I should have made this clear earlier, I don't drink alcohol because my body doesn't metabolize it properly, it makes me horribly sick, so my use of them is purely culinary. That makes individual tasting a little more difficult because I can't actually swallow, I take a sip, and then decide whether or not it goes better with mushrooms or with onions (or with both). Right now I just need to figure out how much of the taste actually comes through into the meal, and what kinds of tastes (how much does the bitterness dilute, for instance). Those do sound like interesting choices though, I suspect I'm going to need a lot more experience then normal to do this because I have much less of an idea of what flavors I'm actually working with.

Not drinking beer leaves me with several social fallacies, but it does keep my expenses somewhat lower.