Drink beer with your mouth, not your eyes. Prelude to revisiting “What makes good beer?”

Irish pub stouts.  Photo by Charlie Papazian

 My June 26 post to this page inspired a lot of great comments to the question “What is good beer?” I want to revisit some of my readers comments and add a few of my own thoughts to the dialogue.  First I want to share a few "related" experiences I had in 1999.   I was on a tour of the southwestern breweries in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. While making these visits I set up a number of blind tastings.   Here is what I found out and wrote about in more detail in my book, Microbrewed Adventures.

            Whether we like to admit it or not, whether we know it or not – we are severely influenced by beer’s color, beer labels, beer commercials, the color of beer bottles, by beer marketing. There is no way around it – our sense of taste is influenced by our environment and factors besides simply the taste of the beer.

            At the Bristol Brewing Company I set up a blind tasting among the 50 beer drinkers and their guests. The crowd was a mix of avid and casual beer drinkers out for a good time. We presented three pairs of beers. All that was said about the beers was simply “choose the beers you would prefer to continue to drink”…. Nothing more. There was no indication whether these beers were microbrewed, American, homebrewed, imports – nothing.

            After we tallied the votes, the audience was quite amazed. New Belgium Blue Paddle Pilsener easily won over Corona. Sam Adams Boston lager creamed Heineken and Boulder Stout was overwhelming preferred over Guinness Stout. The point that interested everyone was that the preferred beers were all American craft beers. Many in the audience were astounded since they took pride in being regular Corona, Heineken and Guinness drinkers, having.

            In New Mexico we organized another tasting at the Rio Grand Brewery.        It was another blind tasting among the 40 homebrewers and their invited friends. Grolsch Lager tied with Grand Desert Pils, Sam Adams Boston Lager had twice as many votes as Heineken and in-house brewed Cabezon Stout garnered more than twice as many votes as Guinness Stout. There was a bit of shock among more than just a few avid beer enthusiasts who thought they knew their brands, but had voted against their everyday choices.

            In Arizona 100 beer enthusiasts and their friends and spouses turned up at the Pusch Ridge Brewing Company and Pub. Another beer tasting was held. The results: Sam Adams 42 versus Corona 3; bottled Sierra Nevada Pale Ale 27 versus Bass Ale on draft 19; Guinness on Draft 1 (that is correct, 1) versus Pusch Ridge Old Pueblo Stout 47. 

            As in all the tastings the beers were all served in glasses without any indication of origin. Brand loyal, die-hard Guinness drinkers were stunned. Bass Ale aficionados would not believe their vote. There were a few Corona drinkers that evening who were no more.

Photo left copyright 2008 Charlie Papazian

            The point has been made over and over again in other tastings – same results. Freshly made local craft beer versus imports from afar are preferred – when taste is the only factor. But the fact is we do enjoy certain beers simply because of the mystique created by the brand and advertising. That is not necessarily a bad thing if you truly enjoy what you are drinking.

            If beer is really all about taste then taste education and a real effort must be made to recognize what our taste buds really do enjoy. It is my premise that if you can tune in to what you taste and learn to enjoy beer because of taste, the pleasure of beer is magnified.