Taste buds changed?

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ndhowlett

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I'm your typical homebrewer that before making beer mostly drank the swill that most american "enjoy." Nothing wrong with the swill, but it's swill to me now. I once drank the swill by the gallons, with no complaints, and even showed prefrence between the swills.

Went out about a month ago and tried to have multiple glasses of swill. Didn't think anything of it just went at it like I always did. got about half way through my first glass and couldn't drink anymore. I really couldn't it was that bad. This was the same type of beer that I had drank for years, and all the sudden my taste buds were begging me to stop.

I know it's typical but was hoping that someone would have something scientific to say about it (genetics, how taste buds act ect.).

Thanks
 
My first batch is in primary, so I haven't really had any homebrew (except a bottle of Germey's) - but last weekend I discovered how my tastebuds have changed. I downed Guiness like it was BMC - it didn't seem so extraordinarily stout any more.
 
I was a Bud Light drinker forever. Since I've been hombrewing, whenever I go out it's not as easy to find a good beer. I wouldn't have thought about it before.
 
Thanks to all of the good avice on this forum, and my tendency to gravitate to better beers for a long time now, I am having the same problem with BMC as well.

I am new, so I have been waiting Patiently (Ok, maybe not patiently) for my first brews to be ready. About 2 weeks in, I sat back and poured an Aussie BMC (Carlton Draught) and got ready to enjoy it. It's not a bad beer, but I thought to myself "If I brewed this beer myself, I would be disappointed!

Fortunately, my first batch of American Pale Ale is mature enough to drink! It's never going to mature long enough to become as good as it can get, since I will have it finished off before it's a month old. However, it was So nice, I immediately brewed another batch of it, and will brew another next week when this first batch is gone. I plan to have at least 20 gallons of this in different stages of maturity, so i can always throw another one into the kegerator when one is empty.
 
BMC has it's place. I enjoy my brew and imports most often but there is nothinging wrong with a Michalob either. It just depends what I am in the mood for. I argue that AB can produce a light american lager better than I can and beyond that more consistantly.

I will say this...I have grown to appreciate hops more as I have been brewing for the past several years.
 
Bulls Beers said:
I was a Bud Light drinker forever. Since I've been hombrewing, whenever I go out it's not as easy to find a good beer. I wouldn't have thought about it before.


Ditto, Now if some one give me a BL I won't drink it
 
Training your palate, maybe. Similar thing happened with me and coffee roasting; I can _drink_ Maxwell House, but I'll add a lot of cream and sugar to make it palatable. If I drink coffee I roasted (or any competent homeroaster or small commercial roaster), I rarely add a thing. :)
 
It's probably your tastes, not your taste buds, that are changing.

If the only beef you've ever eaten is a burger at McD's, you probably think beef is OK. Once you start eating steak you'll figure out that McD's is not beef at it's best.
 
arturo7 said:
It's probably your tastes, not your taste buds, that are changing.

If the only beef you've ever eaten is a burger at McD's, you probably think beef is OK. Once you start eating steak you'll figure out that McD's is not beef at it's best.

I'd have to agree with that. I was much the same as the OP and all you other guys before I got into homebrewing. Heck, I didn't really even like beer all that much but I loved the idea of crafting something like beer myself. I used to think it tasted too bitter and just couldn't even handle a BMC and yet now Guiness doesn't seem all that bitter or strong to me.

I guess your personal tastes do tend to change with time and experience.
 
Silviakitty said:
Training your palate, maybe. Similar thing happened with me and coffee roasting; I can _drink_ Maxwell House, but I'll add a lot of cream and sugar to make it palatable. If I drink coffee I roasted (or any competent homeroaster or small commercial roaster), I rarely add a thing. :)

This is a big part of it. The thing is, over time your tastes and sensitivities will indeed change! If you cut out salt (or drastically lower it) for say 2 weeks your sensitivity to salt dramatically increases. This happens with many of the main flavors, salt, sour, bitter, sweet, unami (it also happens with chili 'hot'). You basically build in a tolerance or rather your threshold for these flavors can change over time if exposed repeatedly. (Hence the "Hop Head" phenomenon).

Another part of the process is the experience itself. When you broaden your taste horizons, you immediately expand your comparison base. What I mean by this is that to someone who only drinks say the silver bullet and makes an effort to begin looking for, tasting and enjoying say American micro's, the things that can be 'compared to' increases and as a result the individual has more things to judge what he/she is tasting by past experiences (not just by what people say).

Funny you should mention coffee and North Carolina, as where I first really got into coffee was in Raleigh at 'Cup-A-Joes' by the Uni. They roasted on-site and had strict rules about handling their coffee. It was there that after a few weeks I could pick up a cup of coffee and tell you where it was from. Unfortunately I cannot do that now. There is nowhere that compares to that here and my palate has become desensitized :(.
 
NitrouStang96 said:
My first batch is in primary, so I haven't really had any homebrew (except a bottle of Germey's) - but last weekend I discovered how my tastebuds have changed. I downed Guiness like it was BMC - it didn't seem so extraordinarily stout any more.

I know what you mean...i still Love guiness but this weekend I tasted an RIS for th first time and I realized now how stout stout can be. Yikes. I dont think I will ever be making one of those. I'll stick to the slightly strong porter stouts I am used to. :rockin:
 
Taste buds & aroma receptors are subject to death and regeneration. Any strongly flavored food, like bitter beers, will knock out receptors and promote the growth of others. You really are tasting BMC differently.

[By the way, contrary to what we were all taught in school, taste receptors are not grouped in certain areas of the tongue. New research shows they are mixed across the entire surface.]
 
I think homebrewing helps with tastebud training. I was originally a BMC drinker as most of us were. As soon as I started homebrewing I began trying many different beers and actually paying attention to flavors. I wanted to find out why a certain beer had a certain flavor and what the cause of that flavor was. My tastebuds started to perceive all of these different characteristics and now that is carried on to all foods and beverages.

Now if I drink an MGD I can taste its "flavors" which is a lot of corn...and it's kinda nasty. :p
 
Twenty years ago, when I lived in Chicago, the most popular beer in the city was Old Style. I loved it!

Had some on Christmas Day with my folks.....YUCK!

Bitter, strong, nasty. Used to be my favorite.
 
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