If you could describe "green beer" flavor...

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batches_brew

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If you could describe "green beer" flavor how would you do it? I poured my first glass of South English Brown Ale tonight. I couldn't wait 3 weeks so after 11 days I opened my runt bottle (the last one filled before running out/3 quarters full.)

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I was relieved to hear the sound of C02 escaping. It's strong because I accidentally shorted the batch by a gallon of water. It was good but had a kind of rich, alcoholic taste. Sour/sweet, but not too sour. It's hard to explain. It's like a clean brown ale flavor with the undercurrent of flavor described above. Is that the green flavor? If it mellows out a little it will be great!
 
Sounds like "green" to me. That little bite will calm down quite a bit over the next couple of weeks while the yeast continue to clean up after themselves. At 3 weeks you'll have a good beer, at 5-6 weeks even better, and so on.

Give it time and have patience and I think you will be richly rewarded.
 
I have three more batches in various levels of fermentation and I'm not hard up for good beer. I can just walk to the liquor store up the block for some Stone or Lagunitas. My point is that I'm gonna wait another few weeks before officially breaking into the batch. Better to have it in it's best state possible.
 
Cant say it enough:

Patience is a virtue when it comes to home brewing. I opened my first beer a week after bottleing and thought i bottled monkey urine. Wait a few and sure enough it will get better. My first went from Monkey urine to drinkable after two more weeks.
 
Cant say it enough:

Patience is a virtue when it comes to home brewing. I opened my first beer a week after bottleing and thought i bottled monkey urine. Wait a few and sure enough it will get better. My first went from Monkey urine to drinkable after two more weeks.

Now that you mention it, there was a slight monkey urine flavor there. Spider Monkey to be specific.

:D
 
Simple answer, bad - or just not good to great.
I think your original post described it perfectly, wait two to three weeks to see the difference - you sure your not a beer snob posing as a newbie question?
 
Simple answer, bad - or just not good to great.
I think your original post described it perfectly, wait two to three weeks to see the difference - you sure your not a beer snob posing as a newbie question?

No. Just a beer snob who IS a newbie. ;)
 
I brewed an extract amber ale recipe and after 10 weeks, 8 of which have been in the bottle, it is now an enjoyable, shareable beer. The darker the beer the longer it takes those stronger flavors from the dark malts that give the beer its dark color and richer flavor to mellow.
 
I think the OP understood that he was drinking green beer before opening his "runt" bottle.

To describe the taste of green beer? You did it in the first post. Distinctly different flavours competing for attention. When it is aged, these flavours will seem more like undertones swimming around in the flavour of the base malt......At least that's what I go for! I'm not a hophead :)
 
I agree with the ever-changing astounding gnome above. What you described is exactly green beer. Well done! I couldn't verbalize it that well when I encountered it. Just keep "trying" one a week to map its progress. Right around week 4 you'll naturally move to trying one a night. Its more fun that way.
 
You know I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to drink a couple of beers green when your first starting off in homebrewing, it gives you an idea of how your beer will evolve over time and it also helps you realize that even if a beer tastes like crap now if you let it sit for months it's bound to become better, depending on the style of course.
 
You know I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to drink a couple of beers green when your first starting off in homebrewing, it gives you an idea of how your beer will evolve over time and it also helps you realize that even if a beer tastes like crap now if you let it sit for months it's bound to become better, depending on the style of course.

+1
I will usually crack one open each week as it is conditioning so I can get an idea of how the conditioning process works and how the beer evolves. I also taste it both as it is switched from primary to secondary as well as when it is bottled.

Difference is, now that I'm 8 batches in, I'm content with not drinking the rest of the beers in a batch until they're "fully" conditioned.
 
You know I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to drink a couple of beers green when your first starting off in homebrewing, it gives you an idea of how your beer will evolve over time and it also helps you realize that even if a beer tastes like crap now if you let it sit for months it's bound to become better, depending on the style of course.

Exactly. I think tasting green beer should actually be encouraged for the first brew or even two. It's a valuable part of the learning process. Although like most people, when I first did it I just wanted the beer quicker, screw the learning process!! :D
 
The best way to learn "green beer flavor" is to drink the hydro samples as the beer comes out of the primary. It isn't good. Usually green apples, harsh bitterness, and grassy flavors from the hops, often with sharp grainy notes mixed in.

Well, usually it isn't good, my Irish Red was quite tasty at that point but I digress, I will be tapping that keg this weekend after two months of conditioning in the keg so it'll probably be stellar now!!

The best way to avoid drinking green homebrew... have a full beer pipeline! :ban:

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BTW, my conditioning schedule looks like this... every pint is drunk at its peak of flavor:

Primary - 14 days, or (gravity points / 4) in days, whichever is longer; minimum three weeks for Belgians.
Secondary - as long as it takes to oak or dry hop, otherwise I don't secondary.
Keg - one week for every 10 gravity points (eg OG 1.050 beer five weeks) for light beers, ten days for every 10 gravity points for darker beers or high gravity beers (Irish Red, stout, barleywine).
Bottles - keg conditioning time + 1 add'l week for carbonation.

Conditioning is at room temp. For a lager, I will do a lagering period of a week per ten gravity points in the keg, pull a pint to draw out the sediment, and then start conditioning on the above schedule at room temp before crash cooling and force carbonating (which takes another week).

The only exception to the above is for wheat beers, I do 3 week primary, and one week of conditioning plus one week to carbonate them, for a minimum five weeks.

In this hobby your patience will be rewarded. Remember it could be worse.. you could be making wine! :mug:
 
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