Smoking and beer Flavor.

[BigKahuna]

I've been chasing a funky gost for about 5 batches now, and have actually put a few batches on hold until I figure it out. It's prominent in my cream, noticeable in my Irish Red, and gone in anything darker or more bitter than the Irish Red.
I've sent some out to see if I'm just hallucinating, but all the same I thought I'd post my evenings findings.
I have been smoking a cigarette or 2 a day (I've been off of Chewing Tobacco for about 1 1/2 Years, and am jonzing BAD lately!).
So any way, tonight, I'm outside with a pint of my Irish Red, and smoking when I realize this is the best beer I've had in weeks....including commercial.

Whatever my funk is, a cigarette is enough to dull your taste buds so you do not taste it.
Now, I'm not taking up smoking, and I'm not going to start bottling my beer with a cigarette on the bottle, but I thought it supremely interesting that this was such a noticeable difference.

 

[bull8042]

Send me a couple of beers and a cig and I will try to duplicate your findings....

Seriously, smoking screws up or dulls your sense of taste, that I know for a fact. If you are unable to find the source of your trouble, just make sure you only give homebrew to your friends/family that smoke.

 

[BigKahuna]

Ya, I know that smoking dulls the taste buds, but I find it interesting that it COMPLETELY eliminated the undesirable flavor in this beer!

 

[dasBuhbuh]

I've noticed that after smoking my pipe some beers (and other things) taste better or sometimes worse. So yea, definitely does something other than simply dulling.

 

[AirRageous]

Smoking also dulls your sense of smell and that is important in "tasting" also.

As a lifelong (55 years) non-smoker, I can smell a smoker just as they pass me on the street even when they are not smoking at the time. I have mentioned this to my smoking friends who are mosttimes surprized that I can smell the smoke on them. They think they are clean, freshly showered and wearing clean clothes but the stale smoke smell is still there. I think that a heavy smoker has the smell in their skin and sweat. They cannot smell themselves but others can. This has to effect how beer tastes to a smoker.

It's all relative though. If you like the taste w/smoke .... cool. If not, that's cool too, change the recipe until you find a combination that works. But a non-smoker may have a completely different opinion of the brew. Of course, I have propane on the brain so I'm probably all messed up anyway.