Get Hoppy: How Music Affects Our Taste in Beer
Have you ever been out with friends, having a beer? Were you at a restaurant, bar, or festival? You may or may not have noticed, but there was probably music playing. How much you liked that beer, how flavorful it was, and even how much you would pay for it could have been influenced by music you were hearing and how it made you feel.
A recent series of experiments sought out to investigate how listening to music might affect the experience of tasting beer. Researchers were interested in how music affected their hedonic experience, or how much they liked the beer, and their sensory experience, or how sweet, sour, or bitter the beer tasted. They also measured how much people were willing to pay for a beer when listening to different types of music.
Before they could test their research questions, researchers first had to find music that would induce different emotional responses. They tested four different songs, and found two that induced positive emotions (like happiness and excitement) and one that induced negative emotions (like fear and anxiousness). They used Nocturne Op. 9 № 2 by Chopin, and Porro Sabanero by Lucho Bermudez as emotionally positive songs, and Mors Praematura by Jessica Curry as the emotionally negative song. You can listen to them here:
With these characterizations finalized, researchers could use these songs to induce emotion and change the beer-tasting experience.
The first experiment looked at if people experienced beer differently when music was playing compared to when in silence. Participants were given two samples of beer, tasted one sample while listening to the positive or negative music, and tasted one sample in silence, all without knowing the samples were the same brand of Zinnebir beer. They were then asked questions about their hedonic and sensory experiences while tasting the two samples. Results showed that participants preferred to sample the beer while listening to music, whether it was positive or negative, but they did not like the beer more when listening to music versus in silence. The beer was described as having more body (sense of fullness in the mouth) when tasted with music compared to in silence. These findings showed there was a difference between tasting the beer with music or in silence, but how positive or negative music affected the experience differently still needed to be examined further.
In the second experiment, instead of tasting the beer in silence, participants listened to music while tasting each beer sample. Participants tasted one sample while listening to one of the positive songs, and tasted another sample while listening to the negative song. As with the first experiment, the samples were both the same brand of beer, though the brand of beer was switched to Jupiler (instead of Zinnebir). In addition to questions about hedonic and sensory experiences, participants were asked how much they would be willing to pay for each of the beer samples without knowing they were identical. Results showed that participants liked the beer more and rated it as sweeter when listening to positive music compared to negative music. They rated the beer as more bitter, as stronger, and as having more body when listening to negative music compared to positive music. When asked what they would pay for each beer they sampled, participants were willing to pay 7.25% more for the beer they sampled when listening to the positive music than for the beer they sampled when listening to the negative music. This shows that the emotion triggered by music affected how much they liked, what flavors they perceived that they tasted, and what they were willing to pay for the beer they sampled.
In the third experiment, the researchers wanted to see if the results of the previous experiment would replicate with a different beer. Their experiment was designed identically to the second experiment; the only difference was the brand of beer tasted. Participants sampled Chimay Blue, which is darker and stronger in alcohol content compared to Jupiler. Even with a darker beer, results in this experiment were very similar to results in the previous experiment. Participants evaluated the beer as sweeter, and liked it more when listening to positive music, and evaluated the beer as more bitter and higher in alcohol strength when listening to negative music. They were also willing to pay 7.25% more for the beer they tasted while listening to positive music.
Emotions triggered by the type of music heard influenced various aspects of the overall taste and how participants evaluated the beer they sampled. These results indicate that we are influenced by the music we hear and the emotions we feel during sensory experiences. Something as straightforward as whether you like the beer you’re drinking might not be up to you; your environment and emotions might be deciding for you.
This isn’t to say you need to be in complete silence to be free of influence. On the contrary, you could use music as an advantage. If you like dark, bitter, flavorful beers, try listening to negative emotion-inducing songs; you might detect more of these sensory experiences. You could even conduct your own experiment, trying different beers, listening to different genres and songs! You might experience something completely unique to you.
Food (or beer!) For Thought:
1) After listening to the songs chosen to induce positive and negative emotions, do you agree with how they were categorized? Would you characterize them the same way?
2) Should other beverages be included in future experiments? Which beverages or brands would you want to see evaluated in this way? How would American beers compare?
3) How could companies and advertisers use these findings in marketing or branding of their products?
4) If you’re curious about beer terminology, take a look at this list of terms.
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