Newton

Recipes 

I made an amber ale with the following recipe"

7 lb 2 row pale
2 lb Amber
1 lb Munich
.50 lb Biscuit
.25 lb Crystal 10L
.25 lb Crystal 40L
.25 lb Special Roast

Ok, my hop schedule is regrettable, but I had a 1.5 oz mixture of Nugget, Williamette, and Sterling from previous batches and there were mixed together so I just put .5 oz in at 60, 30, and 5. The yeast was a US dry ale variety from a reused from a previous batch.

The grain bill is identical to a fat tire clone recipe I think I found on this forum, the only difference is the hopping.

The brewing went nearly flawless; hit all my targets; OG 1.050.
I let it sit in the primary for 2 weeks, I measured the FG at 1.010 at 4 days. Its been in the bottle for 10 days.

I know its early, but I'm a noob and impatient, so I cracked one today just to see whats going on. The beer looks ok, has a nice head and retention, relatively clear. But it tastes horrible. It has this overwhelmingly strong roast malt taste to it. The taste is very similar to a strong nut brown ale I brewed, except this roasty, almost woody, taste is greatly amplied.

Will something like this mellow down significantly with time? Thanks!

Ben

Revvy

Recipes 

10 days is barely enough time for any beer to condition...give it more time.

Read this- Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

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Newton

Recipes 

Hey thanks for the pointers on the link. Like I said, I'm a noob, but my other brews have been atleast drinkeable at 10 days in the bottle. I spat this one out and poured the beer down the drain. Hopefully conditioning does it well.....

badhabit

Recipes 

Taste everything! Malt, durring the boil, at primary and secondary. It does much for your own education. You will learn what the brew tastes like when it is not finished or even getting old. It will mostly tell you, over time what the end product will be like. But, give it a couple more weeks before you taste it believing that it is ready to drink!

Yooper

Recipes 

I'm surprised you used 2 pounds of amber malt. A little goes a LONG way. In my DFH clone (OG of 1.070 or so), I use 6 ounces and I can taste it. I bet that's where the strong flavor is coming from. Are you certain that the original recipe had two pounds of amber malt? That's really a lot.

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JoMarky

Recipes 

Thats what stood out to me too--Everything else seems to be in good proportion. Heres Amber Malt's description from BeerSmith:

"Roasted specialty malt used in some English browns, milds and old ales to add color and a biscuit taste. Intense flavor - so limit use. Low diastatic power so must be mashed with well modified malts."

KCWortHog

Recipes 

Do you test your mash pH?

Newton

Recipes 

Here's the recipe from brewboard.com, they called it Flat Ass Tired:

Brew Type: All Grain
Style: American Amber Ale
Batch Size: 5.00 gal Assistant Brewer: Beer Wench
Boil Volume: 6.5 gal Boil Time: 90 min


Ingredients
6.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3 SRM) Grain 58.5 %
2.00 lb Amber Malt (22 SRM) Grain 19.5 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt (9 SRM) Grain 9.8 %
0.50 lb Biscuit Malt (23 SRM) Grain 4.9 %
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10 SRM) Grain 2.4 %
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40 SRM) Grain 2.4 %
0.25 lb Special Roast (50 SRM) Grain 2.4 %
0.75 oz Northern Brewer [8.5%] (60 min) Hops 22.8 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.5%] (30 min) Hops 7.6 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.5%] (15 min) Hops 4.9 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.5%] (5 min) Hops 2.0 IBU
American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) [Starter 1000 ml]

So you can see that the only thing I changed was the hop additions. These guys are raving on the forum about how great this beer is and don't change a thing, but I'm telling you that the roast aroma and flavor is so pungent and powerful that I can't even swallow a gulp of this stuff. And that is saying something, because I drink about anything. Do you think this will mellow dramatically with age?

beerjunky828

Recipes 

My guess is yes this will mellow with age and probably the amber malt will come through more. I would just wait until about 5 weeks in the bottle to see where it is then.

After looking back at your recipe it seems that there is a lot of specialty grains in your grain bill. Is the flavor sweet?

Newton

Recipes 

It might be sweet but I can't really tell because it is currently dominated by one strong flavor. The FG was 1.010 so there some residual sugars in there. I'll let this stuff sit until mid summer or so and see how the flavor changes with time...I have a whole bunch of bottles now, so I don't need the bottles that the beer is in anyway....