Ladies’ choice: women are apparently better beer tasters than men

In February, when Stephen Harper chose Molson Canadian as his prize for winning a bet with Barack Obama, we wondered why he didn’t choose a better brew. Other than the fact that he has lame taste in beer, there’s another explanation: it may have been due to his Y chromosomes. In fact, some brewers are saying that women are inherently better at tasting beer than men.

Brewers have no specific explanation for the phenomenon, but SABMiller (which makes Urquell, Peroni, Miller and other brands) says it has empirical evidence showing that women are better at detecting unwanted chemicals in beer. As a result, the number of SABMiller’s female taste-testers has quadrupled in the past decade, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Scientists, for once, have a simple explanation. Women have a better sense of smell, according to researchers at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. That might help explain why they’re better at sussing out skunkiness in beer. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help them break into the sushi-making job market.

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