First lager experience

[Brewskey]

Steam beer actually, WLP810.

I brewed this beer on July 4th, let it sit on the yeast at 57F until July 24th and bottled. This beer tasted terrible, very funky, the best I can describe is that it was similar in taste to a hefeweizen. I pitched the yeast a little warm so I figured the batch was ruined. Anyway, its been sitting in the refrigerator until today. I went out to the garage with every intention of dumping the whole batch but when I opened the first one, I tried a sip and it tasted almost exactly like Anchor Steam, which is what I was shooting for.

Obviously, I don't know much about lagers as this is my first time with a lager strain. I didn't think you really needed to lager a steam beer so I didn't. But, did keeping it refrigerated for so long essentially lager the beer in the bottle?

 

[QuercusMax]

How long did you wait after bottling prior to tasting it? If you try it too soon, it will often taste really crazy because you are refermenting it in the bottle, and the yeast need time to settle down.

According to various sources, Anchor does cold condition for 3 weeks. So what you did probably makes some sense. I've never done a steam beer, but in all my lagers I find they are massively improved with extra cold conditioning time.

 

[Brewskey]

I tried the first one as soon as the beer was carbonated. But, that funk was still hanging around at the end of September when we tried a few more of them....