Scientists Turn To AI To Make Beer Taste Even Better
- Reference: 0173391881
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/24/03/27/010232/scientists-turn-to-ai-to-make-beer-taste-even-better
- Source link:
> Prof Kevin Verstrepen, of KU Leuven university, who led the research, said AI could help tease apart the complex relationships involved in human aroma perception. "Beer -- like most food products -- contains hundreds of different aroma molecules that get picked up by our tongue and nose, and our brain then integrates these into one picture. However, the compounds interact with each other, so how we perceive one depends also on the concentrations of the others," he said.
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> Writing in the [2]journal Nature Communications , Verstrepen and his colleagues report how they analysed the chemical makeup of 250 commercial Belgian beers of 22 different styles including lagers, fruit beers, blonds, West Flanders ales, and non-alcoholic beers. Among the properties studied were alcohol content, pH, sugar concentration, and the presence and concentration of more than 200 different compounds involved in flavour -- such as esters that are produced by yeasts and terpenoids from hops, both of which are involved in creating fruity notes.
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> A tasting panel of 16 participants sampled and scored each of the 250 beers for 50 different attributes, such as hop flavours, sweetness, and acidity -- a process that took three years. The researchers also collected 180,000 reviews of different beers from the online consumer review platform RateBeer, finding that while appreciation of the brews was biased by features such as price meaning they differed from the tasting panel's ratings, the ratings and comments relating to other features -- such as bitterness, sweetness, alcohol and malt aroma -- these correlated well with those from the tasting panel.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/26/ai-beer-taste-better-belgium-scientists
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46346-0
Finally (Score:2)
Some truly useful AI research!
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Add in blockchain, zero carbon footprint and a trans brew master (I mean brew expert) you'll have to fight off investor money.
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> trans brew master
Depending on the demographic you're going for, an LGBTQ+ spokesperson can either help or hurt sales, but you can't flip-flop on it. I'd volunteer to do it, except I'm personally not much of a fan of alcohol and even less of a fan of beer (unless you're talking beer batter fried shrimp and onion rings, those are the bomb).
"Hi, I'm your middle-aged gay spokesperson for AI beer. We didn't really have the budget for some famous queer influencer and quite frankly, I don't even drink this stuff, but you should,
No porters, stouts, or bock beers? (Score:2)
Then this study is designed to make Belgian beers - not beers in general - taste "better" ...
To Make Beer Taste Even Better.... (Score:4, Funny)
What do they mean "even" better? Beer tastes awful. There is a purpose to the taste "bitter" and making things taste good isn't it. More thousands of years of evolution than beer has existed for has made bitter the sense for things that poison you. That's why when you put a bitter berry in your mouth your first reaction is to spit it out.
Name me someone who thought beer was good on the first try and I'll show you someone with third degree burns on their tongue. It's so ubiquitous as to be a joke that you give beer to a kid and watch his face twist.
There is something intrinsically wrong with a drink that tastes so awful that bitter actually makes it better, and there is no amount of AI that can fix that.
Re:To Make Beer Taste Even Better.... (Score:5, Funny)
> What do they mean "even" better? Beer tastes awful. There is a purpose to the taste "bitter" and making things taste good isn't it. More thousands of years of evolution than beer has existed for has made bitter the sense for things that poison you. That's why when you put a bitter berry in your mouth your first reaction is to spit it out.
> Name me someone who thought beer was good on the first try and I'll show you someone with third degree burns on their tongue. It's so ubiquitous as to be a joke that you give beer to a kid and watch his face twist.
> There is something intrinsically wrong with a drink that tastes so awful that bitter actually makes it better, and there is no amount of AI that can fix that.
You sound pretty bitter yourself.
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You sound pretty bitter yourself.
Not very palatable here either, is it? Or maybe I'm just an acquired taste that you just need to train yourself to like and after that you'll be hooked.
Nah. Bitter just sucks.
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> You sound pretty bitter yourself.
> Not very palatable here either, is it? Or maybe I'm just an acquired taste that you just need to train yourself to like and after that you'll be hooked.
> Nah. Bitter just sucks.
Oh, don't be so sensitive. I'm not even remotely bitter. Not about beer, life or career. I made a joke because you wrote bitter so many times.
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Animals like alcohol. Humans are animals smart enough to have developed an intellectual fetish for it, but still dumb enough not to care about the negative effects.
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Taste is subjective.
Obviously, you personally ought to stick to drinking Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers. Meanwhile, you should let the hundreds of millions of people who think beer tastes just fine (hops and all) enjoy their beverage of choice.
Pro tip: Most beers balance the bitterness with an appropriate amount of malt sweetness to create a pleasing overall effect for the average taster. This is similar to the way many mixed drinks balance sourness (another evolutionary poison alarm bell, OMG!) with swe
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> Taste is subjective.
> Obviously, you personally ought to stick to drinking Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers.
These days the un-beers are the various hard seltzer drinks, which even the actual beer companies have gotten in on. They more-or-less taste like drinking a Bubly sparkling water around an opened can of PVC pipe cleaner.
The Matrix has you (Score:2)
That's exactly my point. Exactly. Because you have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything.
A lot of things taste better today (Score:2)
It's easy, just add artificial flavoring. And when you look at the ingredients it looks like a chemistry set.
Millions will die (Score:1)
Now I understand "AI Risk"
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> Now I understand "AI Risk"
Doesn’t beer already come in Al cans?
Equivalence (Score:2)
AI is the new blockchain.
Leave My Budweiser Alone (Score:2)
It is just fine the way it is. And bring back Michelob in the dark glass bottles. Some stuff doesn't need fixing.
Any chance they could use AI... (Score:2, Insightful)
...to make beer actually taste good? "Better" means nothing if it still tastes like shit.
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> ...to make beer actually taste good? "Better" means nothing if it still tastes like shit.
There already is a process for this to make various sorts of alcopop beverages, which are taxed at the same rate as beer:
Low quality beer is filtered to remove everything but the water and alcohol.
Flavoring and sweetener is added.
Then you consume it at a risk of varying levels of appearing unmasculine, depending on your social circles.
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If you think you don't like beer, that just means you haven't found the right beer, yet. Like Chocolate? American Porter, Milk Stout, White Stout. Like sour candy? Fruited Lambics. Like red wine? Flanders Red Ale. That's just the tip of the ice berg. The variety is enormous.
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I love beer now but it was very much an acquired taste. Like most fermented foods...kimchi, sauerkraut, etc.
Re: Leave My Budweiser Alone (Score:2)
Mich dark by the pitcher was incredible
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Seconded, and inb4 hipsters. But Guinness is better.
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> Guinness is better.
I prefer Murphy's, but that's just me...
Re: Leave My Budweiser Alone (Score:2)
You do need t have to worry about me touching your Bud, or any for that matterâ¦.