It’s obvious that we human beings are all pretty different from one another—in appearance, experience, attitude, gender, and countless other attributes. Each of us has things that come effortlessly and others at which we struggle. It goes without saying that these differences affect our abilities as tasters. But how, exactly?
No question, people love IPAs. A prime reason is that they are supreme showcases for the heady aromatics of hops: resin, pine, herbs, citrus, stonefruit, tropical fruit and more. As most of these vocabulary terms describe foods, this suggests a question: If these food flavors are so delicious in IPAs, why don’t we just add them directly? Despite some purists out there, we’ve done exactly that.