> switching from drinking beer out of bottles because it "tastes better"
FWIW, that was never true, anyway. It's just that, once upon a time, cheap beer came in cans and expensive beer came in bottles, so it was hard for consumers to make a decent comparison.
When I was in beer judging class, we did an interesting blind taste test among various beers that are available in both bottles and cans. The cans consistently won. It didn't take too long to notice the pattern, either: At least for beers with a more delicate flavor, the bottled version tends to have a certain subtle hint of soggy cardboard that's absent in the canned version.
In the test you described, I presume the beer has been poured into a glass, like the OP states they now do. If you skip this step, drinking out of a can can have a distinctly metallic taste (imagine that), which is why I -- and I imagine many others -- tend to think beer tastes better out of a bottle than a can.
I'll vouch for that when it comes to beer. It's not just the packaging itself though, but also the experience. Plus, when you drink from a can directly, your lips will touch the outside / top aluminium, which will affect the flavor and experience - subtly, but it's there.
I don't think I ever considered drinking from cans healthy, it is just a desperate move if no better option is present. Same beer tastes significantly worse compared to glass (but if you drink cheapest crap you probably don't notice nor care).
> Also some studies showed people preferred rancid oil!
I was once in a casual, blind taste test at an Anheuser-Busch facility where at least half of the dozen testers preferred the beer whose kegs had been sitting out in the hot sun for two weeks, instead of the kegs of the same vintage that had been sitting in the refrigerated warehouse during that time.
That is also true for beers - the ones from 50l kegs taste much better compared to bottle/can. And once you move to 200-400l 'tanks' which use gravity to get beer out, instead of pressurized CO2 which alters the taste (for the worse), you are in beer haven (at least for pilsner type of beer, we don't do much of other types but its slowly changing)
I really don't mean to come off as snobbish, but, what kind of beer is worth drinking that comes in 18 packs? I'm not sure I've ever seen anything but cans of alcoholic water in that configuration.
Atleast with beer you can actually get different tastes.
The tests with water are funny, when knowing the name or price people pick the most expensive one as the best tasting, when it turns out that all the bottles were filled with tap water.
Your reply dodges the point raised by the article. They do a taste test and the beers have different flavours. Then they repeart the taste test blind and the beers taste the same. The article suggests that the taste comes from the advertising. I suggest that it wasn't about taste to begin with. Why do you think that stripping the labels off the bottles made the flavour go away?
> I have tried almost every major non-alcoholic beer in the U.S., and none of them truly taste exactly like beer.
Agreed, but if you drink them exclusively for a few weeks, your taste buds and brain will reframe around them, and it'll cease to be a problem. I did this with Brewdog's Punk AF, and after 2 weeks on that, most non-alcoholic beers triggered my brain's "I'm drinking beer!" response.
It's a lot of work for overpriced soft drinks, and isn't for everyone.
Also, I'm back to drinking real beer again anyway.
I've actually assimilated this effect and consciously appreciate how certain craft beer labels affect my perception of the taste. There's a local brew I explicitly enjoy more from a 12oz bottle than on tap because of its package design.
FWIW, that was never true, anyway. It's just that, once upon a time, cheap beer came in cans and expensive beer came in bottles, so it was hard for consumers to make a decent comparison.
When I was in beer judging class, we did an interesting blind taste test among various beers that are available in both bottles and cans. The cans consistently won. It didn't take too long to notice the pattern, either: At least for beers with a more delicate flavor, the bottled version tends to have a certain subtle hint of soggy cardboard that's absent in the canned version.
reply