Tune that beer! Listening to the pitch of beer

Journal article

We report two experiments designed to assess the way in which people associate the flavor of beer with auditory pitch. Participants chose the pitch that best matched the flavor of a Belgian beer. In Experiment 1, the participants rated 3 beers using a narrow range of pitch choices (50-500Hz), thus showing that the beers were all rated around the same pitch (Mean=232Hz, SD=136Hz). In Experiment 2, a wider range of pitch choices (50-1500Hz), along with the addition of a much sweeter beer, demonstrated that participants matched beers having differing flavor profiles with different pitch ranges. In this case, a dry-light-bitter beer was matched with a significantly lower pitch, when compared to a much sweeter one that was matched at a significantly higher pitch. These results demonstrate that distinct differences in flavor lead to distinctly-different pitch matches.

Authors: Reinoso Carvalho, F; Wang, Q; De Causmaecker, B; Steenhaut, K; Van Ee, R

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: MDPI
• Journal: Beverages
• Publication date: 2016-11-17
• Acceptance date: 2016-11-11
• DOI: 10.3390/beverages2040031
• EISSN: 2306-5710
• Keywords: sound; Beer; pitch; flavor; crossmodal correspondences; taste