Your facial expression will reveal how you really feel about a beer

There’s no point in pretending. New research by Japanese scientists showed we make two different facial expressions after tasting beer, depending on whether we liked it or not.

The researchers in Japan claim that two different facial expressions will reveal whether you like a beer or not immediately after tasting it.

Facial expression technology was used to scan the faces of participants on tasting the beer, to gauge their reactions.

The first expression identified in people enjoying their beverage was the ‘lip suck’, where the lips are drawn inwards as if to say ‘mmmm’, the experts claim.

‘Lip press’, where the lips are pressed down on top of one another, is thought to occur when a person really did not like the taste of the beer.

A total of 151 Japanese beer consumers were recruited for the study, and asked to try three different beer samples.

Four scientists at Brewing Science Laboratories, a research lab belonging to brewing giant Asahi, conducted the research.

A third of the participants were employees of the Japanese beer giant, with the other 101 taking part members of the general public.

Research into how consumers really respond to different beers could be vital for the brewer’s further development.

‘Relying solely on explicit liking could lead to a misunderstanding of consumers’ real intentions, ultimately resulting in the failure of a new product after its launch on the market,’ the team say in their paper, according to the Daily Mail.

‘Analysing facial expressions as an implicit measurement may provide a better understanding of consumers’ preferences at a subconscious level by capturing their objective responses to products after tasting.’

The Japanese beer giant recently decided to shake up the formula of its flagship Super Dry beer in response to a changing Japanese market. Read more on that here.