good example revvy. I've found that you never really know exactly what a brew will taste like till it's decided it's ready to drink.
That's why to me it's a waste of time to sample early. I just never had gleaned anything substantive from that. Despite the rationalization that many new brewer say is for 'educational purposes' I find there's very little to be gleaned tasting a beer at 1 week, and again at 2....that to me just means there 2 less beers that are actually tasting good and are ready at the end. I don't buy budweiser because I don't like to taste "bad" beer. So why would I drink my own beer when it was "bad" especially since I know it's going to be delicious a few weeks later?
It's a great rationalization, and I hear it every time I make my assertion. But the thing to remember is that since every beer is different that 5 day old Ipa you may have decided to crack open is not going to taste anything like that 5 day old brown ale you opened early in your next batch. They're two different animals. There are so many tiny variations in things like ambient temp at fermentation and carbonation, pitch count phases of the moon, that even if you brewed your same batch again and cracked a bottle at the exact same early time on the previous batch, the beer, if you could remember how it tasted, more than likely wouldn't taste the same at that phase....Heck even in the same batch if you had grabbed a different bottle it may seem carbed or tasting differently at that point.
To me all you're doing is wasting a beer that will be excellent when your beer is ACTUALLY carbed and conditioned...
You not going to be able to "fix" anything in the bottle,
it's the taste of the final product once it's MATURED" that you want to evaluate for future tweaking, NOT a bottle of green beer.
There's an old saying, the best beer in a batch is the last one...
But it's folk's beer after all.
Do whatever floats your boat. Taste the heck out of then,
But, if you've read the 10,000 posts about this subject where a ton of brewers say, WAIT THREE WEEKS MINIMUM, just DON'T start a "My Beer is flat, or tastes like A$$, what's wrong?" thread about it if your beer isn't where you want it, if it's under 6 weeks or so......
Because more often than not, it taste like a$$ until it's ready, then it usually tastes great.
So if you taste it young, then don't judge it...expect it to be not what you want...
because it's not ready yet.