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Willemijn van Dolen | How our brains fool us when tasting beer and wine
Taste isn’t just in the mouth, but also in the brain, writes Willemijn van Dolen. A recent stir surrounding the beer brand Hertog Jan illustrated this. “We don’t taste only with our tongues, but also with our expectations. Marketing, labels, and social media help shape our senses.”
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There was recently quite a stir about the new label of Hertog Jan. What was the issue? The word “hops” on the label had been supplemented with “hop extract”. The result: an uproar, including on the internet forum Reddit. The beer was said to taste different: more watery, less artisanal. The brewery responded quickly: the recipe had not changed. The question that lingered was: who is right?
Probably the brewery. But that does not necessarily mean the critics are wrong. To understand why, it helps to look at a well-known study on wine perception. Participants were given the same wine to drink but were told they were tasting different bottles with different price tags. The higher the supposed price, the better the wine was rated. This showed up not only in what people said, but also in their brains: areas involved in reward and pleasure lit up more strongly when participants believed they were drinking the “more expensive” wine. Expectation literally changed the experience.
Senses
Something similar may have happened here. As soon as drinkers saw “hop extract” on the label, they interpreted it as: a different recipe. And with that thought, their expectations changed - and with them their experience of the taste. Tasting is not a passive process. The brain combines what your senses report with what you already think you know. A label, a price, a Reddit discussion: all of these are signals that influence how something tastes.
Newspaper NRC picked up the story and put it to the test. Four bottles of Hertog Jan - two with the old label and two with the new - were carefully covered. During the tasting there was confusion all around. And the result? Everything was wrong. What seemed “different” proved difficult to identify once the label disappeared. Of course, this is not hard scientific evidence, but it is illustrative.
Taste
There is another factor as well. For the average drinker, it is difficult to detect subtle recipe changes anyway - if they exist at all. The taste of beer constantly varies due to factors such as light, temperature, and storage time. If something tastes different today than yesterday, it does not necessarily have anything to do with the recipe.
And then there is belief itself. We do not taste only with our tongues, but also with our expectations. Marketing, labels, and social media help shape our senses.
So the next time someone says something used to taste better? First put a piece of tape over the label.
