Since I came roundabout to craft beer by way of single-malt scotch (after drinking "everyday" craft beer for years but never really thinking about it or exploring its depth/breadth), I've been wondering. Do any of you regularly drink liquor (whisky mainly, because it's grain-based, but also rum, brandy etc.) at least in part to help develop your palate and vocabulary for beer? Is this a legitimate or useful approach? Or does one develop one's beer palate only by tasting beer? I sometimes use descriptors like "rum-soaked dates" to describe a beer I'm tasting, but for all I know if I actually tasted a rum-soaked date it would taste nothing like what I'm tasting in the beer. It's more like what I think in my mind it would taste like. It's a convenient way to describe something, but may not be the most accurate. On a side note, what about foods that have common threads with beer? For example, bread (yeast, grains), or certain spices that are frequently used to describe a beer's flavor/aroma? Anyone deliberately familiarize themselves with such foods to improve their ability to describe what they taste/smell in beer? If so, which ones did you find most useful in this regard? Cheers!
I find there is certainly some cross over, especially in whiskey / beer sweet malt flavors, but I don't use it as an exercise by any means.
Since I started reviewing beer, I found myself exploring many other aspects of food and drink to expand my palate. I do not think I would of ever drank brandy, fine bourbons, and expensive Scotch if it wasn't for beer and seeking out those finer qualities. Drank a lot of expensive wine as well.
Certainly the foods you've had or spices you've tasted are crucial in defining aromas and flavors in beer. I don't go out of my way to make notes on how a mango smells though. It's more of a sensory response that builds itself out of the foods/spices you've tried. When I smell orange peel in a hefeweizen, it's because I've peeled an orange too many times to count. Smell is deeply connected to memory. The spicy smell of a bourbon or smoky aroma of a fine scotch may certainly make itself available to you during a beer tasting because you have developed a palate to describe the liquor you've tried. Building your olfactory "palate" is much the same as making a memory of the things you've tasted. Look in your spice cabinet and familiarize yourself with the spices you have. You will definitely find some of them in beer (and also whiskey) as well
You know, it's funny you bring this up. Lately when I drink whiskey I find myself trying to identify the different flavors going on, largely due to my habit of doing it with craft beer. I've found it to be pretty hard because the intensity of beer and liquor is, on the whole, so much different. But it's fun to try and tease apart the things I'm smelling and/or tasting. When I drink a whiskey, or even a wine, I can pick out tannins/oak flavors largely because I've been able to identify them in beer. So they're reciprocal in a way. bierfreundlich is totally right, I think you build your own sensory "inventory", so to speak, by experiencing the same flavors over and over and over, so when you drink or eat something new and that certain, familiar flavor hits you, you know it unequivocally. So to answer your question directly, yes! I think it's a totally legitimate and fun way to to develop your palate.
