Tastes Different from Bottle to Bottle

My buddy and I threw a party to celebrate our first batch of homebrew, a nut brown ale that turned out very well. We all drank several bottles and noticed that the beer sometimes tasted different from bottle to bottle. None of the beer was spoiled, mind you. Just more pronounced hops or malt flavor. We want to know why.

(FYI, the beer may have gotten slightly cooler it chilled over the course of the party but was more or less at fridge temp to begin with...yeah, yeah, I know many beers taste better warmer...)

Were the carb levels even across all the bottles? High and low carbonation can change the perceived tasted dramatically and sometimes is can be a bit tricky to get a group of bottle conditioned beer to carb the same.

JimC said:

Were the carb levels even across all the bottles? High and low carbonation can change the perceived tasted dramatically and sometimes is can be a bit tricky to get a group of bottle conditioned beer to carb the same.

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This is a great point.
Also, I've noticed from the day I started drinking quality beer that my perception of taste changes after I've had a couple. What I've had to eat with the beer also has a huge effect on my perception of taste. I never noticed this when drinking BMC.
If I really want to taste a beer I drink it as the first one of the session and I don't eat anything while enjoying it.

RichBrewer said:

What I've had to eat with the beer also has a huge effect on my perception of taste. I never noticed this when drinking BMC.

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This may be a dumb questiuon, but what is BMC?

is there a thread or library to explain what all these acronyms to us noobs?

talleymonster said:

This may be a dumb questiuon, but what is BMC?

is there a thread or library to explain what all these acronyms to us noobs?

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BudMillerCoors. IOW, Mass Market Light American Lager.

This list has BMC, but is pretty sparse.

how about ESB? I keep seeing that one a lot here.

talleymonster said:

how about ESB? I keep seeing that one a lot here.

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Extra Special Bitter...British ale. What we consider our "normal" everyday drink they call "bitters".

although it doesn't have BMC, SWMBO, or several others on it, this is a good list for brewing abbreviations...just found in a search

http://brewery.org/infobase/Acronyms.html