Music affects the flavour of beer
Your music affects the flavour of your beer according to a rather abstruse study that has come out of the beer loving country, Belgium.
The study has determined that music affects the flavour of beer, and that music can alter how you perceive the strength and taste of the beer that you are drinking. This gives credence to the reasons behind why you may like to drink at the bars that you do and possibly even more reason why that beer tastes so good at music festivals.
The Study
The study on how music affects the flavour of beer was carried out by Dr. Felipe Carvalho of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He divided the process into three separate experiments..
“Participants tasted a beer twice, and rated the experience, each time under the influence of a different sound stimulus. The participants were not informed that they were, in fact, tasting the same beer.
Volunteers at the Music Instruments Museum in Brussels tasted three different beers in a range of styles from pale ale to dark, with alcohol content that varied from 4.5 to 8 percent ABV. They were exposed to three different kinds of background music, and asked to taste and rate each beer while listening to each one.”
Results
What he found is that when people listened to music that is Disney-esque they found that the beers were tasting sweeter. And, for that matter music with rumbling bass lines seemed to make the beer taste more bitter.
“‘The results demonstrate that soundtracks that had been specially developed to evoke a specific taste can effectively be used in order to influence the participants’ beer tasting experience. While listening to the pleasant sweet soundtrack, the participant transfers his or her experience and feelings about the music to the beer that they happen to be tasting.”
The research also seems to lean towards the idea that those who enjoy sweeter tastes are probably into pop music and most likely not big beer drinkers. And that those who enjoy music that is more hardcore or underground are more likely to be beer drinkers.
Sourced
