Belgian Kwak Floaty Bits

[redbeard]

A friend gave me a couple of small bottles of belgian beers in return for a small job. tonight i opened the kwak & poured it into a leffe chalice. when pouring i noticed some chunky bits at the end, which i thought was maybe the yeast. however, when looking at it, there is lots of smallish white particles in suspension. so i thought, perhaps its too cold & left it for 5 mins. no change. it tastes ok thou not strong, thou ive only had one previously and cant remember the exact taste. I left it for another 10mins & no change. still little bits in suspension. I remember it as being clear. did i get a dud / too old or what ?

cheers

 

[Malnourished]

I've never come across this in Kwak (not that I drink it much) but it's not that uncommon in Belgian beers. Brasserie des Rocs is (in)famous for it, and I've had a bottle of Delerium Tremens with a serious case of chunks. It never affects the flavour, but the chunks don't exactly give it a great mouthfeel.

I always assumed it was something to do with the beer being too old. But there's a quote from Dave Lodgson in BLAM (I think) about top-cropping yeast for bottle refermentation which makes me think that, particularly in the case of Brasserie des Rocs, it's actually break material from yeast used at bottling which is gathered at the wrong point of an existing fermentation.

So it's not exactly great brewing practice, but your bottle likely isn't a "dud" at least.

Hope this helps.

Edit: But now that I think of it, I'm not even sure Kwak is bottle-conditioned, so who knows...

 

[mikem108]

I had "flakes" in some out of date bottles of De Koninck I got on "special"
from Vintage Cellars. I read somewhere that bottles exhibiting this have been exposed to excessive heat, (and the flakes are protiens?)

 

[Stuster]

Hmm. I also had a bottle of Belgian beer, Chimay White, that had flaky bits in it. It didn't taste bad, though it was very off putting.

 

[glennheinzel]

I've had three kwaks a couple of years apart and they have all had floaty bits.

 

[warrenlw63]

Yep, my last Kwak had white floaty bits too.

I took a pic to show you all what I mean. :blink:

Warren -