Chris, perhaps we should start a beer apprechiation thread. Any other hoppy beer lovers want to join in?! It is great to find someone with the same taste change experience. Young's Double Chocolate Stout is a fav of mine too. I'll have to see if I can find the others you mention. I'm not so keen on Guiness, however, I'm not sure I have tried it since my change in taste sensation! In Scotland and wider UK we are going through an explosion of new microbreweries with beers heavily influenced by American craft beers using American and NZ 'grapefuit' flavoured hops. I know you Texas folk apprechiate our Scottish beers - there is a website you can Google 'ScottishBrewering' which gives info on all these fantastic beers and get this, the author lives in Texas! Have a look at the A-Z list. My recommendations if you can get them are Joker IPA from Williams Brothers and anything from BrewDog, but there are many, many more.

I agree I can only manage a couple of pints in a row, my attitude to drinking beer now is to drink slowly and enjoy. The change is so profound that I do wonder if I now taste beer with a much greater intensity that my partner and friends who are also great beer lovers! So I now have this whole new hobby in life of exploring new beers and real chocolates. Oh and I have recently noticed that I am begining to enjoy cheeses again too, also with a more focused intensity! It makes up a lot for the foods and tastes I now miss out on so I am not complaining. Realising this was the point when I came to terms with my swallowing challenges. Last summer we had a holiday to Belgium - heaven for beer and chocolate. Sally