Why Do Guitars Taste Like Hops?

New book by Pete Brown explores the surprising scientific impact of sound on our taste buds

Scientists understand less about how we hear music than they do about the birth of the universe; but a new book by leading beer writer Pete Brown is set to accelerate that understanding – simply by going to the pub.

Tasting Notes: The art and science of pairing beer and music is published on 12 June 2025 by CAMRA (The Campaign for Real Ale) Books and is the latest book by Sunday Times Magazine’s weekly beer columnist, Pete Brown. What started as a fun event above a pub turned out to be an accidental cornerstone of one of the latest areas of neuroscientific research.

Pete combines popular science with a music fan’s perspective to explain how our senses work, how we appreciate flavour, music, and the world around us. He shows us that our senses interact in ways we don’t even realise and proves how you can change the way your beer tastes by changing the music around you.

Across 45 beer and song pairings, Pete’s experimental journey continues with genres covering rock, grime, jazz, alt pop, country, folk rock, electronic and progressive trance, with songs from Primal Scream, Joy Division and more matched with an eclectic list of beers. 

Pete, whose last book ‘Clubland: How the working men’s club shaped Britain’ was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, describes how surprised he was when a notable Oxford University professor of neuroscience approached Pete after one of his beer and music events and explained that Pete’s talk covered similar ground to cutting-edge experiments already underway at Oxford.

The experiments were exploring how different senses affect each other – how colour or shape affect our perception of sweetness, or much of what we ‘hear’ is profoundly influenced by what we can see.

Pete says: “To be fair, pairing music and beer sounds like a bit of a joke and it started off as one. But realising that I’d inadvertently stumbled across something serious, I read academic papers and started to learn about retro-nasal olfaction and cross-modal correspondences.

 “Modern neuroscience is in its infancy. Here, in the third decade of the 21st century, we know more about the birth of the universe than we do about how our brains interpret information. Most of us enjoy listening to music and savouring a beer, and this is a fun way to understand how the relationship between the two is closer than you think.”

Pete’s talks at festivals about the art and science of pairing beer and music have already become cult events. Now, this book is the definitive guide to why guitars taste of hops, why you’ll need a lager to listen to the Sugababes’ cover of I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor and what to drink with Dizzee Rascal’s Bonkers.

·         Tasting Notes: The art and science of pairing beer and music is published by CAMRA Books on June 12, 2025, with a foreword by Mark Radcliffe.

Ends

Notes to editors

Pete Brown is a British author, journalist, broadcaster and consultant specialising in food and drink. Across 12 books, his broad, fresh approach takes in social history, cultural commentary, travel writing, personal discovery and natural history, and his words are always delivered with the warmth and wit you’d expect from a great night down the pub. He writes for newspapers and magazines around the world, and is a regular contributor to radio and podcasts. He was named British Beer Writer of the Year in 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2021, has won three Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards, been shortlisted twice for the Andre Simon Awards, and in 2025 was named as the 25^th most influential person in the drinks industry.  

CAMRA: Campaigning for pubs, pints and people since 1971 with a vision to have quality cask beer, cider and perry and thriving pubs in the heart of every community . With more than 140,000 members the campaign is one of the most successful consumer organisations in Europe. Founded by four real ale enthusiasts back in 1971, today we represent beer drinkers and pub-goers across the UK.

For more information, please contact Sarah Wise (sarah.wise@workingword.co.uk) or Daniel Tyte (daniel.tyte@workingword.co.uk) at Working Word on 029 2045 5182.

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