Strange hop "off-flavor" spanning multiple breweries

Well, since sensory sciences have demonstrated that 70-80% of the flavors we pick up are based on the sense of smell all it sometimes takes is being familiar with the smell.

It all works together much as described in the overview provided here:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-how-does-sight-smell-affect-taste/

 

I get what you are saying. Who the hell has drank cat piss??!! The only thing I have ever described as tating of those common odd flavors is soapy, because I have tasted soap before lots of times. Otherwise, I will describe aromas as BO, cat piss, etc, but not flavors.

That being said, like @drtth mentioned, you could argue that if you can smell those items you can also tastes them due to the smell-taste sensory correlation. Kind of makes sense (no pun intended) that if you can't taste without smell, you probably can't smell without tasting to an extent.

 

That yeast is shite, that yeast.

 

My taste buds are sensitive to artificial grape.... Thats what i think of as purple. Grape soda, grape cough medicine) It doesnt taste like real grapes. I have gotten the artificial purple effect from drinking DIPAS that are not fresh. The combination of malt turning sweet, Hop fade, hop bitterness trying to cover up the alcohol flavor from the high abv. can give a grape cough medicine kind of flavor. Before i knew any better to check dates, I remember drinking a Hop Stoopid that tasted like this. It is because of this is the reason why i started date checking. Drink fresh. Keep cold....

 

I know exactly to what you are referring with this. Definitely have gotten this character in the past. Strikes me as more "white grape" than "red grape" or "grape drank", though.

 

Yes, but note that there's big difference between saying one associates the color purple with such things as Grape Soda and Grape Cough Syrup because they have the color purple.

But that is very different than just telling us you taste purple and letting it end there.

Why? Lots of things with very different flavors are purple, for example, some grapes, some figs, Passion Fruit, raisins, plums and several different kinds of berries. Similarly, some wines, e.g., Cabernets, are often purple.

So if all you tell us is "It tastes purple," how are we to know which flavors are involved. If you really mean the artifical flavors in Cough Syrup how am I to know it doesn't taste a bit like fresh Blueberries or a good Cabernet wine?

 

Purple is serious business.

 

Except not all smells are the same as the taste. For example, the odor of tobacco smoke isn't the same as the taste, but I get what you're saying.

 

Yeah, but in the real world they don't all have be the same, if only because there can be other things at play, e.g., smoking is notorious for dulling both the taste buds and the sense of smell, and so affecting how foods and beverages taste, etc.

Almost none of these things are "either/or" since they don't happen in isolation and there are almost always degrees of impact.

 

I definitely get 'grape soda' in some Quads, and unmistakably so. It's more of a factor of the malt/yeast interaction than the hops, though.

 

When I get grape in beer it reminds me of Welches grape juice or grape flavored candy. It is Ethyl heptanoate, an Ester from the yeast. I get it often in German beers.