Beer Going Downhill

[floppinab]

I've got something weird going on with a beer I've got.

It could be a number of things, but I'd appreciate some thoughts.

It's a kit brew, plain old lager kit with a good 400/500 gm of carapils and some Saaz hop additions and some dextrose.

Fermented with a dry yeast, a saflager I think it was at around 13 odd degrees. Secondary and lager at around 4 or 5 degrees for a month and bottled. Bottle kept at around 15 - 20 deg.

I reckon the first 10 - 15 bottles were fantastic, very smooth buttery mouthfeel with a good Saaz aroma and just a hint of that Saazy bitterness (with the POR that was in the kit).

However getting to the rest of the brew around 2 months later, the mouthfeel has pretty much all gone replaced with a harshish, grassy, almost acidic aftertaste. Aroma has pretty much stayed the same.

Any ideas what has happened.

PS. For those ISBers that might reply there was a bottle of this in my esky on Sat. that I was going to try on you guys, probably just as well you didn't crack it!!!!

 

[snagler]

Floppinab, Some of my beers have suffered the same fate, unfortunately Im unable to explain why. I taste them at 3 weeks and if there good they dont last long because Im scared to age the good tasting ones. I tend to age the ones that taste second rate just after carbonation. I too am hopeing someone can explain this, maybe provide a "rule of thumb" for ageing different beers.

 

[Goat]

floppinab - "buttery" is a classic sign of diacetyl. Also butterscotch flavours are possible.

If it is / was diacetyl, remnant yeast will consume that over time - particularly if the beer is at a warmer temp. This could explain why the mouthfeel has disappeared and even possibly why different flavours have become more prominent.

 

[Bizarre]

floppinab - "buttery" is a classic sign of diacetyl. Also butterscotch flavours are possible.

If it is / was diacetyl, remnant yeast will consume that over time - particularly if the beer is at a warmer temp. This could explain why the mouthfeel has disappeared and even possibly why different flavours have become more prominent.

I tend to agree with Goat to an extent here - if it is not diacetyl then something is definately amiss here - possibly a hygeine issue? I have beers in bottle that are over 6 months old and still taste fine. They really should improve with time, and the fact that they are not makes me wonder about either hygeine (like I said before) or possibly the quality/freshness of the ingredients that have gone into the beer. Without tasting it I couldnt really say for sure - just offer a pointer or two maybe - I know its too far to drive for me to have a taste too! Maybe try simplifying things with one batch - then add bits back in one by one over the next couple to see what happens.

Good luck!

:beer:

Typo edit - gotta love em!

 

[Stuster]

Not all beers improve with age. Lighter coloured beers in particular will tend not to age well as the compounds in the darker malts provide protection from aging. I was listening to Jamil on the Brewing Network program on smoked malts today and he said that pilsners for example tend to peak around three months and go down hill after that. He suggested they should definitely be drunk by six months. Darker beers can be kept for many years (depending on strength and sanitation of course). Hoppy beers will lose a lot over the first few months. I've heard figures on this but can't seem to find any details on that from a quick google. But really, these beers are best within the first few months. Wheat beers the same.

Buttery does sound like diacetyl, gav. Supposedly a fault, but it depends on your taste buds really. If you like it in your beer, then you like it in your beer and so it's not really a fault, is it?

Not sure if this ramble is any help now i read over it again. If only we'd tried the rotten beer at the beer day, instead of trying the nice ones, we could have helped you. :lol:

 

[kc_ksom]

Hey

I had a similar thing happen to me, though I rounded it down to the bottle, every bottle of the Sterling had the same funny flavour, like if you put the crown seal in your mouth and started chewing it, but these were the only bottles in the batch that done it, the other bottles like James Squire, VB original, crown larger, were all very good..

Have you got all the same bottles???

Casey

 

[floppinab]

Thanks for the replies to all.

After reading a bit about diacetyl I had a feeling that what I was tasting early on might have been that and it might've been masking the crappier flavours in the kit. The kit was a "run out" model if I remember correctly so I can't expect it to be producing something brilliant.
So are we saying that the bottle conditioning is cleaning up some of the diacetyl over time??? Would make some sense I guess.

If it was a hygene issue wouldn't that show up reasonably early on in the picture???

All the bottles are the same, definatley couldn't tie to a particular type of bottle,

 

[Stuster]

Probably the diacetyl being used up by the yeast. If it was some sort of contamination you'd be getting gushing bottles anyway so it doesn't sound like that. Might be time to consider going up in the kit world, or even beyond. :lol:

 

[floppinab]

Probably the diacetyl being used up by the yeast. If it was some sort of contamination you'd be getting gushing bottles anyway so it doesn't sound like that. Might be time to consider going up in the kit world, or even beyond. :lol:

Keep talking it up Stu........!!!!! I won't say it won't happen but certainly not in the immediate future while I've got ten thousand things to do around the house and with the kids!!!!!

 

[Barramundi]

im talkin about the move to all grain gav , maybe its time to follow ...

 

[bigfridge]

Probably the diacetyl being used up by the yeast. If it was some sort of contamination you'd be getting gushing bottles anyway so it doesn't sound like that. Might be time to consider going up in the kit world, or even beyond. :lol:

You would also expect the gravity to go down - can you measure the SG with a hydrometer and compare it with when you bottled ?