Curious about flavor change during carbonation

Hi, I recently brewed an bottled a Brewers Best American Amber kit and all went great through the fermentation. It started and stopped at the correct OG and FG reading per the instructions. I left it in the main fermenter for 3 weeks then moved it to a bottling bucket for immediate bottling. At this point I noticed that it had a pretty bitter taste that wasn't' expected since I wasn't doing an IPA or heavily hopped beer. So I waited 4 days and popped a bottle open after putting it in the refrigerator for a few hours, yes I know I'm supposed to wait 2 weeks to complete the carbonation but i wanted to know what it would taste like early. It had little carbonation yet but the bottle did make that cool sound when i popped the cap. I noticed to a lesser extent that the beer still tasted bitter. I was wondering if this is a result of the hop pellets that came with the kit, instead of real hop leaves these dissolve into the beer, I'm wondering if that adds more bitterness. Is it possible this will smooth out over time and this is just what a young beer tastes like? I think in some of the threads I've seen a young beer referred to as green, can anyone explain what that means?

I don't mind getting links to other posts but my search results weren't what I was looking for. Maybe need better search terms for this topic

First off, the beer's green (young), that's all. Second off, pellet hops no more 'dissolve' into the wort than whole hops do.... in fact, they're the same thing, the hops are just ground and pelletized to make pellet hops. Third, it's green beer.... that means it's young. Wait 3 weeks or so, then chill one for two days, not hours, and try again. It'll be tasting a lot better at that point.

NordeastBrewer77 said:

First off, the beer's green (young), that's all. Second off, pellet hops no more 'dissolve' into the wort than whole hops do.... in fact, they're the same thing, the hops are just ground and pelletized to make pellet hops. Third, it's green beer.... that means it's young. Wait 3 weeks or so, then chill one for two days, not hours, and try again. It'll be tasting a lot better at that point.

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Thank you for responding, that's what I thought but it really puts my mind at ease knowing its just young and that's the way it's supposed to taste. I have another batch but not from a kit that I'm going to brew this weekend and just wanted to avoid any problems if I had some issue other than green beer. 3 more weeks won't be so bad since this message board has really kept me busy with all the great topics, so waiting on my beer to be ready is really going by pretty quickly.

mmarty1 said:

Thank you for responding, that's what I thought but it really puts my mind at ease knowing its just young and that's the way it's supposed to taste. I have another batch but not from a kit that I'm going to brew this weekend and just wanted to avoid any problems if I had some issue other than green beer. 3 more weeks won't be so bad since this message board has really kept me busy with all the great topics, so waiting on my beer to be ready is really going by pretty quickly.

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You'll be surprised how much a beer can change in just a few weeks. I usually wait 4-5 weeks after bottling, but that's a lot easier once you get your pipeline going.

Patience, grasshopper!

Honestly, three weeks (not two) at 70 degrees is the baseline for normal gravity beers. Four days? It's nowhere near carbed/ready.

On top of that, the beer is horribly green.

I know you are excited. I know that you want to enjoy your beer. But I am telling you, the best skill a new brewer can learn is not recipe formulation, it's not sanitation, it's not even temperature control - it's patience.

If you rush it, the beer will taste bad, you'll go post to a message board, you'll get frustrated. You'll end up drinking multiple bottles of beer that isn't ready, and you'll spend hours trying to diagnose off flavors that don't actually exist.

Forget about this beer for at least a couple more weeks, then put a bottle or two in the fridge for a couple days before you think of drinking one. Go buy some new craft beer, or start brewing a new batch. Quit drinking it before it's done, and you'll be so much happier in the long run.

pentachris said:

Patience, grasshopper!

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LOL good stuff!

homebrewdad said:

Honestly, three weeks (not two) at 70 degrees is the baseline for normal gravity beers. Four days? It's nowhere near carbed/ready.

On top of that, the beer is horribly green.

I know you are excited. I know that you want to enjoy your beer. But I am telling you, the best skill a new brewer can learn is not recipe formulation, it's not sanitation, it's not even temperature control - it's patience.

If you rush it, the beer will taste bad, you'll go post to a message board, you'll get frustrated. You'll end up drinking multiple bottles of beer that isn't ready, and you'll spend hours trying to diagnose off flavors that don't actually exist.

Forget about this beer for at least a couple more weeks, then put a bottle or two in the fridge for a couple days before you think of drinking one. Go buy some new craft beer, or start brewing a new batch. Quit drinking it before it's done, and you'll be so much happier in the long run.

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Thank you too homebrewdad, I knew it would be green from my reading i just wanted to see what green tasted like. Then it was bitter so i just kinda wondered if that's what green meant. I'm not touching the rest of it for at least two weeks! I just went to the Brew Festival in St. Louis this weekend so I have a bunch of new micro breweries to visit too. I do have another batch to brew for this weekend, kinda a Bass Ale clone. Quite a bit to keep me not thinking about the beer downstairs in boxes.

Just clarify, young beer isn't bitter. Bitter beer is bitter - and that bitterness certainly comes from the hops. Pellet hops provide more bittering per ounce than whole hops - not a lot, but some. The recipe you brewed is around 30 IBU. That should taste bitter. They IPA style starts at 40 IBU, so it isn't IPA bitter, but the bitterness should be evident.

Young beer often has a tart or sour taste completely separate from the normal bitter taste. That taste is just a yeast byproduct and will go away. It goes away faster if you leave it in the primary, but it will go away in bottles as well eventually.

billl said:

Just clarify, young beer isn't bitter. Bitter beer is bitter - and that bitterness certainly comes from the hops. Pellet hops provide more bittering per ounce than whole hops - not a lot, but some. The recipe you brewed is around 30 IBU. That should taste bitter. They IPA style starts at 40 IBU, so it isn't IPA bitter, but the bitterness should be evident.

Young beer often has a tart or sour taste completely separate from the normal bitter taste. That taste is just a yeast byproduct and will go away. It goes away faster if you leave it in the primary, but it will go away in bottles as well eventually.

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This is technically correct - but if you are a new brewer, green beer "tartness" might well be described as bitterness.

Green beer can be watery, bland, bitter, have a harsh alcohol taste, or be funky in several interesting (often unpleasant) ways. Subtle flavors are often muted or completely nonexistent in a green beer.

For some documentation on how a recent beer of mine progressed with age, check these two links to my blog - tasting at four and six weeks, then at eight weeks. It's like a totally different beer.

Your beer probably won't take as long as mine did to mature, as mine was 8.4% ABV, but you get the idea.

And yeah, you do have enough IBU there to make the finished beer have noticeable bitterness. That's not a bad thing, it's just the way that beer might be. I'm a malty guy, so I personally prefer beers with minimal noticeable bitterness, but to each their own (no hop bombs for me!).

Carbonation will affect how you perceive bitterness. Ambers are generally carbed at around 2.5 volumes, which is typical for many American style light and medium color beers. This will make these beers more bitter; however, it will not be hop bitterness. Ambers are also more malty than pale ales and most IPA's. This means that you need more hop bitterness to balance the maltiness. You can continue to increase the IBU's higher than many Pale Ales until you get a bitterness that blends well with the biscuit and toasty character of an amber.

If your beer tastes more bitter than you like, even though you brewed to style (or from a kit), you might want to warm your beer to 50-55 degrees before drinking it. I find that the malt character really comes out at this temperature range.

homebrewdad said:

This is technically correct - but if you are a new brewer, green beer "tartness" might well be described as bitterness.

Green beer can be watery, bland, bitter, have a harsh alcohol taste, or be funky in several interesting (often unpleasant) ways. Subtle flavors are often muted or completely nonexistent in a green beer.

For some documentation on how a recent beer of mine progressed with age, check these two links to my blog - tasting at four and six weeks, then at eight weeks. It's like a totally different beer.

Your beer probably won't take as long as mine did to mature, as mine was 8.4% ABV, but you get the idea.

And yeah, you do have enough IBU there to make the finished beer have noticeable bitterness. That's not a bad thing, it's just the way that beer might be. I'm a malty guy, so I personally prefer beers with minimal noticeable bitterness, but to each their own (no hop bombs for me!).

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Wanted to add a thanks on the green beer description. Also thought your post was informative. I have a golden ale sitting in a batch going on 6 weeks - need to bottle soon and free up fermentor - it also has a strong alcohol bite I am hoping mellows (around 8%abv).

Thanks all for such an informative response to my original post. I was so curious what a green beer might taste like and after reading all the responses plus tasting my own green beer I have a much better idea. In fact, there is way more information in here than i could have ever expected. I'll certainly be referring back to this thread.

I'll be on my way to looking up some threads on proper beer tasting and notation!