Can't distinguish the difference between 2 Stouts?

Which two beers are you talking about? The best rated stout is Toppling Goliath KBBS. Was that the good one? Or are you saying the best rated one you've had? More info please.

 

Well spreading them out over 20 years might be part of it. Your memory for something you first tasted and only tasted once about 20 years ago isn't perfect and your tastes have changed. Indeed your tastebuds now are about 2-3 generations removed from those you had back then. (The life span of a tastebud is about 7 years and there's no guarantee that the population of taste buds you have now is identical to the one you had back then. )

Have you tried having the something like the Pêché and the Boréale side by side in two different glasses but in a blind tasting to see if you can tell any difference between them when you don't know which of the two you are tasting at any given time?

 

Peche seems to be a totally different beer that the Boreal stout (is it this one? https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/599/6798/ ) so that I think your 20 year time spread is causing you some confusion. Peche has actual coffee in the beer but the Boreale stout is not described as brewed with coffee (or blended, etc.). The only way you can get coffee from the Boreale stout is in the smell, and that's a perceived smell and is not caused by actual coffee.

To the novice or average beer drinker, any regular stout (no flavors added, not a milk stout, etc.) isn't going to vary much in taste from one brewery's stout to another other than the level of roastiness or bitterness from the grains used in the brewing process. So depending on which 20 stouts that you've tried, you may be accurate when you say that they all taste the same.

 

Good point, anyone should be able to taste the difference between Sierra Nevada Stout and Sierra Nevada's Imperial Stout Narwhal.

 

You drink one stout a year?

 

Péché Mortel is an outstanding stout (one of my favorites - better than FBS) so you must not have a very good sense of taste if Péché Mortel was no better than 19 other stouts. As it was pointed out, time is a likely factor here. Pick the lowest rated and compare it side-by-side to Péché Mortel. Please report back.

Wait - was this a riddle? Were all 20 beers Péché Mortel?

 

+1 for Péché Mortel, if it taste like all others then there are issues somewhere. Also key to drinking stouts is to let them warm up some. Next time you open a stout out of the fridge, pour it into a glass and take a sniff then a sip and note what you pick up. Set it down and come back to it in 15 minutes and try it again. If I am going to get a stout at a bar, I will usually order it when I am half done with the beer I am drinking so it can come to temp.

 

Look for the style markers for each stout that you are tasting. There should be some discernible difference whether it be the hop presence or the malt character. For instance one stout may show you sweeter chocolate while another might show you bitter chocolate. same with the coffee character in stouts. There is mild to roasty espresso. caramel or toffee? The malts in a stout should have roasty bitter edge and some show lots of dark fruit character too. That is another place to see differences. Carbonation should also be something you can notice from beer to beer. I am wondering if you are not trying to express the idea that the words you might use to describe any given stout are basically the same and that is a tasters dilemma. At some point the stouts you review are all going to sound the same if they all meet the style.

 

Comparing two friends side-by-side is not advised...

 

Yeah, if you have two beers next to each other, it is much easier to see how they contrast. The beer style shouldn't really come into play here even though some people like to claim that all beers in a certain style taste the same (that's never the case). One piece of advice - don't focus on what's the "best rated" or "ordinary" or "worst." Just focus on the differences and what you like. If you want to look at ratings, then do so after you've already formed your own independent opinion and see how similar yours is. You can even have two beers together at the same time "blindly" - meaning that you don't know which brand is which as you drink them. That makes a huge difference.

I'm kinda confused by your comments here. Coffee only possible in the smell (not taste)? Only detectable variance is level of grain roastiness (not hops, ABV, yeast)?

 

What I wrote is essentially what I think a novice would detect in average standard stouts. I think the amount of roastiness is easily detectable in taste and aroma, and chocolate to a lesser degree in taste and aroma are the first characteristics discovered by someone new to stouts. However, I can sometimes get coffee notes in the aroma but not in the taste, so that's why I said it the way I did about it. And I think the bitterness can be confusing and be attributed to the roastiness before saying it is from any hops. Hoppy stouts are rare to me, so I'd tend to think they are a brewing mistake.

A very experienced stout drinker (which I'm not) can get the various nuances that I think you're getting at.

 

I never had this issue. Usually you can feel/taste the difference between them? I think your best bet would be the get 3-4 different stouts and compare them in a shorter time frame so you can see.
My other question is how are you enjoying them? Are they ice cold, room temp, etc. If your drinking them cold then that could be your issue since its lowers the flavors.

When you say cannot tell difference are you just getting one over the top flavor? Or is it you cannot taste the small flavors present?

Good luck

 

Perhaps you're expecting too much difference. After all, they are all stouts.