training my palate

What style/examples do you enjoy?

 

I'd suggest starting with a style you already enjoy. Take notes while you drink. Find subtleties in the beer that may remind you of something completely unrelated to what you're drinking. For instance, when I drink most traditional lagers, I'm reminded of the smells coming from a large bread bakery I grew up around. Take the flavors you're already familiar with and apply them to what you find in the styles you already enjoy. From there, you can branch out and, maybe over time, you'll gain an appreciation for styles you never liked before.

 

If you like Chimay Red, I'd try other dubbels like Westmalle Dubbel, or Ommengang's Abbey Ale. If you don't like hops, I'd also selfishly advise you to try some hefe's as it is one of my favorite styles. The standard bearer for Hefeweizens is Weihenstephaner, but Paulaner and Franziskaner are also delicious. I would suggest, however, to maybe dabble in some mildly hoppy beers, because a good IPA is a beautiful thing.

 

try some IPAs

 

You have to just try everything and compare what you smell/taste to what other people have posted in their reviews. You will begin to pick things up over time.

 

You're getting some good advice from the other posts here. Drinking beer is a good way of "training." (I wonder how many athletes say the very same thing.)

I would buy one small bottle of each of the three common Chimay beers (red, blue, white). Drink one a day for three straight days. Don't eat food while you drink them. Decide which one appealed to you the most. Use this site to explore the style of the beer you picked. Buy 12 oz singles of different American brewers take on that same style. Decide which one appealed to you the most. Try everything else from that particular brewer to see what other styles click with you.

 

My journey started with amber ales (Fat Tire and Alaskan Amber), porters (Deschutes Black Butte, Anchor Porter), dark lagers (Boston Lager, New Belgium 1554), and brown ales (Big Sky Moose Drool, Rogue Hazelnut Brown). Besides all of those examples being pretty damn good for how commonplace and inexpensive they are, they all share another thing in common: they are super approachable. It's a good thing you're digging Belgians right off the bat, so definitely follow the previous advice to try other dubbels, tripels, and quads. Hope you have deep pockets though.

I also avoided hoppy bitterness like the plague at first, which is a pretty natural response as a beginner beer enthusiast, so I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. Don't shut IPAs completely though, come back to them occasionally to retest your palate development. When/if you get to that point, I highly recommend Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA - very low on bitterness with lots of fruity notes. I also really enjoy Stone IPA, SN Torpedo, and Firestone Walker Union Jack as accessible go-to's. Try a few double IPAs (Firestone Walker Double Jack, Dogfish Head 90 Minute, Oskar Blues Deviant Dales) too if you get adventurous and haven't gone there yet, you may find those more approachable than single IPA's due to a more hefty, balancing malt backbone.

Hopefully that was enough name dropping to getcha started! Have fun and enjoy the ride!

PS - Be sure to make good use of the forum search feature. It's an extremely fast and convenient way to dig up good info that may have already been discussed.

 

As you follow the steps recommended above, write out a review of each beer you try. You don't need to publish your review on here, but take the time to commit your thoughts to paper. When finished look up the beer on here, tick the box that says reviews only, then sort by top reviewers and start reading several reviews. As you read compare your notes with theirs. Two things will happen, you'll begin to identify reviewers who's words you trust because they report tasting what you tasted and you'll begin to recognize that they are describing flavors and using words that you didn't include in your review but that you realize should be part of your own description. Keep doing this tasting, writing, reading a lot. Any type of training requires time, analysis, performance and repetition until you are happy with the result.

Most of all, enjoy your journey!

 

This video may help:

 

When I first began drinking craft I didn't like "bitter" beers. As I tried different styles I "learned" that beer didn't need to taste like bland AALs. With that my flavor preferences began to change. I went from not liking lagers that were too bitter to IPAs being my favorite style. Boston Lager and many ambers will introduce your palate to some mild bitterness. From there it is a short step to the often milder bitterness of pale ales. After that you may be ready for some Hopadillo - a nice Texas IPA.

 

You don't "train" a palate, you bombard it with an onslaught of hops.

When the dust settles (and if your tongue hasn't required transplanting) you will have a greater appreciation of IPAs, DIPAs, etc...

Repeat the same method to get in to sour Lambics.

 

Top Notch pieces of Advice!

 

Back when there were only 100 beers on the Beers of Fame I sought them out to expand my horizons. I also watched YouTube videos (Greg Beer Reveiws and Beer Geek Nation primarily) because I had/have a hard time describing some of the things I'm detecting.

 

On my 21st I just bought a 6 pack of two mediaocre at best ipas (longhammer and harpoon). At first, it was a bit of a chore to put down, but by the end of the two 6 packs I was really enjoying them and became a hophead immediatly. I have grown quite a bit since then. Honestly, I just think you gotta put a few down, whether you enjoy it or not and then you acquire the taste (that's how it happened for me anyway)

 

I recently turned 21, did a 12pk of Seirra Nevada Torpedo that night (or so I'm told). I think my palate is ready.

 

I had this thing going with a few of my friends to try a beer from each style of beer from the styles listing http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/

Have some fun with it. Last one to try on my list is a braggot for which I am not in hurry to drink.

Taking notes will be your best friend.

 

This. When I first started with craft beer, I would get a mixed 6-pack a week, but had no system of note-taking. Needless to say, I've tried a bunch of different beer and liked/disliked/loved a good many of them, but don't remember why.