An Italian wine tour guide told me that a bottle of wine is a conversation, which begins when the cork is pulled and progresses until the bottle is empty. Classically, this happens during a meal, so the food influences things. The first sip and the last may be quite different.
As with wine, our perception of the beer also changes depending on what's going on in our mouths. With a batch of beer, the "conversation" is much longer. Things may change as the beer itself changes - conditioning, aging, staling, as
@huckdavidson hinted. Many factors influence the beer experience, as
@Red over White notes. Even the serving vessel affects perception as
@Skeeter686 says. So many variables, which BJCP protocols seek to limit but cannot fully avoid.
My
overall judgment of a batch of beer accumulates over time. First impressions matter more, as with meeting someone new. Even if "greatness" might be thought of as a momentary phenomenon as Huck said, what I'm hoping is that an
overall exceptional batch can be more reliably repeated, and that I'll somehow feel even happier with more of my beers.
Educating my palate might help, but could also backfire -
@Bobby_M's "curse" from #47, above. Other help could come from developing beer knowledge per
@Bassman2003 in #7 and seeking BJCP-type feedback per Bobby in #20. But the "rising bar" problem resists these practical approaches. Perhaps I need to redefine it as a feature, not a bug.
Can you imagine dealing with the variation on a large scale? You would pull your hair out.
