Beer has a distinct alcohol taste

So I brewed a DIPA a few months ago, but it has this distinct alcohol taste to it, its kind of hard to describe and I apologize ahead of time for the ambiguities, but the best way I can describe it as a weak grain alcohol flavor added to the beer, kind of like how Sam Adams Utopias tastes like a brandy. The beer only ended up being 8.7% abv, and I've had professional beers such as the Stone Enjoy By, or Delirium Tremens and there isnt the distinct alcohol taste.

The recipe was:
18 lbs 2 Row Pale English Malt -> Mashed at 146 for 120 min
1.5 lbs Clear Candi Sugar added at 10 min of boil

WLP 007 Yeast (Dry English Ale Yeast)

I also made an Oktoberfest last year and had the same problem as it was also around 7% and had a similar flavor. Has anyone else experienced this and figured it out, or does anyone have ideas that I might be able to investigate?

Thanks in advance

What were your fermentation temperatures? High temps can lead to hot alcohol flavors.

Make sure you're pitching enough yeast and yoir fermentation temps are in the low to mid 60s. High fermentation temps and stressed or a low yeast count are possible factors in the taste you're describing.

You should probably be pitching on the order of 2 or 3 vials of liquid yeast in a beer with that much grain if you don't make yeast starters

The topic made me laugh. Noob here, but the main 3 things I can think of is your starting water, your ferment temps, or your conditioning times.

I would also suspect the fermentation temperature. Also only 2 row and candy sugar leaves a low amount of malt sweetness. I would add a little crystal/caramel. or something...

I don't want to stray you from the real problem, but I hate candy sugar, I feel it always leaves a heavy alcohol taste, but I am no expert...

The high fermentation temp totally slipped my mind and we did have a hot flash, it was in the high 80s outside for a day or two and I remember the ferm temp being around 74F.

The water I am using is filtered through a camco water filter, and it has provided pretty pure water for me.

I let it go 2 weeks in the primary, 2 in the secondary, and 3 weeks in the keg.

I only wish DIPA's werent so expensive to brew, time to buy that grain mill

That's a very "boozy" recipe. A long, low temperature mash with no specialty grains, plus candi sugar. That's going to be very hot and alcohol-ish. You can try aging it for a long time and the alcohol flavor will fade.

A super long low temperature mash means many simple sugars. There would be no long-chained sugars left for body in the beer. It would attenuate well, but be far to boozy for me to want to drink.

That explains this beer, but not your Oktoberfest. If it's boozy as well, I'd consider fermentation temperatures and underpitching of yeast, unless it also had a long and lower temperature mash to give mostly simple sugars.

wfowlks said:

The high fermentation temp totally slipped my mind and we did have a hot flash, it was in the high 80s outside for a day or two and I remember the ferm temp being around 74F.

The water I am using is filtered through a camco water filter, and it has provided pretty pure water for me.

I let it go 2 weeks in the primary, 2 in the secondary, and 3 weeks in the keg.

I only wish DIPA's werent so expensive to brew, time to buy that grain mill

Click to expand...

I'm guessing the fermentation temp was too hot. I've noticed a few degrees difference between my fermometer strip on the outside of my fermentation bucket, versus the actual temperature of my wort.

Had a nut brown ale that I pitched the yeast at 80F (per the true brew instructions) and it had the worst hot estery raw alcohol flavor ever. Plus factor in, that during the peak of fermenatation, your wort temp could be up to 5F degrees higher than your ambient room temp...could have def been out of range for that yeast strain.

Ok, so thinking back, I feel like I left out a key piece of information, but now the beer is carbonated, it doesn't taste that alcoholic, and actually tastes good. Carbonation does wonderful things to beer, so does chilling it. But maybe it just tasted hot like alcohol because it was at about 50 degrees before and was a High ABV beer? I still taste a slight lingering of the alcohol, but the carbonation does a good job of keeping it crisp.

I did get a chance to look through my notes for the Oktoberfest, and it seems like it was more of a problem with the diacetyl that was causing it to taste hot and slightly buttery.