How Quickly Does Bitterness Fade

[GuyQLD]

Hey guys,

Have had a boonies LCPA clone in the fermenter for about 4 weeks which I bottled a week ago and in a moment of inebriated creativity I decided to sample one well before it was ready.

Now if you're wondering why it was in the fermenter for that long it's because I bollocksed up the hop schedule and it's over the top bitter and I figured I'd let it age a bit.

Anyway, long story short - a week in the bottle didn't change things much (I don't know why I expected it to... we'd had a couple) and this morning I'm left with a question....

Tip the lot out, or give it time and see if it ages well?

I'm inclined to do the latter since I've read around the place that bitterness (and unfortunately aroma) fades with time and I'm hoping that at some point it'll be drinkable but does anyone have any idea how long that takes? If I have to tie up bottles for 6 months so be it.

 

[Sam England]

Morning GuyQLD,
I'd hang onto it for a bit if you've got the storage space. I blew a hole in my chiller and turned a chilled brew into a no-chill and ended up with an overly bitter IPA a while back. Left it in the keg for 6 months to mellow and it turned out to be a cracker. Still a bit high on then IBU's, but not worth tipping.
Cheers,
BB

 

[Mikedub]

don't tip it, in 3 months it will be a different beer with a much smoother bitterness,

 

[Spork]

Do you know roughly what IBU's it is?
Brew lots of IPA's.
In 6 months it won't seem too bitter at all!

 

[MaltyHops]

I bottled a week ago ...
Now if you're wondering why it was in the fermenter for that long it's because I
bollocksed up the hop schedule and it's over the top bitter and I figured I'd let it
age a bit.
...

If you hadn't bottled it and knew that it was too bitter for your taste,
you could have added some unfermentable sugar like lactose sugar,
maltodextrin or xylitol to balance the bitterness and make it more
palateable.

I made a DSGA not long ago way too bitter and added xylitol - it fixed
the bitterness issue and tasted quite good. Xylitol is a sugar made
maple tree bark and available from from on the major supermarkets.

But since you've bottled them, maybe you can add sugar to each glass
starting with just a little and see how much is needed to balance. Or
maybe make up a strong sugar solution (boil & cool) and again add a
bit at a time.

 

[GuyQLD]

If you hadn't bottled it and knew that it was too bitter for your taste,
you could have

That's really the kicker isn't it, when your entire beer education is centred around which is better, Corona or Dos Equis "too bitter" really stretches the bounds of relative terminology.

Still I'll let it sit for a while and who knows. It was a different brew on week 2 than it was on week 4 in the fermenter so time will probably turn it into something drinkable, even if I never make anything like it again. Still got plenty of others to keep me going until then.


Not sure what the IBU is though, I imagine if you took boonies recipe and extended the boil times by 15 minutes + no chill you'd probably come up with it. It's somewhere on my phone. I'll see what I can find.

Edit* Just grabbed the spreadsheet and put it in, near as I can tell it would be somewhere between 40-48 IBU but that's as close a guess I can get.