Finings and beer flavour

More evidence has been published showing that isinglass finings do not affect beer flavour. The paper "Assessing the Impact of Finings on the Perception of Beer" details a comparison made of a beer in fined and unfined form.

Which do you prefer?

There is an almost religious belief in the superior flavour of unfined beer amongst some beer geeks, though I've not seen any research to back up this assertion. In fact the only evidence I've seen previous does not support this claim. And now there's more evidence against it.

One hundred and seventeen people blind tasted hazy unfined beer and bright fined beer in black cups, and 118 people tasted the same beers in clear glasses. Neither group found any difference in the taste. In fact the only difference found was that in the clear glasses people preferred the appearance of the fined beer.

I would still be interested to see more research on this topic, but there are now published papers showing a trained tasting panel, and large numbers of social drinkers, not finding any difference in flavour between fined and unfined beers. Clarity is emerging from the haze.