I can't taste nuances

I can totally relate to this and I've been drinking craft beer for five years. Many times I can't pick out specific flavors, but there are times when I can. For example, I was able to pick out three or four distinct flavors in Southern Tier Creme Brulee and thought it was delicious. On the converse, I tried Jack's Abby Kiwi Rising a couple weeks ago and knew it was an excellent brew but just couldn't decipher the combination of flavors that made it that way. It's definitely frustrating for me.

 

NPR had a story in the last 3-4 weeks talking about how a minority of people (if I remember, it's less than 10%) have a larger number of taste buds and are able to discern tastes most folks cannot. Further, there's an even smaller percentage who have hyper-sensative taste buds. They said it's often a curse more than a blessing because when they eat/drink something bad, it's really bad.

I'm in the 90%.

 

Taste is still being researched. How an individual tastes depends on genetics, experience, their physical state, and the situation.

PTC is one compound that illustrates genetics, about 1 in five do not get bitterness from it. Cilantro tastes like soap to about the same % of the population. Some are blind to Diacetyl, others extremely sensitive.

As for experience, I have heard some people who grew up not tasting peanut butter think it is nasty. I have found that Vegemite is something I don't like, but It is popular in Australia.

If you have a bad cold, you sense of taste/flavor will be badly compromised.

We all know someone that likes a beer due to drinking it on the beach, at a Biergarten, or similar situation.

I will agree that there is a norm for tastes in a region. I also know many that say they don't like Indian, Thai, insert xyz ethnic food here, as they don't have the experience to relate to it, but others love it. The most popular styles of beer worldwide by sales are light lagers, with little flavor.

 

I've been fascinated with the topic of taste for a long time, especially when I started collecting and tasting wine about 15 years ago (I've been drinking wine and beer for a while longer than that). I've done a ton of tastings of all sorts - blind, triangle, open - mostly for wine, but also beer, coffee, whisky, chocolate and other things. I’ve read books, taken a class with the researcher who coined ‘supertaster’, and done some research on the neurological process involved with taste. I also own a kit of scents commonly associated with wine and have had exercises with a group to identify different ones. I don’t know why I’m so interested in this, but I’m definitely a geek about it.

Although some of the basic flavors of beer – bitterness, sweetness, etc – are mostly conveyed through taste buds, nuances are identified through an interaction between the mouth and the nose, which is apparently a rather complex process in the brain. Like most neurological processes, it is highly susceptible to suggestion; people will consistently taste the flavors they expect even when they are not there. Wine tastes better if you think it’s expensive and people will actually get physically ill if they eat something that not the right color.

I do think there are people who can easily and reproducibly identify specific aromas and subtle tastes in beer, wine or food. They generally have extremely good noses and whatever advantage in their brains to recognize and categorize what they detect. I’m sure most professional reviewers and flavor developers fall in this group and I’ve met people that clearly do. I personally think I have an okay palate. If I concentrate I can pick out a number of nuances, but mostly I get the ‘big picture’ of flavors but don’t easily pick out subtleties. I am a ‘supertaster’ but it’s a mixed bag. It means I’m more sensitive to bitterness and other basic flavors, but they can also overwhelm secondary tastes.

In my experience, most non-professional drinkers even if they are beer or wine geeks have palates somewhere like mine. They can pick up some secondary notes but mostly it’s hit or miss and they are as likely to base their conclusions on expectations as on actually tastes. (My wife has a much better palate than mine but she cares about it a lot less, which just kills me.)

After all this, my personal conclusion is not to worry about it. Sometimes it’s fun to really think about a beer and see what I can pick up, but most of the time I think it’s a lesson in futility for me and it gets in the way of enjoying it (especially for beer, where so often big flavors like hop bitterness or malt roast just dominates). If others enjoy it and have the palates to pick it up, more power to them, but I think a good chunk of it is what they want to taste rather than what they actually do.

 

There is an innate temptation to write reviews with the same level of detail as everyone else. However, you don't have to itemize all of the smells and flavors you're experiencing. You can as simple as: it's sweet, it's bitter, it's smokey, it's fruity, etc. You don't have to worry about identifying the types of the dark fruits you think you taste, or whether it's citrus rind or just plain old citrus. Most of us are not professional tasters, so we can only convey what we think we taste in our reviews. There are no right or wrong answers. I'm sure people read some of my reviews and think I'm a total idiot, but who cares? Drink what tastes good and enjoy yourself. This is a wonderful hobby.

 

Think of it like this: What would happen if the brewer was right beside you and asked you what you tasted in their beer? Would there be a wrong answer? Would they appreciate every flavor that you did pick out of the beer? Would they be happy if you said you enjoyed it as a [insert beer style here] and said nothing more about flavors or color or aroma? If the person that actually brewed the beer isn't going to look down on you for not having a top-tier sense of beer, then what right does anyone else have?

If you want to train this sense, just keep tasting and read reviews of the beers you drink on this site. See if you can pick out some of the flavors other people have mentioned. Soon, you'll recognize more and more flavors in your beers. There are no wrong answers, post a review and share what flavors you picked up in the beer. If you do it for no other reason, just know that one of my favorite things now that I'm beer-snobby is to go back and rediscover some old favorites with a more refined palate. It's worth it just for that experience in my opinion.

If it helps you in describing beer tastes, be vague if you have to. You may not be able to pick out a flavor of pine specifically, but if you taste something "earthy" or "woody", say so! I'll say it again because I really feel this is an important point: *There aren't any wrong answers.* The worst case scenario is: You drink a lot of high quality beer. Given those circumstances, it's definitely a worthwhile venture.

 

I was going to ask these same questions.

And add that they should try the foods/flavors that are often cited in beer flavor profiles. If you haven't had raisins, molasses, dark chocolate or grapefruit in a long time (or at all) then you might not know what you're looking for in the beer.

 

There are a number of good posts concerning how flavors are perceived by individuals.

There is no doubt in my mind that palates differ from individual to individual. Hopfenunmaltz illustrated some important points in that a significant portion of the population are unable (through genetics) to perceive things like PTC and diacetyl. And while I personally love the flavor of cilantro, there are a large number of folks who find cilantro to have a soapy taste.

There is a compound that is present in several varieties of hops (e.g., Citra, Simcoe, etc.) of 4MMP. Due to genetics different folks will perceive 4MMP differently. I personally perceive Simcoe as having a piney flavor but some people (particularly women) can perceive 4MMP as cat pee.

The hop Nelson Sauvin seems to have polarizing flavor perceptions. There are folks who enjoy the aroma/flavor of this hop. I personally find this hop (if used aggressively) to be unpleasant/funky (a gooseberry flavor?).

I am sure that there are a large number of compounds which will have varying perceptions; from not being able to perceive a flavor at all (e.g., diacetyl) to interpreting the flavor differently (e.g., pine vs. cat pee for 4MMP).

The topic of flavor perception is an interesting topic and it seems that koflaherty is a scholar on this matter.

Cheers!

 

All quite true.

But notice my comment is not inconsistent with there being all those individual differences originating from all the factors you mention.

Part of the research on taste you refer to shows that there are generic categories for tasting and its not the case that all individuals are so different that one can't find similarities and use those similarities in developing a meal or a new beer or one's personal reactions to a beer. Lets use hair color as an analog. There are blondes, brunettes, redheads and folks with raven black hair. Some blondes have hair so light in color it is almost white. Some have hair of a hue that's almost light brown rather than blonde. Yet we can say that there is a group of people in the world who are blondes and all understand each other. The same applies for red hair, brown hair and black hair.

Thus to say one can't learn from reviews and tastes described by others because we all taste things differently is at best misleading.

 

You'll find that how many subtle flavors you can find in a beer is directly proportional to how long of a review you feel like writing.

 

I agree with the complete set of thoughts that I snipped out of this post, but wanted to highlight this because it reminded me of a personal experience. The citrus rind thing does point out the "learning" factor. We work with grapefruit, so I have had a lot of experience tasting grapefruit juice from the process equipment perspective. I worked on the juice extractors early in my career - settings to get yield and such. When I started all I could tell was Sample A tastes like crap, Sample B tastes better, so let's benchmark with the settings that produced sample B, adjust again. Well, as months went by, it DID get to the point where I could pick out the different flavor contributions from the juicy/fruity part itself, the albedo (that white crap), the outer rind/zest, and the oils.

Again, OP, there has been some great advice in this thread - now you have to figure out what works for you.

 

For some people, this skill seems to come naturally. For others, it's something we have to develop. I'm in the latter group. When I first started off, I just tasted "beer." But I really worked hard at picking up the individual flavors, and it got to the point where I was able to pick out all the individual flavors.

I honed my skills by making sure the tasting environment was ideal (clean palate, no music/TV blasting, no nasal congestion, etc.), and I read reviews from well-established reviewers. Eventually, I started to realize what people meant by caramel, anise, molasses, pine, citrus, horse blanket, etc. For example, if you try multiple beers, and "horse blanket" is a common description used for each of them...you eventually isolate that common taste and realize "Oh, hey, that's what they mean by horse blanket!" That's how it was for me with caramel. I love caramel. I kept seeing people use "caramel" to describe various beers, and I thought they were freaking crazy. "This tastes nothing like caramel!" - I thought to myself. Eventually, though, after drinking multiple beers with "caramel" as a common taste description, it started to shine through until one day "Eureka! That's what they mean by caramel!" Now caramel is one of the easiest flavors for me to pick up in a beer.

Alas, I don't drink as regularly as I used to, and I drink more for 'enjoyment' now than 'analysis,' so my palate has narrowed considerably. I can still pick up much more than I could when I was a newbie, but the level of nuance has definitively regressed some. I'm OK with that though. Ultimately, who cares really?

 

Can I ask what 4mmp is? Did you mean that a compound present with 4ppm (parts per million)?

 

Ah, where are the days of just simply pounding a sixer of Budweiser?

 

Are you ready for your organic chemistry lesson?

4-mercapto-4-methylpentan-2-one (4MMP).

Cheers!

P.S. 4MMP is a thiol.

 

Thank you. It has been quite some years since my days of chemistry.

 

Never ever get into a debate with Jack or be prepared to be killed by fact, and not opinion. You should be a Cicero if your not already.

 

No debate whatsoever. It was just a simple question. I googled 4mmp but could not find the answer I was looking for.

I am far too new here to question anyones knowledge or expertise on most, if not all subject matters here.

 

Oh no, not at all about anything that's been posted by anyone at all, quite the opposite.. Jack is a beer geeks beer get is all I meant. No offense at all intended.

 

It is a thiol compound which has sulfur in it, 4MMP is the abreviation, . 4-mercapto-4-methylpentane-2-one is the long name.

Edit. Jack beat me to it. 4MMP occurs in wine too.