"Wanted: people to taste beer for a consumer preference study. Women especially needed." So read the item in Dateline/UC Davis, the campus's faculty and staff newspaper. Wow, I thought, here's research that's near and dear to my heart. So along with Laurie, an equally enthusiastic co-worker, I quickly sign up to get in on the ground floor of this leading-edge study.
Reporting for taste-test duty, I sit at a counter neatly divided into partitions (kind of like a voting booth), with a red plastic cup of distilled water and a package of soda crackers next to it "to clear the palate," apparently. A sliding panel in the wall in front of me opens, revealing the graduate student running the study. He explains that I will get one tasting of beer at a time and gives me a rating sheet on which to mark my reactions. I would be tasting eight beers that day and eight each on two more days, for a total of 24 beers in all. When I was ready for the next sample, I was to flip the switch set in the wall beside the sliding door and someone would give me the next taste. This, I thought, will be fun!
My first sample arrives--about an ounce of beer in a wine glass with a number marked on the bottom. I sip it and take a look at the rating sheet. Hmmm, seems I'm going to have to be pretty discerning here. From "like extremely" to "dislike extremely," I'm asked to rate each sample's overall taste, color, smell, carbonation, aftertaste and something called "mouth feel." Then I have to indicate when and where I would drink this beer--alone, with friends, at a bar, at home, at a party or sports event, with food or without--and if I'd "definitely" buy it or "definitely would not" buy it.
Initially, it's pretty easy; I taste the beer, look at it, smell it, roll it around in my mouth, then mark the sheet, flip the switch, and take a drink of water and eat a cracker while waiting for my next sample to appear through the door. By the end of the session I've tasted and rated eight brands of beer, and am feeling both knowledgeable and rather smug about my ability to make such fine distinctions. The graduate student running the study thanks me for coming that day and offers me my reward--a piece of candy. I choose a Hershey's Cookies 'n' Mint, feeling just a little bit like a rat in a psychology experiment.
By the third day of tasting I'm beginning to feel like a pro, but I'm also starting to become confused. I'm trying to be as objective as possible, but after five or six samples, I begin to second-guess myself. Is the carbonation on this one really as lame as I think it is? The last sample wasn't really all that different from this one, and I ranked that one a 6 out of 10. Some of the colors remind me more of lab samples than they do of beer. And how come I don't seem to be liking very many of these beers? I'm struck with a horrible thought--what if I discover I don't like beer at all?
I compare notes with Laurie. Whereas I'm worried I'll become paralyzed by indecision, unable to make any assessment, she says her biggest fear is that we're getting the same beer over and over, and that what we're really participating in is a behavioral experiment.
Up until now we've been tasting blind, but on the fourth day we do begin tasting the same beers over again. Same drill, same questions on the rating sheet, but now we get to see the bottle and the price per six-pack. Imagine my dismay when I discover that some of the beers I like are, well, the [shudder] cheap brands--you know, the ones consumed in mass quantities by half-crazed football fans at tailgate parties. I realize I'm beginning to make up my mind about a given sample at least partially by the brand--oh god, I'm a pawn of Madison Avenue--and find that, unfortunately, the two brands I like best aren't even sold in California. Sheesh.
After six days and 48 separate taste tests, I'm done. The study would continue for several more weeks, though, with the results not available for at least several months. I, however, have compiled my own personal results, which I'm happy to share: 1) This taste-test stuff is harder than you think. 2) Contrary to a long-cherished opinion of mine, having a fun product to test doesn't guarantee that the experience will be completely fun-filled. A laboratory doesn't really have that beer-drinking ambience; it's a lot more fun when done in the company of friends, chips and guacamole. 3) You can't tell a beer by its label (or its image, for that matter). 4) Hershey's Cookies 'n' Mint is hands-down the best reward candy.
5) I still like beer.
-- Barbara Anderson
