us, etc. Dangers from foods seem to be more individual. Sure, arsenic is bad for everyone, but some people will die from a surprisingly small quantity of peanuts while others can mow down on them by the fistful without any adverse effects. Even aside from allergies, being a fitness geek, I have observed firsthand how widely our reactions to certain foods can be. I, for instance, can get really strong and lean on a high carbohydrate, low fat diet; while a moderate fat, low carb regimen makes me fat, tired, and cranky. Most people are the exact opposite. Many of these differences are genetic. It would be unsurprising to discover that these differences in how our bodies react to certain foods would be tied to how we taste them. Basically, you're right that our taste buds are supposed to "help us find nutritious, and avoid toxic or deadly, food", but which foods are toxic and which foods are nutritious varies a great deal from person to person (and even over time for a given individual).

Sorry for the long-winded off topic ramble, but it struck me as an interesting question. Also, this only addresses your first question. As for the power of suggestion, you might be surprised by how much this can affect all of our senses, not just taste.

 

We're all born with the same tools/potential (in theory) but how we use them and train with them creates major differences. With vision some people are better at noticing movements, differences in patterns, "the little things" and such. With sound some people are better at picking up rhythms, melodies, pitches, keys, and whatever (you get the point). With tastes and smells we do the same thing. Someone from Thailand may be able to pick up everything out of a Thai dish but drop them in the Italian countryside and they'll be a fish out of water in terms of taste/smell and vice-versa. I know what a lychee nut tastes like but unless it's very pronounced 9/10 times it'll be lost on me.

TD:LR Senses are tools, how we use/practice with them varies in their effectiveness.

 

Going further off on this tangent (true to NW forum form), I'm not sure that our individual palates do much at all to protect us from foods we are individually allergic to. I know of people who love chocolate or peanuts, but are deathly allergic to them. My own wife has become increasingly allergic to shellfish, to the point that I actually spent a recent Mother's Day driving around South Lake Union in the car of the assistant manager of a local seafood restaurant, desperately trying to track down a package of Benadryl because she had a raw oyster and almost immediately had a reaction (but naturally didn't want to go to the ER, especially on Mother's Day). She still loves almost any type of shellfish, but simply can't eat it anymore without unwanted side effects.

But yes, you're right that taste is different from sight or hearing. And I can see how the statement that every palate is different could thus hold some truth.

So I guess it's a little bit nature and a little bit nurture.

There's also the fact that the senses of taste and smell are so closely linked. I was in an old building earlier today and the musty smell took me immediately back to my great grandmother's house almost 40 years ago. And then I couldn't help but associate that smell with the sound of squirrels (or something) crawling and scratching around in the walls, keeping me awake all night when I was a kid when we were staying in her house. Because smell is also closely linked to memory, which is another fascinating topic that I'm sure has to a lot to do with evolution.

 

I've had 7 cans so far and haven't noticed any lack of carbonation.
One pack from Haggen and the other from Total.

 

To be strangley on topic, I snagged a pack canned on 5/26...there's one left. It is very tasty (orangey) and aromatic. Not necessarily as good as last years, but still pretty awesome. I will drink this and Fremont Summer ale for the next few months.

 

I thought the hops move from light pine to sorta minty to citrus.

Weird all around, but I dig it.

 

Had a pour on draft, it was enjoyable. Have a couple of cans to open up too!

 

In one of my earlier posts I mentioned that there was some kind of herbal note, but now that you mention it, "minty" is a much better description. Definitely.

 

Yep. I described a "cool pine" quality but minty just about nails it too.

 

Overdub is not good... Imo. Then again I don't get the point of session ipas.