Just for fun

This little piece of light reading: “The Influence of Expectation, Consumption and Revelation on Preferences for Beer” looks like it will be fun to study when we can track down the December issue of Psychological Sciences.

For now there’s the New York Times summary (free registration). Here’s the nut:

In previous studies, psychologists had found that putting brand labels on containers of beer, soft drinks and other products tended to enhance people’s subjective ratings of quality. But the new experiment demonstrates that this preference involves more than simple brand loyalty. It changes the experience of taste itself.

“It’s a clean demonstration that what we think is going into our mouth actually changes what we taste, down to the level of the taste buds themselves,” said Michael Norton, an assistant professor of business administration in the marketing department of the Harvard Business School.

Leonard Lee, a recent graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducted the tests by having participants taste two beers each, one a regular draft of Budweiser or Samuel Adams, and the other the same beer with a few drops of balsamic vinegar added.

When they tasted blind 60% of participants preferred the balsamic “M.I.T. Beer.” Knowing which beer had the vinegar before tasting changed he results. Only about a third of the patrons who were told the identities of the beers beforehand then chose the M.I.T. beer.

Like lambic brewers didn’t already know that.

Dayton, Ohio, pub Boston’s Bistro and Pub has won the title of “Most Arrogant Bar in America” by selling sold more Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale from Nov. 3-9 than 46 other national competitors during a brewery-sponsored challenge.

Boston’s has 12 beer taps and two beer engines for cask-conditioned ales. However, choices were few during Stone’s “Most Arrogant Bar in America” Challenge. “We took every single tap off and all we had was Arrogant Bastard,” said head bartender Mark Zimmerman.

Pints of Arrogant Bastard Ale sold for $2 each and 64-ounce growlers for $7. The bar went through 18 kegs.

Realbeer.com views this competition with particular affection since it grew out of our Challenge Cup, an event we sponsored during American Beer Month each July (ABM sine became American Beer Week and moved to May).

Let Stephen Beaumont (World of Beer) do a little blending for you, in this case at On the House:

Another I enjoy is a beverage of my own concoction in which a wide-mouthed Duvel glass is rinsed with Pernod, shaken out, and then given an ounce of good gin before being filled by the famous Belgian golden ale. I call it The Green Devil.

There’s more, and enough to get you thinking about your own concotions.

Ever wonder what a 50-year-old can of Coors beer would taste like?

Some hikers in California found out.

In fact they found an entire stash stuck in some sand. So they opened one and found beer the “color of cough syrup and smells like a combination of fermented wine and dirt.”

They decided not to open more, but there’s video.