What happened to my brew?

[TrojanDan]

All - I Recently completed my first ever brew, it was supposed to be a session IPA. It came right out of a kit from truebrew, and I followed the instructions closely, or so I thought.

At this point I’ve had about 8 pints. The taste is not bad, the color is darker than it is supposed to be, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t taste like an IPA… In fact, I think it is much more aligned with a saison. I worried a bit about it having been infected, but it’s not caused me any problems after drinking it. Any thoughts as to what I did to screw things up along the way? For a saison, it’s not bad....

 

[Dgallo]

All - I Recently completed my first ever brew, it was supposed to be a session IPA. It came right out of a kit from truebrew, and I followed the instructions closely, or so I thought.

At this point I’ve had about 8 pints. The taste is not bad, the color is darker than it is supposed to be, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t taste like an IPA… In fact, I think it is much more aligned with a saison. I worried a bit about it having been infected, but it’s not caused me any problems after drinking it. Any thoughts as to what I did to screw things up along the way? For a saison, it’s not bad....

Fermentation temperature issues and oxidation. Heavily hop beers are quite hard to get bacterial infections, so you may have ran the yeast too hot. What stain did you use?

The darkening of the color and a slight cardboard/cider is typically oxidation. 9 times out of 10 if someone has a problem with a heavily hopped/dryhopped beer, oxidation is the culprit

 

[mongoose33]

It's hard to say what is causing your result. It could be any number of things, from fermenting the beer too warm to a mistake in adding the hops to...well, all sorts of stuff. Kits may or may not be good, it may depend on how you added the malt extract (if you just pour it in while applying heat, you might scorch some of it as it lies on the bottom of the kettle), the yeast may have been stressed....

...and it possibly could have been an infection but that's actually fairly unlikely with new brewers and new equipment.

BTW, infections aren't necessarily going to make you feel worse, other than your taste buds.

Brewing isn't rocket science, but neither is it simplistic. There are many moving parts and if you don't get them to move in the proper way, your beer won't turn out as you'd hoped.

I'm going to guess your beer was oxidized, perhaps severely, and that's why the hop presence is muted. Once the beer is fermented, oxidation will cause off-flavors and a muting of hop flavors and aroma.

****

Let me make a suggestion, if I may. I believe new brewers should brew relatively simple recipes at the outset; the more complicated, the more opportunity for something to be wrong, and there you are, often without the ability to determine the cause.

Then brew it again. The key is to get the process down, such that in the future, if the recipe is good, your faith in your process should give you confidence that you're going to produce a good beer.

A simple, less-hoppy ale will be more forgiving in terms of oxidation, and in terms of process.

If you know a buddy who brews, perhaps they could kibbitz while you brewed. Or you could watch someone else brew.

 

[El Nino]

It could have been just the recipe. First ever brew I made was a Chinook IPA that was darker and less hoppy than a typical IPA. My feelings were similar (This is a good beer, but doesn't really taste like an IPA). What were the ingredients? There was a noticeable diff when I just started making my own recipes / altering ones I found online to get the malt profile and hoppyness I wanted from a beer.

if you had 8 pints and aren't complaining about the taste or off flavors, then I doubt it's an infection.

 

[TrojanDan]

Thanks so much for your input and thoughts, gents! Sorry for what I'm sure is a mundane question but can you please explain the issue of "oxidation"? How does that occur? The recipe was simple and I followed instructions closely (liquid malt extract, hop additions at various times, etc) but I did do things like scorch the sugars and I think I added the yeast at too high of a wort temp. So, I expected that would impact the beer but not change the flavor whole-sale.

 

[Dgallo]

Oxidation is the process of oxygen dissolving into the beer. When oxygen gets absorbed and binds withother molecules in the beer, they become oxidized. Think how a nail rusts outside, this is essentially happening to compounds in the beer, which will have impacts on flavor, aroma, and color. Heavily hopped beers are very susceptible to this because of the polephenols in the hops. These oxidized rather quickly do to that.

That being said, Anytime that any air outside of the fermenter or tank (co2 or Nitro) touches the beer( like opening the air lock, taking readings post fermentation, cold crashing, transferring the beer, and drryhopping has the potential to let air in and does let air in if you aren’t following proper practice) The beer will oxidize to how ever bad of an extent as the oxygen contact you allow.

 

[snarf7]

Don't get discouraged, you'll probably screw up 3 or 4 more times before you get it down, just stick with it. Practice makes perfect. When i started out i would brew multiple 1-gallon batches each week and carefully record everything in a notebook so i could identify my errors as well as what worked well. The most important things are sanitation and keeping everything sterile, stable temperatures in the correct range and limiting oxygen exposure once the beer has finished fermenting