How Do Beers Exhibit Multiple Taste Profiles?

Temperature, as well as the region of your tongue the beer hits and which receptors fire signals to the brain.

 

Witchcraft.

 

Science bitch

 

Those changes sound more drastic than temperature change would suggest. Were you eating in between sips?

 

It's perfectly natural and one of the joys of tasting beer. Often times there is a lot to taste. Sounds like you had a very delicious porter. Many beers offer lots of complexity and you are going to enjoy every sip!

 

Came here to say Roasted Malt/Yeast Complexity.


Recommended Beers: Palo Santo Marron, Ten FIDY, Double Barrel Jesus, Peche Mortal and Imperial Biscotti Break (variants included).

 

I don't see these as being totally different flavor profiles; note how each of their signature flavors are derived from a roasting process. Plus, all the flavors you describe are pretty part and parcel of a good porter, so nothing too dramatic is going on. My first explanation for these little changes is usually in the drinker: eating, sneezing, and other "uncontrolled" actions between sips.

At the same time, the driving off of volatile compounds is another factor in general. As their concentration drops, not only the strength, but the kind of flavor they contribute can change (eg. diacetyl tastes like movie theater butter in smaller concentrations, but butterscotch in larger ones). While I'm not familiar with the chemistry of the flavors you describe, it seems at least plausible something like this might be going on (but I don't think it would happen sip-to-sip unless you're a remarkably slow drinker).

 

In wine tasting/appreciation there are three phases to the specifics of tasting:

· Attack Phase

· Evolution Phase (also referred to as Mid-Palate)

· Finish

So, when you first put the beverage in your mouth you are going to register certain flavors and sensations. During the Evolution Phase the flavors have a tendency to ‘open up’ and you will often detect a fuller spectrum of flavors. The finish is what you perceive after you swallow the beverage.

Founders Porter is a complex beer with a variety of flavors and a very substantial mouthfeel. @kismet , I am not surprised that you are perceiving a variety of flavors over time with your drinking experience of this particular beer.

Cheers!

 

well its not TO ME. to you it is, if that is how you describe it,

TO ME its just complex bunch of flavors going on. One assumes you are drinking it without eating anything?
quads,Tripels, Dubbels, Orval and geez most stronger Belgians do this, gueuze, etc, too many to name.

take the great Westvleteren 12, so much going there one could name 20 things....its complex and its wonderful....tastes great too.

beer warm up things change, read Randy Mosher book tasting beer.

 

Luckily I have multiple personalities so this works out well. Everyone is happy!

 

As you drink the beer your taste buds react to the sweetness, sourness, acidity etc to form a flavour profile. After a second, third etc mouthful your brain becomes desensitized to the stimulus and prepares itself for the next new, possibly threatening, stimulus. Thus your brain loses the taste detection for this flavour/beer. This and variations in local conditions, temperature, dilution via backwash, absorption of alcohol etc, will lead to the taste of the beer varying over the length of time it takes to drink. All part of the charm of beer.

 

Yup- and that's where the true heart of complexity lies- in how the beverage continues to surprise and please after you've become acclimated to the initial blast of flavors

 

The brain is a crazy/amazing machine. Scientifically you are only capable of tasting 4 things: salty, sweet, sour, amd bitter. Some people include 'umami' in this list as a 5th. Everything else you 'taste' is your brain taking these 4-5 basics and translating them into something that makes sense.

So for more complex beers, your brain keeps trying to makes sense of the input, resulting in different perceived flavors as you drink. Your experience also plays a roll, as your brain will always try to associate a new stimulus with something familiar. So for someone that has never tasted burnt toast, the beer wouldn't taste like that- the brain would assign that flavor to a different memory/experience.

 

“The brain is a crazy/amazing machine.” Agreed!

“Scientifically you are only capable of tasting 4 things: salty, sweet, sour, amd bitter. Some people include 'umami' in this list as a 5th.” If you strictly use the term “taste” via your tongue that is true.

“Everything else you 'taste' is your brain taking these 4-5 basics and translating them into something that makes sense.” The broader way of viewing things is via the term of flavor perception. The primary sensor for flavor perception is your olfactory senses. When it comes to beer appreciation your olfactory senses perceive the smell of the beer via the direct conduit of your nose sniffing the beer. Your olfactory senses also perceive aromas during the drinking process as aromas reach your nose within your mouth via passages in your throat. Your brain receives inputs from your tongue (taste buds) and olfactory senses (nose and intranasal) and process those inputs into flavor perceptions.

Cheers!

 

If there's an appreciable amount of backwash ending up in your beer, you may be doing something wrong

 

It may have been an urban myth but I recall reading something regarding the amount of spit in the last couple of inches of beer in a pint glass. Maybe the author didn't tip the bar staff well enough.

 

"2. The Last Sip of Your Soda is Backwash.
How many times have you refused to take the last sip of a shared soda because you believe it is backwash? Even if you and your friends drink like St. Bernard’s, the last part of a drink isn’t going to be spit. This would require the density of our saliva to be much heavier than whatever beverage it is were consuming, and it is not. Whatever spit goes back into a bottle (probably very little for most adults) doesn’t sink to the bottom; it may even rest near the top."

 

As beers warm up, they can change all around. It can be quite drastic in some beers.