Over the last 80 years or so, several hundred studies have assessed the influences that visual cues (such as color) have on the experience of different food and drink items (e.g., Moir, 1936; Zellner et al., 1991; Parr et al., 2003; Zellner and Durlach, 2003; Zampini et al., 2007; Spence, 2015b; see Spence and Piqueras-Fiszman, 2014, for a review). For instance, the color of a food/drink (or the color of its packaging; Barnett and Spence, 2016; Lick et al., 2017) can influence which products consumers notice and, consequently, which they choose to buy (i.e., color influences shopping behavior), as well as influence their tasting experience.

The consumer’s interaction with food or drink usually starts prior to the tasting experience itself, creating a rich context for the development of sensory/hedonic expectations (see Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2015, for a review). Actually, the interaction between colors and taste/flavors, in the case of taste and flavor perception, should not be understood only at the time that tasting occurs. The role of higher-level cognitive factors (e.g., consumer expectations) should also be considered (Shankar M. et al., 2010). It has been argued that under the appropriate conditions, both sensory congruency and sensory incongruity between what is expected and what is experienced while tasting can bring positive or negative reactions to the overall tasting experience (Stevenson, 2009; Spence et al., 2010; Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2012; Spence, 2016; Velasco et al., 2016a; Yanagisawa, 2016). Visual cues (particularly color) set sensory and hedonic expectations regarding the likely taste and flavor properties of food and drink items. The suggestion is that these expectations may, in turn, anchor the subsequent tasting experience (e.g., Garber et al., 2000; Demattè et al., 2006; see Spence et al., 2010; Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2015, for reviews).

Color-taste/flavor associations have been studied in a number of different ways. For instance, by comparing the presence versus absence of color, or by changing the characteristics of the color that is present in a food or drink (e.g., its intensity, hue, etc.). Other studies, meanwhile, have studied how the expectations triggered by food coloring influence the judgment of a food or a drink’s flavor (see Spence et al., 2010, for a review). Researchers have demonstrated that the four or five well-known basic tastes (bitter, sweet, sour, salty, and umami) are individually associated with particular colors as well (e.g., Koch and Koch, 2003; Velasco et al., 2016a; see Spence et al., 2015, for a review), and that such crossmodal associations can be exploited in the context of consumer behavior (Garber et al., 2001, 2003a,b). For example, by adding yellow coloring to a sweet solution, it is possible to significantly decrease people’s sensitivity to sweetness (Maga, 1974). There is also a growing awareness that cultural differences can influence the way in which people establish color–flavor associations (Shankar M.U. et al., 2010; Velasco et al., 2014; Wan et al., 2014a,b; Jacquot et al., 2016; Wan et al., 2016).

Guided by the aforementioned literature review, we wondered whether such ideas could be studied using a particular type of food, or drink, available in a wide range of colors that happens to be consumed frequently in everyday life. Therefore, we decided to work with beer. There is great diversity associated with the flavor of beer, and some of these flavor attributes are more commonly associated with a blond, pale, or perhaps a dark beer. However, such flavor diversity is not necessarily constrained within a certain color category. Nevertheless, we asked ourselves how people would judge a beer’s flavor when comparing, let us say, two beers of very different colors, but very similar flavor. Could particular sensations triggered by the differences in color be transferred to the tasting experience, in a way that would lead to significantly different flavor judgements (see Cheskin, 1972, on the notion of sensation transference)?

Previous research has already approached the role of visual cues in a beer tasting experience as when, for instance, comparing the same beers under blind versus sighted tasting conditions. When given access to both visual aspects of beer (appearance and brand identity), consumers tend to report different preferences (Allison and Uhl, 1964; Guinard et al., 2000). Hedonic ratings also seem to change from blind to similar informed tasting conditions (Guinard et al., 2001; Lee et al., 2006), with significant variations across different age ranges (Guinard et al., 2001). Meanwhile, elsewhere, it has been shown that differently colored beer labels can also exert a significant influence over consumers’ hedonic and flavor ratings, as well as on their purchase intent, even when drinking the beer from the glass, i.e., away from the packaging (Barnett and Spence, 2016). A recent report also measured the impact of affect, and the senses, in the experience of drinking beer in real context situations (see Gómez-Corona et al., 2017). These results revealed no significant differences in expected liking and purchase intent between the eight beers that were evaluated. However, semantic differences were reported between those phrases that resembled the more cognitive aspects of a beer experience (that were more frequently associated with craft beer types), versus phrases that indexed the more sensory and affective aspects of beer (and which were more frequently associated with industrial beers).

In the experiment reported here, participants tasted two beers sighted. Both beers were produced in order to be indistinguishable in terms of their flavor (when tasted without visual cues), but at the same time to have a very different visual appearance. One beer, which fell within a pale/amber color range, was intended to represent a kind of ale/lager beer type (pale beer). The other, darker, was intended to visually simulate a Belgian style double (abbey Trappist), or perhaps a porter type color range (i.e., a very dark type of beer). Note that the baseline beer used to create both drinks was produced following the standards for blond-ale beer, which, speaking flavor-wise, represents a filtered, light (in terms of alcohol and body), and hoppy beer.

In this study, we wanted to know whether by creating a dark version of a light beer, it would be possible to significantly influence the tasting experience, when comparing the expected and actual tasting sensory/hedonic evaluations of participants. Our main objective was to try and gain some understanding of the perceptual implications of experiencing a dark beer, which would be most likely judged as incongruent in terms of flavor, and especially when compared to a pale one. On the one hand, we were interested in the potential perceptual influence that the visual appearance of the beer might have on people’s flavor judgments (e.g., Shankar M.U. et al., 2010). On the other hand, we were particularly interested in understanding how the contrasting formula of the dark beer would affect the consumer’s tasting experience, and the expected price of such a product (i.e., by triggering confirmation and/or disconfirmation of expectation responses; see Oliver, 1977; see also Hovland et al., 1957; Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2015, for an overview on assimilation and contrast effects). This experiential exercise was set as a comparison between such dark beer and its pale counterpart.

When thinking about the potential applicability of these ideas, we detected the dramatic increase of the microbrewery movement¹, particularly in markets where the production of craft beers is, by no means, historically common - e.g., located outside Europe. The exponential rise of the demand for craft beers is providing great access – and triggering great interest – in the consumption of more unconventional types of beer, such as dark ones (Carroll and Swaminathan, 2000; Murray and O’Neill, 2012).

The participants in the present study evaluated the flavor of two beers having distinctly different appearances (one very dark and another pale/amber), but indistinguishable in terms of their flavor (when tasted without visual cues). The sensory/hedonic evaluation of the two beers occurred both before and after tasting. Here, we hypothesized that by creating different color versions of the same drink (in this case, two different color versions of a light beer) it would be possible to significantly influence the tasting experience (Moir, 1936; Demattè et al., 2006; Spence et al., 2010). These results suggest that there can be differences between what the participants expect from both beers, and their judgment after tasting them, yet more evidence is needed in order to show that these expectations could, in fact, influence the overall tasting experience.

In terms of expectations, the participants expected to like the pale beer more than the dark one. The dark beer was expected to be more bitter, to taste stronger, and to have more body than the pale beer (see Figure 2). Even though blond/pale beers are most commonly regarded as more filtered, with stronger hoppiness, and more bitter, than dark ones, it has been previously shown that for certain beverages (including beers), darker brown colors are associated with stronger, or more bitter, tastes/flavors (Guinard et al., 1998).

When comparing these expectations with after-tasting ratings across both beer types, no significant differences were observed. The latter result suggests that the differences in color did not affect the way the participants judged the beers after tasting. Such a lack of crossmodal effects suggests that the visual expectations were discounted when it came to the tasting experience. Hence, we could somehow conclude that color differences in beers do not have a significant impact on a beer’s flavor judgement. In other words, people do not seem to rely on beer color categories while denoting a beer’s flavor, at least when the expectations set by eye (regarding a beer’s taste/flavor attributes) turn out to be a long way from the actual tasting experience.

As a matter of fact, for our experiment in particular, the most salient flavor cues of the dark beer were mostly incongruent (bitterness, alcohol strength and body), since the formula of this dark beer was based on the brewing process of a blond-light beer. Here, we hypothesize that the contrast between what was expected and what was experienced could have weakened any possible transference of sensations, from the process of expectations into the tasting experience itself (Cheskin, 1972). The latter would be in line with the theory of assimilation-contrast (Hovland et al., 1957). This theory claims that if the difference between expectation and reality is somehow within a person’s limit of acceptance, it would be possible to, consciously or not, change the perceptual evaluation of a food/drink product in order to bring it in line with the expectations (see Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2015, for a review). However, if such a difference is sufficiently great, a consumer would tend to exaggerate this difference between expectations and reality, shifting the product’s evaluation toward the opposite direction, when compared to what was originally expected (Schifferstein, 2001; Yeomans et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2017).

Interestingly, the color of these beers affected their expected price. Here, the consensus was that the dark beer was expected to be more expensive than the pale one (see Expected versus After-Tasting Ratings) – this was reported by almost half of the sample. The subsequent cross-cultural comparison of Section “Cross-Country Comparison” suggested that the British residents did not show the same price judgment tendencies when compared to the other two groups of participants (Velasco et al., 2014, 2016a,b; Wan et al., 2014a,b; Jacquot et al., 2016). Yet due to the relatively low frequencies, no statistical evidence was obtained for this trend. Nevertheless, we believe that this cross-cultural assessment may inspire future analysis of correlation between the darkness of a beer and its price, across the markets of very different countries and/or regions.

In future research, it might be interesting to investigate whether a congruently darkened beer formula might actually lead to a different tasting experience, when compared to its blond/pale counterpart. For instance, by somehow matching the expectations, a darkened pale-strong beer¹⁰ may be judged as even stronger, and so on (see Gottfried and Dolan, 2003; White and Prescott, 2007; Reinoso Carvalho et al., 2015, 2016a,b, 2017; see Spence, 2011, for an overview on how crossmodal congruency can lead to perceptual enhancement in different multisensory experiences). Breaking down the color characteristics of a beer in more detail (e.g., by comparing differences in hue spectrum, or differences in haziness/cloudiness) could also help better disentangling the perceptual influence that a beer’s color can have on the tasting experience (cf. Barnett et al., 2017). Given recent work showing that the shape of glassware can influence the tasting experience as well (e.g., Spence et al., 2012; Spence and Piqueras-Fiszman, 2014; Spence, 2015a; see Spence and Van Doorn, 2017, for an overview), it is necessary to bear in mind that the color of a beer is never experienced in isolation, but is often affected by the glassware/material (e.g., plastic, glass) in which it is presented¹¹. Concerning the limitations of the experiment reported here, we did not take into account the participants’ initial beer preferences. Such differences may potentially bias the visual scoring and consequent taste ratings. We also chose to compare the expectations and the actual taste/flavor ratings of each of the participants while experiencing both beers (within-participant design). However, in our everyday experience of beer we do not necessarily compare two different beers in detail while choosing between them. We further ask ourselves if an experimental design where each participant would drink the same beer twice, blind versus sighted, would provide similar results (when compared to this method that uses triangle testing instead). Following the latter thought, future experiments may also consider comparing, for instance, a blind-tasting versus informed tasting conditions, in order to compare the effects of colour along with semantic-(in)congruency oriented analyses (e.g., Guinard et al., 2000, 2001).

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of ‘The Social and Societal Ethics Committee at KU Leuven (SMEC),’ with written informed consent from all participants. All participants gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by The Social and Societal Ethics Committee at KU Leuven (SMEC) – protocol registered as G-2015 09 339.

FR, JW, and CS designed the study. FR collected the data and participated in the design of the experimental stimuli. PM lead the data analysis, with the participation of FR. All authors participated in manuscript preparation and all authors revised the final version of the manuscript.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.