Refermentation in Secondary - after 10 months

So last August I made a barleywine. It "finished" at 1.026 and didn't move for a few weeks so I stuck it into a carboy to smooth out for a year.

Tasted it about a month ago and it was nice and sweet. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Went to bottle it yesterday to find fermentation on-going in the carboy. It was all there: the slight foaming in the neck, the rising bubbles and the new FG of..... wait for it...... 1.008. Down from 1.102 to 1.008. That's an 85% attenuation rate... so far. It's still on-going and bubbling away this morning and shows no sign of slowing down.

Tasted fine yesterday, less sweet and a touch of acid about it that I was worried was a vinagery taste, but I'm 99% sure it was not. I think I was tasting the dissolved CO2 as carbonic acid in the beer. No off-tastes that I could detect.

Decided not to bottle and topped up with some bigfoot. I'll bottle when fermentation is complete.

Is this refermentation unusual, weird or just freakishly wrong? I put it down to me introducing some oxygen when I tasted it last month and also the 5oF or so warming my basement has experienced over the last few months.

First thing I thought was infection. Does the krausen look normal?

I couldn't see the yeast really surviving that long in a barley wine. I would also be weary of an infection. What type of yeast did you use?

There is really no krausen. Just small bubbles in the neck. Doesn't taste like there's an infection. Tastes fine, just less sweet than when I initially tasted it and also a touch of the carbonic acid going on also.

It kinda reminds me of the malolactic fermentation that's going on in my wine at the moment.

I used Wyeast 1028.

I'm also worried about an infection. Except for the drop in gravity, I would just think that there is some co2 being outgassed from the beer.

Color me confuzed.

Cugel said:

I'm also worried about an infection. Except for the drop in gravity...

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Nasty critters like sugar, too.

Hope it's not an infection, that's a long time to wait.