Beer-Trained and Untrained Assessors Rely More on Vision than on Taste When They Categorize Beers

What role categorization processes play in chemosensory expertise and its acquisition? In this paper, we address this question by exploring the criteria used by trained and untrained assessors when they categorize beers. Two experimental factors were manipulated: beer color and brewery. Participants sorted nine commercial beers coming in three different colors and from three different breweries. Participants sorted in two different conditions: in one condition, participants could see the beers, and in the other condition, they could not see the beers. We observed that in both tasting conditions (i.e., with or without vision), trained and untrained assessors categorized beers similarly. In the visual condition, assessors sorted beers by color, whereas in the blind condition, they sorted them by brewery. Overall, our results indicate that sensory training does not seem to have an effect on the criteria used to organize beer perceptions. This suggests that our trained beer assessors did not develop specific conceptual representations of beers during training. Moreover, it seems that when assessors categorize beers, they rely more on visual than on chemosensory information.