How has your palette changed?

[Brewbirds]

Swen is kind of onto I was thinking. I used chocoalte malt as an example but come to think of it Black Patent seems to have a bad rep for astringency.

We had that issue in our first RCE on the old Borg with a brown ale and decided our black patent addition was one of the issues. We brewed another Brown with some tweaks to the original and found it much more palatable from the "off" flavor side but oddly also less interesting.

I'm trying to decided that I'm not a fan of chocolate malt but that seems dumb on my part since we haven't used it enough times to change amounts and co-ingredients across many batches.

Now that co-ingredients thing just popped as I was typing and I wonder if our palettes may reject a certain combination instead of a single ingredient that gets in the way of a beer being eehh
instead of good.

I put out a similar question on the hops thread when we were trying to figure out some phenolic like off flavors in a few Blonde and SMash hops tests ( do we hate Galena or did we screw something up).

[mashani]

BrewBirds, try British chocolate if you've been using American chocolate malt. See if you like that better. I only use the British kind. I like it better. It's darker in general, but also mellower.

I'm trying to figure out how to answer this topic. My tastes have changed from back when I was a kid from thinking "miller = good" to "miller = piss" - "Guiness = ick" to "Guiness = yum!". I like pretty much any style of beer except for rauchbier, or any other beer that makes me feel like I smoked cigarettes... It might be mental thing, IE back in the miller = "good" days I was avid bowler and back in those days that meant massive second hand smoke exposure even if you didn't smoke. I'd come home reeking of smoke. So it may just mentally remind me of "bad beer" even if it's not.

From a perception standpoint, I can differentiate many different types of hops in beer, many different malts, although not all, especially those used in small quantities. I can tell the difference between a lager yeast or a kolsch or german ale yeast the say an American ale yeast. Like haerbob said, it's drier, it's "crisper", it's just different, and I can tell. I can identify what strain of yeast or at least what strain it was derived from (IE westmalle/chimay) was used in a Belgian beer in many cases. For English types, if you gave me a beer brewed with a strain like Ringwood or Yorkshire and the same beer brewed with Whitbread strains I could pick them from one another. But I can't identify them all, and I would not be able to tell you if you used Wyeast Kolsh or White Labs Kolsch for example, even though they are different strains, they produce similar enough results that I would not know in a blind test of the same beer. I might be able to learn this if I did that blind test enough times, but right now I'd not. But I could tell you that neither of those beers was brewed with S-05.

If you gave me two identical beers brewed with different water profiles (hard vs soft) I'd be able to tell you which one was which. I can tell a hard water English ale brewed with fuggles or goldings from one that uses the same hope but is not hard water. The hops "pop" in a different way.

I'm an acetaldehyde super taster, so if that's in there it would bug me. Diacetyl, yes I can taste it, and it can be found in quite a few English ales, but it doesn't bother me in small amounts. In small amounts it's appropriate in some of those beers, even if your tastes do not agree with it. I know it bugs some people a lot, but that doesn't make an English beer with a small amount bad or defective. Unless you are a super taster and simply can not stand it. Then sure you can hate the beer, but still it's not defective, it's what it's supposed to be... just not your thing in that case. Like Rauchbier's to me, I know they are good, Russki sent me a beer that I am certain was a really well crafted beer... the best Rauchbier I've ever had. But still it was a Rauchbier, and I'm just not a fan. But I know that if it didn't have the smoke I'd have loved it.

If you gave me an identical German beer brewed with Hallertauer, Hersbrucker, Tettnang, or Spalt, or Saaz, I could tell you which was which. IE Spalt has a woody thing that the others do not. Hersbrucker has a tobacco like thing that the others do not. Saaz has more cinnamon spice then Tettnang. But if you gave me one with Hallertauer and Tradition I probably could not tell you which was which. Maybe I could learn to tell the difference, but right now I would not be able to.

I can tell if a beer had brett or lacto (or both) vs. acetaldehyde. Different kinds of sour, different kinds of funk. I can tell Brett C from other Brett strains. It's a different kind of funk, more pinapple and hay, less leather and sweat. But I'd have a harder time identifying other brett strains specifically because their flavors are more "in your face" and when really strong like orval overload my palette. I'd just be able to say "that's not brett C!" because it's too strong to be Brett C.

So... how's that for an answer LOL?

[zorak1066]

I can usually detect certain esters now that I never even noticed before ie banana esters. I can detect variations in certain hops that I didn't notice before ie grassy vs grapefruity.

[Kealia]

So... how's that for an answer LOL?

Pretty damn impressive! I think I need to send you a beer for a recipe that I haven't put out here and see what you can pick up.
Wow.

[Brewbirds]

So... how's that for an answer LOL?

Pretty damn impressive! I think I need to send you a beer for a recipe that I haven't put out here and see what you can pick up.
Wow.

I agree with you maybe we could all send Mashani a beer of ours that is off and get him to tell us what is wrong with it.

[mashani]

It depends on what you mean by "off" LOL. Considering I like funky and phenolic and estery beers, I might actually "like" your "off" beer. So I might not consider it "wrong" except to style guidelines, which I don't really care much about, which is why I am not interested in becoming a BJCP judge. So a small amount of clove like or peppery phenols, although I would likely detect them, might not bother me depending on what else is in the beer. Unless it tastes like plastic or a band-aid, then it would be yucky. If it still tastes good (to me) I'd just merrily go on drinking it and not complain or stress too much about it. Really I'm a simple man at heart - I'm happy if it's beer I like, even if it's beer I didn't expect (I guess this is why I can roll with my summer Brett C infections without worrying too much about it - it's still beer and I still like it).

Also if you put a bunch of different kinds of hops or malts in your beer, I would not be likely able to pick them out so much. My examples above are meant as if it they were a single or predominant addition with a supporting element. If you put a whole bunch of them in there, it becomes a lot harder to pick one out, and sometimes a mix can seem like a different malt or hop. This is why I kept stressing "identical beers except for..." above. It's not so easy when many variables are in play.

[wollffy]

I can usually detect certain esters now that I never even noticed before ie banana esters. I can detect variations in certain hops that I didn't notice before ie grassy vs grapefruity.

+1 Zorack, and I'm impressed with myself for it..
Maybe someday I'll have master Brew SEnses..

[duff]

Well when I first started drinking beers I really liked dark toasty stouts like Russian Imperial Stouts and coffee stouts. I never really like the hoppier beers at first then I was given a Ruination which I loved. It then started my appreciation of IPAs which then really opened me to a lot of other styles. The funny thing is most Russian Imperial Stouts don't really do anything for me anymore. I can appreciate them but I don't like them in the same way anymore.

I have noticed I am much more sensitive to the taste of beer now than I was before I started homebrewing but while I can taste the difference between an IPA brewed with all Cascade hops and an IPA that used Perle as a bittering hop and Cascade as a late addition, I wouldn't be able to tell you that that was the difference just from tasting it. And I think I taste something different than a lot of people when they describe hops. For example I was with some people sampling a Citra IPA and what they described as being the clear papaya, musk melon, and pineapple taste was more of grapefruit or lemon tart type taste to me.

[mashani]

I'm one of those who gets all sorts of musky/tropical fruit from Citra in the beers I've made with it, and not much grapefruit, no where near as much as say Cascade.

It seems to be a weird hop that has compounds in it that different people perceive radically differently.

I don't know if it matters, but I think every beer I've used Citra in has had wheat in it, and most have had a phenolic Belgian or Wheat yeast. So maybe a bit of pepper or clove brings out some of those other flavors more too.. I also think they all were single hopped - Citra only. I haven't brewed a straight up Citra IPA yet.

[BeerRust]

I'm one of those who gets all sorts of musky/tropical fruit from Citra in the beers I've made with it, and not much grapefruit, no where near as much as say Cascade.

It seems to be a weird hop that has compounds in it that different people perceive radically differently.

I don't know if it matters, but I think every beer I've used Citra in has had wheat in it, and most have had a phenolic Belgian or Wheat yeast. So maybe a bit of pepper or clove brings out some of those other flavors more too.. I also think they all were single hopped - Citra only. I haven't brewed a straight up Citra IPA yet.

I had a White IPA from Saranac last night that was made with Citra. I tasted the grapefruit , but also got a little peach at the end. Maybe it was the unfiltered wheat, but it was great.

[FedoraDave]

Saranac is a mighty fine brewery. They don't do off-the-wall recipes, but rather concentrate on simpler, more traditional beers. Thing is, they do it right. Yep, a mighty fine brewery, there.

[BeerRust]

Saranac is a mighty fine brewery. They don't do off-the-wall recipes, but rather concentrate on simpler, more traditional beers. Thing is, they do it right. Yep, a mighty fine brewery, there.

Always liked their Pale Ale, Lager and Black Forest. But this White IPA was great.

[MadBrewer]

I'm not much of a fan of regular Chocolate Malt either. But I do like Pale Chocolate and I recently found a Dark Chocolate malt, it really does bring a Dark Chocolate character to a beer. I used it in a Porter where I used Pale Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, De-bittered Black Malt and a touch of Roasted Barley. That was a wonderful mix of dark malts. Also, maybe try Brown Malt instead of Chocolate Malt, just something to try.

As far as my palette, yes it has changed. I used to think Sierra Nevada was way hoppy, I mean it's the classic example of a Pale Ale, but defenately not as hoppy as some out there. I drink it now and I find it very balanced and flavorful. I used to think the same of Boston Lager, now there's times I drink it and think "wasn't this hoppier before".
I never used to like Porters, now I would have to say Porters are among my favorite style of homebrew. I also was never much of a hop head and didn't care for IPA's especially, now I'm slowly finding more and more IPA's I really like.