Bitterness and the Tongue

Every day or two I make a lap around some of the other beer blogs out there to help round out all of my beer related news reading.  Today I found a very interesting post by the guys over at Hop Talk about hop bitterness and how it is perceived on the tongue.  They reference an article that was originally posted by Eric Trimmer over at Trouble Brewing which quotes one of Trimmer's scientist friends who spent a year studying beer.  I won't rehash the article here, but the basic gist is that hop bitterness (from iso-alpha-acids) is perceived on different parts of the tongue than other food bitterness.  It even includes a do-it-yourself home experiment so that you too can experience the difference.  Drinking beer in the name of science.  Nice!  Check out the article to learn more and impress your beer drinking friends with this bit of trivia.