What in the world, you may be asking, could this experiment have been? It was a little play off one that was done with a bunch of wine experts. Hey, booze is booze, right?? So, if the hoity toity wine folks will do it...will the more down to earth and smarter beer drinkers fall for the same thing? I guess we shall see...
So, there was this study a few year back. This guy, Frédéric Brochet, at the University of Bordeaux II in Talence, France...he went and caused a stink among this high and mighty wine community. It seems that it was also quite simple. What did he do, you might ask? He turned the wine folks upside down with a few drops of food coloring.
Yep, that's all he did. He added a few drops of red food coloring to white wine, fed it to a group of Oenologists and let them run. So, what happened? Well, it seems that Brochet found that they all came back with descriptions of Red Wine for a dyed White Wine. How interesting? These are people that study wines, these are EXPERTS!
So what does this tell us? It tell us that for the most part, we're all full of shit. Many of us love beer, we love wine, we love whiskeys. We go to tastings, we listen to people talk, we're part of beer clubs. We like to learn about a subject that we enjoy. But when it comes down to it, it seems that it's all bullshit. We don't taste with our mouths...we're tasting with our eyes...and then noses, ears, touch and MAYBE then our mouths. Most of the time we've made a subconscious decision before whatever we're eating or drinking is put to our mouth. It's been proven over and over in many studies around the world.
We have a study out of Cornell that suggests that eating in a more upscale environment will have people rate the same food better, than if they eat in a fast food environment. So, changing the visual and audio cues will change how we feel about what we're eating. How interesting. We can even add in another study that was written up by the New Yorker, that even the sight of the bottle will change our reviews. Seems that a wine in a crappy looking bottle will rate less by experts that the same wine in a nice looking bottle. Again, calling bullshit on us being able to tell you if it's good or not based on taste.
Hell, if served blindly, we can't even tell the difference between pâté and dog food.
OK, enough about this...the point has been made over and over. What am I really getting at? Well, are beer drinkers more honest? I've already wrote about beer reviews and if we're actually honest with ourselves. So, why not do the same thing with the beer drinkers of the world?
So, they took a pretty well known beer...and one that most craft beer drinkers claim they won't drink. They gave it a fancy name...put it up on the board and waited to see how many people would order this, "New Offering," at the bar.
From what I can tell, it did sell faster than it does with the real name. And talking to people, and how they ranked it, it was ranked higher than when it's known who it was. And I'm not ashamed to admit, I was among these folks as well. But when tasting, everyone said that the beer was crisp, it tasted familiar, that they can't place their finger on it, but it was good. And the general rating was around a 3 to 3-1/2, Not to bad! Hell, more so because when they know what the beer is, it's usually getting around a 1 to 2...and most people claim they'd rather drink water.
Not to shabby if we use my tried and true beer scale.
So, what were people drinking? You'd never guess it, and what was funny, is neither did they.
So, what does that really tell us? Pretty much what they've been saying for quite sometime. The same as wine, beer reviews, can be bullshit! And that the uber beer snobs, the ones that, "would rather drink water than that swill," can sit back down and enjoy a nice crisp Miller or Bud on a hot Summer day. Stop being an asshole and enjoy the things that we like, good tasty beer!
Cheers, and until next time....enjoy what you enjoy and don't let people tell you differently!
C-pher
