Beer - an aquired taste??

There was a time in my young life when I did not like beer at all - positively hated it. It really wasn't until my early 20's that I really started to appreciate beer.

Enter Homebrewing.

After brewing up my first batch of homebrew about 5 years ago, I found that I really liked this homeade creation more than store bought. I was excited to share with friends and family the wonderful taste of a freshly brewed IPA. The sharing however, was met with mixed results ranging from, "I don't really like it" to "yeah, it's pretty good" to "it's the best I've ever had". The later being a rare response.

My feeling is that the majority who would prefer a Coors or a Budweiser to a homebrew aquired a taste for beer long enough ago that they are not able or willing to re-aquire a taste for "good" beer. In essence, their taste buds have been ruined.

I'm not knocking the mass-produced beer market as it does have its place. I am pointing out that should someone take the time to aquire and develop a taste for fine beer, they will experience a "beer" awakening that will bring them to a whole new realm of social drinking pleasure.

What has been your experience with introducing fine beers to the mass-produced crowd?

I could not have said it better.. all of my experiences have been the same / similar. All of my friends that drink range from my brew being "the best" to "I'd rather a bud". I have learned which friends I should offer the various beers to.

My bud loving friends I always offer my single hopped ales to ( around 30 IBU and LIGHT).

My more adventurous friends I always offer my Belgian triple or a Wittibier or Wheat ale, sometimes an IPA if they comment that they like the smell or floral overtones of the hops. ( usually they don't know they are referring to the hops... lol)

Lastly, my die hard beer loving friends, I can offer anything to and they will tell me what they think. I usually use their advice to refine my mix.

so..
+1 to slipgate.. I think it is completely acquired and may have to do with their purpose in drinking beer. (get drunk vs for the flavor of good beer.)

-DIG

I disagree that people drink BMC only to get drunk. I have known many people who just prefer some that is lighter in body and flavor and is refreshing in a way that some ales just aren't. They will drink one or two - or nurse a few over the course of a night. Like anything else - it is just a preference.

Because your preference cost most per 6-pack (has a higher starting gravity, uses more hop aroma...) it doesn't inherently make it better. It is just different. Some people like American milk chocolate to a Belgian dark - not because their taste buds are unrefined or they need a quick chocolate buzz or because they are plebs who do not appreciate the finer things - but because they prefer the sweet flavor of the milk chocolate.

EDIT: - +1 to beer being an acquired taste - some just acquire it quicker.

I think when people are first 'acquiring' their taste for beer, it is to get drunk. Why else would you drink something that you thought was disgusting? Because of that, most people are looking for the least flavorful and cheapest that they can find. After that, they get used to it and eventually start to like it. I would say that cheap beer and good beer are both acquired tastes. I know I first acquired a taste for Coors Light in college and since acquiring my current tastes (pretty much everything but the BMC variety), I can't hardly stomach the stuff.

I have found two interesting things in the last year

1 many of my buddies have changed from BMC to more interesting stuff. Like IPA's and i see lots of Sam Adams around. Now we are talking the 40+ group

2 the second thing is that most of my BMC guys look froward to my home brews. Like a lite Good life pale ale or my wheat beers. Stouts no way.
Note: my last two wheats came in at 6% and that did not slow anyone down

i am still waiting for a bmc drinking friend to ask for a second serving of homebrew. the very fact that most of the people on here disdain bmc is the
same reason that bmc-ers dont like homebrew. its DIFFERENT. we say "its gassy, its thin, its watery, fill in your own descriptions. why would anyone expect someone who likes bmc to like homebrew? we make cluttered, malty, hoppy, unclean ales for the most part ... why would a crystal clear bud drinking person even THINK of liking it?

i got into micro brews from my non-brewing brother (my biggest fan now, btw) who gave me a bottle of wild goose ipa. i thought it was disgusting right out of the bottle (the ONLY way i ever drank bottled beer) ...then i poured it into a glass and it opened up much like a wine and i became hooked. it had character.

i make homebrew for myself, to take to meetings of my homebrew club, my brother and anyone who asks for a taste. long gone are the days when i proudly handed my neighbor a glass of my award-winning altbier and said "try this!" i'm tired of the faces and the pretense that "well ... yeah Tom ... thats pretty good".

Go to a beer store ... why is there 4,000 six-packs of bmc stacked to the cieling and only 4 six packs of Troegs Hop Back Amber? Its cuz, to the average beer drinker, the Amber is GROSS!

Its not wrong ... its what it is.

Tu1003

What are you brewing.

We make a simple AG beer
50% two row
50% wheat
drop in some hops early
some at the end of the boil

Keg it and over carb it thats it

Its good simple and most people like it even though you cant see though it.

I agree HB is not for everyone. OR is it...
I say its just the time people dont want to spend on it.

Too slow in the office today. Too much time on my hands

OOOOOh guess i will call a customer

I think that people are shocked sometimes to taste such strong flavors after drinking basically "pop". Maybe after a tasting class they might open their minds up to something with more flavor.

I agree on the glass. I find it difficult to dirnk anything but the lightest beers from the bottle. Aroma gives so much more to the experience than I imagined. Now I rarely drink anything from the bottle, except maybe some Ultra Lime (tastes like lime soda pop without all the sugar!)

I have a friend that I am slowly bringing into the beer culture. I loves trying new beers just he doesnt like most of them, I give him credit for atleast trying. He tried my North English Brown and liked it but said it was to hoppy and gave him a headache. Then last night he tried my 6 month old IPA and said it was less hoppy and he liked it better. I love this situation. I got to explain that it actually was 3 times more hops and IBU's then the NEB. So I further got to explain malt-hop balance. He now wants to try them side by side.

I'm getting my roomate slowly hooked on good beer. Until last month, his favorite beer was Miller Light. He would drink the occasional Microbrew, but tended to claim ML as his favorite. I think he recently had that "revelation" that we all have had, because he is obsessed with Sierra Nevada now. He is to the point where he will order a $3.50 SNPA over the Miller Light on $1 draft night. I'm so proud!

Now I'm going to try to work him into some IPA's and stouts.

On another note, I think a lot of people have a huge holdup about "dark" beer. We obviously know that "dark" is not a style. A dry stout (dark) has a VERY different taste than say a Scottish Ale (still dark to a BMC drinker). One of my friends is convinced that all "dark" beer tastes like wood...

i have made 4 batches so far...all of them being "pretty good" or "it tastes like beer!"

I am lucky I guess. A lot of my friends drink quality beer. Unless it is a session beer situation I usually see Goose Islands beer more then I see the BMC's. I even have a few Stout drinkers that love my porters and Stouts. This may stem from the fact that they are mostly made up of Southside Irish.

Well I would say to you that an IPA is definitely an aquired taste. Those used to drinking BMC will hate the taste of hops

And yes, beer is definitely an acquired taste. My first beer was a Budweiser, it was when I was on vacation and my parents gave it to me, I think I was 14, and I was like "Why do people like beer so much?" I thought it tasted awful. Now I love it. Obviously

And yes, I now have my parents drinking better beer than Bud. They both prefer Sam Adams.

SkinnyShamrock said:

Well I would say to you that an IPA is definitely an aquired taste. Those used to drinking BMC will hate the taste of hops

And yes, beer is definitely an acquired taste. My first beer was a Budweiser, it was when I was on vacation and my parents gave it to me, I think I was 14, and I was like "Why do people like beer so much?" I thought it tasted awful. Now I love it. Obviously

And yes, I now have my parents drinking better beer than Bud. They both prefer Sam Adams.

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I was a Miller Lite drinker before discovering HomeBrewing. The first homebrew that I made was a Stout that I loved at first sip. The second was an IPA which hooked me the instant I tried that. I haven't looked back since!

A lot of foods and such are "acquired tastes". That's why when you start feeding babies solid food you introduce them one item at a time to get them used to them. There are several foods that I eat all the time now that I wouldn't touch even as a teenager. Why should beer be any different. My "baby beer" happened to be Coors. Yuck! But I'm not digging into a jar of strained carrots anytime soon either.

I had my first Barleywine at the local micro a couple of days ago. OMG! Heaven in a snifter. After I try a couple of easier recipes and work on my technique, I'm going there.

The OPs premise about all beer preferences being an acquired taste resonates with me and matches my observations and my own experience.

I acquired a taste for Falstaff, Schlitz, Jax, and Pearl when I was younger than I care to admit now; but being young and foolish, the impetus for imbibing was definitely not a desire for a rare and unique flavor experience. It was the social lubricant effect that I was after.

Jax went the way of the DoDo, Dixie just wasn't the same, Billy Beer was a short-lived fad, Schlitz and Falstaff seemed old-fashioned and lost their appeal for me, and Pearl became hard to find where I lived. I switched to Bud and Miller for years, and sometimes I drank Coors. There were no microbrews available.

Then sometime in the late '80s I encountered Samuel Adams Lager. This is the beer that really opened my eyes and my taste buds. I think if it had not been for Sam Adams and the subsequent burgeoning growth of the microbrew industry, I'd never have acquired a taste for high quality ales and lagers or the desire to brew my own.

I was never really a beer fan. I think of beer as the slower of the ways to get a good buzz going on while making several trips to the latrine during the process. I don't like beer, in the classic sense, much really.

I started liking it when we drank some microbrew that tasted good.

I'll drink it if it tastes good and then it's just the means to an end... get a good buzz going on only difference being is that it tasted a whole lot better than BMC.

I'll try almost any microbrew now and havn't had a "commercial" beer since then.

+1 on the acquired taste.

When my wife and I first started dating, about all she would drink was Miller Light and Killians. I slowly started introducing her to different types of craft beers and better commercial beers. At first she was really not into hoppy beers or stouts. Now she loves stouts, porters and Dogfish Head 60 and just about everything else in between.

teu1003 said:

Go to a beer store ... why is there 4,000 six-packs of bmc stacked to the cieling and only 4 six packs of Troegs Hop Back Amber? Its cuz, to the average beer drinker, the Amber is GROSS!

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There is a new liquor store near my house, I went there for the first time about a week ago, the BMC only takes up about 25% of the cooler space and is tucked in the corner furthest from the door (although, I'm sure it's in that corner to make sure that a fair number of their customers are forced to look at half the merchandise before they leave.)