Weedwhacker said:Dave, when you say "fresh," do you mean "raw," or just freshly dug ? I admit I don't have the most discerning palate in the world, but I've never met a raw garlic that I would describe as "sweet"... a nice roasted head of garlic, now that's a whole different story!! 
I can't honestly say that I've ever seen much difference in the garlic after allowing it to cure, though, either (other than it seems to be a lot harder to peel when it's really fresh).
Yes, by fresh I mean just dug and immediately eaten.
We eat our garlic raw almost always and LOVE it. The Early Red Italian is as sweet as can be (to our palate, anyway) and we just love it. But this one clove we ate right out of the garden had a strange different taste to it. Almost "green" and oniony if that makes sense. And VERY hot. It could also be our weather. We've had almost no sun for a couple months and extremely high amounts of rain. I fear our garlic harvest will be not as good this year. I know some cloves are rotting in the ground.
