The next time you take a sip of beer or a bite of food, consider this: What you taste is as unique as your DNA. Science shows that an individual’s flavor preferences are defined by genetics. And what we taste is influenced by a lifetime of biological and social experiences.

Think about it: Not everybody likes a bitter India pale ale, even though it’s the most popular craft beer style in America. Others live for a decadent dessert at the end of a meal, but some don’t like sweets in general.

“Once you understand how things work, you can ask, ‘How are things working for me?’ ” says Nicole Garneau, a geneticist and researcher at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. “And that’s one of the most interesting things to me is that everybody is unique.”

Asking why

Why certain flavors are satisfying and others repulsive remains a scientific puzzle.

The question drives Garneau’s work at the museum’s Genetics of Taste Lab. To get answers, she devised a novel crowdsourced research study that will draw more than 400 people to the museum Friday for a scientific taste test.

The goal is to examine a new model of study — which Garneau calls “crowdtasting” — and collect survey data on favorite tastes for beer, food and pairings.

Ray Daniels, a member of the craft beer industry’s working group on the topic, calls it a “science sandwich with a hedonic filling.”

“Part of what we are trying to get at here is not what experts think works but, in real practice, experience what people like,” said Daniels, who founded the Cicerone program that certifies beer-tasting experts. “That’s sort of a brave new world in terms of beer.”

Researching beer

The question is far from trivial in Colorado — home to Coors Brewing, a $1 billion craft beer industry and a well-recognized food scene.

At Metropolitan State University of Denver, Scott Kerkmans wants students in the brewing industry program to understand the science behind taste.

“Sensory science and understanding how those flavors are perceived has a very important and direct correlation to the success of craft beer,” he says. “As these craft breweries start really pushing the boundaries of what they can do with style, having our students and the industry understand what those flavors are doing to their taste buds and their olfactory senses becomes really critical.”

Even with a rapid growth spurt, craft brews represents only about 12 percent of the beer market, according to its trade association, and wine still holds a more prominent connection to food.

Better research will help the industry expand its reach, says Julia Herz, the craft beer program director at the Boulder-based Brewers Association and the author of a book on food pairings.

“Wine is presented as part of the meal and table experience, but beer is not always presented the same,” she says. “(The museum’s study) is a very important first event that will get us closer to more progress on the beer and food pairing.”

Taste science

The museum’s taste lab, which conducts one study a year, uses volunteer citizen scientists to help with the research.

Garneau’s current project explores how people experience sweet taste and how bacteria in the mouth affect perceptions and health. An earlier study helped establish fat as the sixth taste — joining the well-documented list of sweet, bitter, sour, salty and umami (savory).

“By understanding people’s preferences, we can then dive into what food molecules and beverage molecules are responsible for these interactions,” she says. “And you start figuring out how to make healthy food taste better.”

On the side, the 35-year-old Garneau is leading new research in the craft brewing world and co-authored a new beer-flavor map debuting soon.

To explain how our taste preferences evolve, she often starts at the beginning when survival meant finding food. The brain uses all five senses to evaluate a food and makes a decision.

“Swallow it or spit it out? And if you swallow it, do you want to eat more?” Garneau says. “It’s all about getting things you need to survive and staying away from things that are going to kill you.”

People are born with an innate ability to like or dislike a flavor, a code passed down from their parents through genetics. Each time you put food in your mouth, the taste buds that live in the bumps, or papillae, on your tongue communicate to the brain, which works to identify the flavor.

“Your genetics, your DNA, is the cookbook for your body. And your cookbook has the same recipe as my cookbook, but your recipes are a little different,” Garneau says.

The research shows that babies start with an affinity for sweet foods, but over time people teach themselves to like other flavors through repeated exposure, such as bitter and sour styles of beer.

Social influences

In addition to learned biological experiences, a major factor is social influences.

“The social piece ties to your cultural experiences, your nostalgia, how you grew up,” Garneau says. “You absolutely can override what should be an innate aversion because of a positive social experience.”

The crowdtasting study will ask participants who buy tickets to try four craft beers and three food bites, as well as pair them together, before answering questions about their preferences. It may lead to additional studies that delve deeper into how people’s experiences influence their palate.

The experiment, Daniels said, is an important step in what he imagines will prove a decades-long quest to find answers to these questions.

“It’s going to yield a lot of interesting insights,” he says. “But it’s certainly going to give us some real data to chew on.”

John Frank: 303-954-2409, jfrank@denverpost.com or @ByJohnFrank