When it comes to enjoying a nice cold beer, there are some things you should avoid doing beforehand if you want to get the most out of your brew. Proper beer drinking etiquette dictates that you avoid certain foods, activities, and even hygiene habits prior to sipping your suds. Follow these tips on what not to do before cracking open a cold one.
Eating
There are a few different foods you’ll want to avoid consuming right before drinking beer. Here’s a quick rundown:
- Spicy foods – Skip anything loaded with chili peppers or intense spices. These can overwhelm your taste buds and prevent you from picking up the subtle flavors in your beer.
- Salty foods – High sodium foods like chips, pretzels, and cured meats make you thirsty. This causes you to drink more beer more quickly than you may have intended.
- Sugary foods – Candy, ice cream, and other sweets fill you up fast. When your stomach is full of sugar, you won’t be able to drink as much beer before feeling full.
- Greasy/fried foods – Heavily fried foods sit dense and heavy in your stomach, again limiting how much beer you can comfortably consume.
Instead, opt for clean, light appetizers and snacks like nuts, fruits, vegetables, granola bars, or crackers. These options won’t overwhelm your palate or fill you up too fast.
Smoking
Cigarettes can compromise your ability to taste beer. The tar and nicotine coat your taste buds, masking the subtle flavors in your brew. If you want to fully savor the citrusy hops or malty richness, it’s best to refrain from smoking for at least 30 minutes before drinking beer.
Brushing Your Teeth
You might think having clean teeth before drinking a beer is courteous to your companions, but freshly brushed pearly whites work against you. Toothpaste has menthol and other flavorings that linger, overriding the taste of your beer. The minty residue coats your tongue, so skip tooth brushing right before you plan to sip suds.
Using Mouthwash
For the same reasons as tooth brushing, take a pass on mouthwash right before drinking. The strong spearmint and chemical taste will hinder your ability to pick out the flavor notes in your beer. After-dinner mouthwash is fine, just be sure to rinse your mouth thoroughly with water before enjoying a post-meal beer.
Eating Spicy Wings
Some like to enjoy beer along with spicy chicken wings, but the capsaicin oil that gives hot wings their kick can temporarily numb your taste buds. For maximum beer flavor, it’s better to avoid eating anything spicy leading up to drinking. If you do want to pair wings and beer, go for a mild or medium heat level to keep your taste buds intact.
Drinking Coffee
The caffeine and bitter notes of coffee make it a mouth-coating combo you’ll want to avoid before beer. Coffee can give you taste bud fatigue, so you won’t be able to discern the subtle malt, hop, and yeast undertones that make beer so complex and enjoyable. It’s best to separate your coffee break and beer drinking by an hour or two.
Using Strong Perfumes and Colognes
Heavily scented personal care products like perfume, cologne, and strongly flavored lip products can interfere with your beer’s aroma and flavor. The intense synthetic fragrances overwhelm the delicate hop and malt notes that make beer so tasty. Freshen up before drinking, just stick to lightly scented or unscented grooming products.
Exercising
A tough workout right before beer o’clock is not ideal and here’s why: Vigorous exercise increases your body temperature and makes you sweat, both of which can hinder your ability to taste and smell. Your revved up metabolism also influences your perception of bitter, sweet, salty, and sour flavors. For maximum beer enjoyment, wait until after a post-workout shower before popping the cap off that after-training brew.
Swimming
Speaking of exercise, swimming is another pre-beer no-no. The residual chlorine from the pool permeates your nose, throat, and taste buds. This chemical overload prevents you from picking out the subtle botanical, fruity, roasted, and caramel notes in your pint. Rinse off thoroughly after swimming before enjoying a cold one.
Eating Popcorn
Buttery, salty popcorn and beer may seem like an ideal pairing, but hold off on that popcorn until after your first pint. The salt and butter coating the inside of your mouth will mask the complex blend of flavors imparted by the malt, hops, yeast and other ingredients that give your brew its unique taste profile. Let your beer shine by itself before introducing any salty or rich snacks.
Taking Medicine
Certain medications can leave a bitter, metallic aftertaste in your mouth or coat your tongue and throat. This unwanted residue skews your ability to objectively taste your beer. If you need to take any pills or syrups, do so well before drinking to allow time for the taste to dissipate. Also, avoid drinking alcohol if you’ve taken medications that interact negatively with booze.
Drinking Soda
The syrupy sweetness and fizzy bite of soda throw your taste buds out of balance for properly tasting beer’s subtle flavors. The high levels of carbonation also fill you up quickly, limiting your beer consumption. Enjoy your favorite cola or ginger ale separate from your beer sipping.
Hard Liquor
While beer and liquor pair nicely in cocktails, drinking hard alcohol like whiskey, vodka, or gin right before cracking a beer is not ideal. The intense boozy taste of straight liquor lingers on the palate, distorting your ability to notice the delicate malt and hop notes of beer. Drink your liquor cocktails or shots after you’ve enjoyed your beers if you want to fully appreciate the flavors.
Garlic and Onions
Pungent foods like garlic and onions are notoriously bad breath culprits. Their strong, lingering aromas and tastes overpower your olfactory system, preventing you from smelling and tasting your beer’s intricate bouquet. Avoid hefty amounts of garlic, onion, chives, and leeks before drinking. If you simply must have that garlicky hummus or onion dip, counter it with parsley, mint, or coffee beans to neutralize the smells that harm your beer flavor perception.
Yogurt
Thick, creamy yogurt coats your mouth much like milk does. This yogurt film clouds your taste buds from being able to detect the complex blend of bitterness, sweetness, and sourness in beer. The probiotics in yogurt also alter your oral microbiome, skewing your mouth’s ability to transmit flavor signals to your brain. Enjoy your Greek yogurt snack a couple hours before beer thirty.
Citrus Fruits
Juicy citrus fruits like oranges, grapefruit, and lemons seem refreshing ahead of beer, but their acidic juices throw off your pH balance. The increased tartness overwhelms your taste buds, so you can’t pick out the subtle sour notes in beer that harmonize with its sweeter malts. Grab a banana, apple, or melon if you need pre-beer fruit that won’t mess with your mouth’s pH levels.
Pickle Juice
A few ounces of salty, sour pickle juice may seem like just the thing to get you thirsty for a crisp, cool beer on a hot day. However, the intense hit of acidity followed by the mouth-puckering saltiness skew your palate for properly tasting beer’s complex flavor profile. Take it easy on the pickle juice shots pre-beer.
Sour Candy
Warheads, Sour Patch Kids, Lemonheads – these uber-sour candies are beer tasting saboteurs. A mouthful of extreme tartness and acid throws your pH levels and saliva chemistry totally out of balance. Your taste buds are shocked into a frenzy, unable to detect subtle sour notes harmonizing with malty sweetness or delicate hoppy bitterness. Avoid sour candy for at least 30 minutes before drinking beer.
Saltine Crackers
Bland, dry saltines are an unassuming culprit for messing with your beer tasting abilities. The wheaty crackers suck all the moisture out of your mouth, and the salt overwhelms your palate. Your parched, salt-scrubbed tongue can’t properly receive and transmit the combination of flavors in beer after demolishing a stack of saltines. Choose a different snacks if you get the munchies before beer o’clock.
Mouthwash
We covered avoiding minty mouthwash pre-beer earlier, but any strong mouthwash is detrimental. The intense synthetic chemicals overload your taste buds, and the high levels of alcohol strip away needed saliva. This one-two punch skews all flavor perception for a period of time after rinsing. Save the Listerine for after your last pint.
Margaritas
Tart margaritas bombard your mouth with sour citrus juice, a salty rim, and the bitterness of tequila. This assault on multiple taste bud types makes it impossible to properly taste the malts, hops, yeast, and special ingredients that give beer its distinctive flavor. If you want tequila and beer in the same sitting, start with the cerveza then move to the margaritas.
Greasy Pizza
Some pizza styles like Chicago deep dish or New York Sicilian have enough oil and cheese grease to coat your whole mouth. This slippery film is like putting a felt blanket over your taste buds’ sensory receptors, muffling all subtleties of flavor. A greasy slice is okay with pale lagers, but avoid it before sipping on hoppy IPAs, roasty stouts, or complex Belgian ales.
Ice Cream Floats
Nothing says summer like a frosty ice cream float, but the rich creaminess creates an unfortunate after effect for beer. The high fat and sugar content of ice cream cover your tongue with a slick, sugary film that prevents your taste buds from perceiving bitterness, sweetness, and sourness optimally. Finish your float before moving on to a crisp lager or pale ale.
Fried Fish
The right beer pairs perfectly with fried fish like cod, haddock, or catfish. However, you won’t be able to appreciate that pairing fully if you eat the fried fish right before drinking the beer. The greasy coating of batter and oil will mask your ability to pick out delicate malt and hop notes. Get your tartar sauce fix first, then reward yourself with a beer once the oil has cleared.
Trail Mix
Trail mix seems like a harmless snack before settling in for a few beers, but the high loads of salt, fat, and sugar impair your palate. The salt strips away needed moisture, the fat coats your tongue, and the sugar overwhelms your taste buds. Any complex flavors in your beer will be lost under the trail mix assault. Enjoy your beer first, then bring on the trail mix.
Energy Drinks
Red Bull, Monster, and other energy drinks pack a super-sweet, acidic wallop that throws your tastebuds out of whack for properly tasting beer’s flavor layers. The mega doses of sugar overload and temporarily “short circuit” your sweet-sensing taste buds. The acids desensitize you to any sour notes. Hold off on the energy juice until you’ve finished the last of your brews.
Charcuterie Board
Charcuterie and beer make an ideal flavor pairing, but not if you eat that salty cured meats and pungent cheese plate right before sipping brews. An overload of salty prosciutto, peppery salami, funky bleu cheese, and other aggressive charcuterie flavors overpowers your palate. The high protein and fat content also coat your mouth, masking subtleties of flavor. Indulge in charcuterie after your beers so you can taste them optimally.
Conclusion
Drinking beer is all about the flavor and aroma experience. To fully appreciate the complex malts, hop oils, yeast esters, and special ingredients that create rich beer taste profiles, you need to prep your palate properly. Avoid hard alcohol, spicy foods, pungent snacks, or mouth-coating foods prior to beer thirty. Approach beer sipping with a clean, neutral palate so your taste buds can fully receive the symphony of flavors sending your brain into hoppy, malty bliss.
