bitter/sour tasting wort

OK I'm really hoping I don't have a mess on my hands here.

I'm fermenting a modified a Guinness clone kit and I'm noticing a bitter/sour taste on the back of my tounge. It's been fermenting for 14 days. I'm still a greenhorn when it comes to homebrewing, and I had a problem the other two times that I brewed beer where the alcohol content was irregularly low (in the 3% range). So this time I did some research and decided to increase the OG (added about a half quart of maple syrup and few ounces of honey) and use a better quality yeast (white labs dry english ale). Then, I accidentally added the 3/4 c. of priming corn sugar during the boil. Sheesh.

I also added 1/4 pound of oatmeal with the grain boil, as my goal was try to do a hybrid Maple Oat Porter/Stout (or even a Dark Ale) at around 6-7% abv. The OG was 1.064, and currently we're at 1.020 after 14 days in the primary. It smells amazing but again, when I tasted just now after the hydrometer reading I got a pretty string bitter/sour taste on the back of my tounge.

My question: is there any hope for this batch or did I just go a little too crazy with the adjuncts? Or is there a possible infection? Thanks in advance for your help.

Oh man I almost forgot - and this is a big one - I also added about a half pound of ground coffee to steep in the wort for about 5 minutes after the boil.
Yes, I am a bit of a mad scientist.

I doubt there's an infection so put that out of your mind for now. You've got a bigger beer than you're used to so it's going to take a bit longer to ferment and that could be a reason you're getting odd flavors. Just let it get down to its FG, bottle/keg it, let it age, and then try it. So far it's still a bit early to tell how it's going to turn out.

got any pix?

Lance_Uppercut said:

Oh man I almost forgot - and this is a big one - I also added about a half pound of ground coffee to steep in the wort for about 5 minutes after the boil.
Yes, I am kinda bit of a mad scientist.

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Ah, well there's your sour/bitter flavor.

thanks MP for the quick response - do you think that taste will mellow out at all over time?

Lance_Uppercut said:

thanks MP for the quick response - do you think that taste will mellow out at all over time?

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You're welcome. I believe the taste will mellow out so you should be fine. I haven't brewed with coffee before but generally a good amount of aging time will fix something like that.

One thing you might want to do today would be to look in the recipe section of the forums here and browse some of the coffee-enhanced stouts that other posters have submitted. The directions should be able to give you some insight into how long you need to let the beer age for.

It's not really uncommon for a dry stout to have a touch of that. I'd bet that it'll age out as well, but you'll just have to wait and see.