Changing taste in beer...

[gillhalfpint]

That's funny as I went from white to red wines too, and had a spell on lager - never with lime though - yuk - and love fruit cake and brandy.

Started with Vaux Samson in the 60's and had spells on Rosso, Vodka and pineapple, but neat whisky - can't take most mixers, anti citrus again. Went through a brief creamflow stage till I rediscovered real ale thanks to Crag Rat. If at a do with no real ale I have had red wine or guinness, or popped to a pub next door for a quick half while folk thought I'd gone to the loo.

[Strongers]

I've gone off white wine and red gives me a hangover while I'm still drinking the second glass. Love Christmas pud and I take my coffee with a table spoon of milk (no I don't measure it).

I like Guinness, but I'll pass it over for any other stout, which I don't see/notice very often.

[Alesonly]

Ive noticed my self that I now prefer Darker Beers like Porters' Stouts & Milds where as years ago I preferred Light Beers but I find a lot of the light beers now have a too sharp taste for my liking.

[General Staal]

roll on my next visit to Nidderdale!)

I have just come back from a stay in Grassington, Wharfedale. Some top pubs around there. I especially liked the Craven Arms in Appletreewick. But my 'local' for the week was the Forester's Arms. Superb!

[Moonraker]

I would never admit to this, but I did once like the taste of Watney's Red.

[gillhalfpint]

Grassington brings back memories of camping at Kettlewell in a stupid tent of muslin meant for kids in the garden. Great weather though, and a great pub in Kettlewell where a bloke offered me a lamb for £2. When I was daft enough to go and look at it, it looked like a full size sheep to me, despite being bottle fed so I declined. Swimming in the river under the bridge - great times. That was 1969 or thereabouts, and I had a slopey back Ford Anglia. I enjoyed the walk along the back road Kettlewell to Grassington and some of the walks over the tops to Arncliffe if I remember right.

[aleandhearty]

I still want to experiment with flavour, but hope that the abundance of hoppy beers starts to give me some flavours I can hook onto as enjoyable rather than just added to my list as another tick. Don't know a solution to this really.

I find the new wave of spicy red ales quite exciting (BrewDog '5am Saint', HighWire 'Rapture' etc). Hoppy, but with a bit more malt in the mix.

When you're young you had taste buds, not only on your tongue, but on the sides and roof of your mouth. This tends to mean you were very sensitive to different foods and drinks. As you age, the taste buds began to disappear from the sides and roof of your mouth, leaving taste buds mostly on your tongue.

Personally I couldn't stand whisky and Olives as a teen, but now have a bit of an unhealthy taste for both..

I read in an article by The Royal Horticultural Society, that total numbers of tastebuds can diminish by up to 50% when you're over the age of 40, a massive amount. I'm sure that's contributed to my polarised tastes in both beer and wine, where there's bags of character. I love pale hoppy beers, or the dark roast flavours of milds and porters. Similarly with wine, I love aromatic whites such as gewurtztraminer, viognier or dark broody reds such as shiraz, carmenere, primitivo etc.

For a fleeting moment, I had an image of you popping a couple of Kalamatas into a glass of your ten year old malt.

[gillhalfpint]

A good beer to tickle the tastebuds is Kent Chilli Pale 4.0% which we had at Egham fest yesterday. It was great. Ray didn't like it, but then I didn't like the wheat beer he chose. There you go. Tastebuds make a lot of difference and no-one can have the same choices really - we are all different.