Gender and Taste

[SkaBoneBenny]

My girlfriend, my best friend, and I have become involved in a debate of sorts. A few nights ago at The Cambridge Commons (an awesome restaurant between Harvard square and Porter square in Cambridge, MA), I ordered the Cambridge Tall Tale Pale Ale and the GF ordered a Watermelon-tini. We both sipped each other's drink. She liked the Pale Ale and I enjoyd her drink. It tasted like candy in drink form.

While my GF and many mnay many other women I know enjoy beer, I find there are far more women who say they hate the taste of beer thatn men. At the same time, there are few men who regularly consume "girly drinks" or cocktails. I enjoy a couple sips of a cocktail now and then, but the thought of drinking a whole or drink or more than one is a bit too much for me.

Why do men and women consume different food and drink? Do biological or social factors best explain this phenomenon? Pressure is put on men not to drink "girly drinks". I've also read that post-pubescent women are more sensitive to sweetness than men. Could testostrone levels play a factor? Or is it all social construction. Thoughts?
-Ben

 

[zoebisch01]

I think it is a mixture of many things. Social, perhaps gender and most importantly individual wiring. I lean towards dry beer and wine and savory food. I shy away from sweets most of the time but occassionally want something sweet. SWMBO seems to prefer hoppier beer, although my tastes are developing to appreciate hoppier styles.

I do think, however, that the social behavior/outlook has tremendous impact in influencing those who are not confident in their own manhood

 

[paranode]

I think a good part of it is social 'norms'. Girls aren't afraid to say that beer is bitter and unappealing to them and they are not thought less of for ordering a tasty/fruity alcoholic drink. Men on the other hand are sort of expected to enjoy beer and/or liquor and thus will develop a taste for them after drinking them enough. People often make fun of a guy if he orders a 'girly drink'.

 

[Junebug]

I'm a woman and I vastly prefer almost any type of beer over one of those fruity "chick" drinks. I will occasionally have a sip of a friend's cosmo, but ultlimately my tastes are geared towards beer. Additionally, I can't tolerate those fruity scents in soaps and shampoos that most women seem to adore. Most of the women I know genuinely dislike beer, so I think it goes beyond socialization.

 

[Melana]

I too am a woman and enjoy beer. I am always willing to try new beers (something my poor husband has to deal with!!!) and am always looking for new beer expeditions. He has embraced my new brewing hobby and I do brew beer that he likes. That being said we both have different tastes in beer.
My friends that are not into beer only drink beer like Coors and Heinekin... AND they also drink the fruity drinks as well.

 

[SkaBoneBenny]

I'm begining to warm up to the idea that social pressures create physical reactions in terms of taste.

When we first start drinking coffee, most people reject it immediatly or drink it with a ton of cream and sugar. When we force ourselves to drink it again and again, we begin to actually taste the coffee flavors underneath the bitterness. One has to cross that bitterness "threshold" before they begin to enjoy coffee.

I would postulate that the same is true for beer. I remember having tiny sips of beer when I was little from my dad on New Years Eve. I was always disgusted and shocked that anyone could drink beer. Once in college, after finally forcing myself to drink a few beers, especially after trying more flavorful beers, I underwent the same change. I found the flavors underneath. I believe my GF is going through the same phase right now with IPAs. She used to be totally repelled by the bitter flavors of IPAs until I was able to convince her to drink an entire pint. I asked her to try and taste the fruit hidden underneath the bitterness. While shes not drinking Harpoon yet, shes on the IPA path.

Perhaps this can all be applied to beer gender preferences. Paranode suggested that women have less pressure to drink beer and therefore do not acquire a "taste" for it. Because many women don't force themselevs beyond the bitterness threshold, they don't discover the happiness on the other side. We can blame that on social pressures. Hmmmm....

-Ben

 

[jpsloan]

I believe I saw a public TV documentary (though I'm way too lazy to footnote this) about actual physiological differences between gender, and how they play into the assumed social roles the genders have ascribed to them.

One item offered was that women apparantly react differently to "bitter" flavors than men do. Men tend to respond to bitter flavors more favorably, whether by our chemical processing or possibly due to a more dulled palate towards bitter flavors, than women, who tend to taste bitterness either more intensely or as an unfavorable stimulus.

There might be some science to that, or it could have been inductive crap.

 

[thebikingengineer]

I found that it took a pint of Stone IPA to wake my mouth up and taste actual flavors in beer. The same thing happens with any strongly flavored food, you need to get a bit used to the more powerful flavors before you can appreciate the subtler ones. Beer has a similar progression. Look at a barleywine, right off the bat it's very (very, very, etc) alcoholic tasting, but let it sit for a few months (or years) and everything blends together and mellows out. Most people just aren't willing to give it the time they need. They're content to drink beers designed to taste like nothing because it's easy.

 

[TheBrewWarrior]

Similar to what you were saying, I think it's more of a social thing, though biologically, I could see justification for women being more sensitive to sweetness than men, similar to the differences in fat storage. I would postulate that this was to help women keep their weight up more efficiently at a time when sugars weren't so easy to come by.

Another interesting question though, are women better tasters (in general) than men? I've always felt like I'm a bit of an under taster. If I'm having issues identifying subtle flavors, I'll usually ask my wife to give it a go.

 

[HerbieHowells]

My wife sometimes jokes about being on the "vodka diet." While drinking any alcoholic beverage is going to add empty calories to your diet, a vodka drink will usually have fewer than a full flavored beer, assuming that you don't add a sugary mixer. Since women are under more social pressure to be skinny than men are, especially when drinking habits are first formed, I would not be surprised if this plays some part in the observed divide. (My wife enjoyed full flavored beer before she was diagnosed with a real-deal gluten allergy, so it isn't an entirely taste based preference for her.)

 

[agrazela]

A mixed drink is more expensive than a beer. So no wonder which gender goes for which

 

[dannypo]

Women tend to be more sensitive to bitterness. They just have more taste buds for it. My wife loves any beer that I would describe as too sweet and she considers most pale ales to be too bitter.

 

[HornetSparky]

A friend once told me that men lose taste buds as we age and therefore often gradually begin eating spicer and more strongly flavored foods. Might this be behind the phenomenon you discuss?

Of course, unlike the established trend of men becoming more handsome and wise with age, I have not seen any data supporting the above claim.