Taste buds are changing month to month?

[O-Ale-Yeah]

This year I like pilsners and dunkels. Six months ago I was enjoying crisp, light lagers. If I try those lagers today they taste different than they use to. Do your tastes swing wildly based on whatever you're currently drinking?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Nah. Light lagers just aren't very good

 

[gunhaus]

Yes

 

[MrHadack]

This year I like pilsners and dunkels. Six months ago I was enjoying crisp, light lagers. If I try those lagers today they taste different than they use to. Do your tastes swing wildly based on whatever you're currently drinking?

Wildly, no. But they do change. It's partly seasonal-- I tend to look for maltier and more robust beers in the winter and crisper lighter stuff in summer. But otherwise I don't think it is any different then experiencing ennui after having the same food over and over. If you eat nothing but chicken every night for a week, you're gonna want to fire up a steak at some point.

As someone who's been brewing and into the beer scene for over 25 years, you see this writ large in the general public consumption as well. Styles come and go in popularity.

 

[RM-MN]

Look up the term, "lupulin shift" sometime. In time you may decide that those horrid IPA's are pretty good.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

I used to be really into the lighter beers. Wheats, saisons, pilsners. I went to Germany in 2009 and loved the beers over there. Later I began to get into IPAs and now the lighter beers just don't do it for me. I guess my palate desires the bitterness now, where 10 years ago I thought a Sierra pale ale just tasted gross. I suppose it's the same way people's palates develop drinking liquor

 

[balrog]

ambers then lighter cream ale kolschish (kolschisch?) then

Yeah. Shift happens.

 

[gunhaus]

I started brewing in 1983. I had my first beer with flavor in 1978 or so. So, I generally speaking know pretty much squat- still trying to figure out how beer works to this very day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But still my uninformed answer to your ? is Yup!

 

[wiggybrewer]

Yeah, the first time I had Sam Adams Boston Lager, and Sierra Nevada pale ale I thought that they were so malty and hoppy.
Now thirty years later I find them pretty tame.

 

[r4dyce]

I definitely go through phases. I don't know if they actually taste different or if it is just a change in preference. I've shifted off super hoppy beers and have been in a malty mood lately, stouts and reds. I still have the occasional IPA that I enjoy but I've realized they just kill my palate so I don't drink them much with food anymore.

 

[Dland]

Your pallet will vary over time, heck, it can vary in an hour depending on what you eat.

If they are lagers from the same batch as 6 months ago, the beers could also have oxidized some, which will tend to make flavor flatter.

 

[greywolf]

The first time I brought home a sixer of Citradelic I thought it was terrible. Didn't want to finish the first one. The next morning I gave it another try and really liked it. My tastes vary daily. I've had the same thing happen with a bottle of Eagle Rare. Sometimes hate it and wonder why I bought it, other times it's ok.