barleywine tastes nasty sweet.

Brewed in may..bottled in August. OG was 1.127 fg was 1.022. IBU is 115. It's starting to finally carbonate but tastes like syrup.

Will time help?

14% ABV and 115 IBUs and it tastes like syrup? 1.022 definitely isn't too high to make it syrupy sweet, I had an 8.5% weizenbock finish at 1.020 and it was the perfect level of residual sweetness. Have you checked your hydrometer lately?

Regardless, time should definitely help.

I had a barley wine that was very similar. Some people said it was too sweet, but I didn't think so. A year later, it is definitely more balanced.

zachattack said:

14% ABV and 115 IBUs and it tastes like syrup? 1.022 definitely isn't too high to make it syrupy sweet, I had an 8.5% weizenbock finish at 1.020 and it was the perfect level of residual sweetness. Have you checked your hydrometer lately?

Regardless, time should definitely help.

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Yeah hydro works fine. I have two and double checked.

If they are starting to carbonate I can take that to mean they have not had a chance to eat up all of the priming sugars.

In a lot of cases barleywines get a bit more sweet over time as the hop levels fade, but they get smoother too. Do you think the bitterness is in line with a barleywine at this point? A lot of people add a bit more hops in anticipation of the bitterness level dropping in the future. It depends on whether they plan on drinking it all in a relatively short amount of time, or plan on cellaring the beer.

Homercidal said:

If they are starting to carbonate I can take that to mean they have not had a chance to eat up all of the priming sugars.

In a lot of cases barleywines get a bit more sweet over time as the hop levels fade, but they get smoother too. Do you think the bitterness is in line with a barleywine at this point? A lot of people add a bit more hops in anticipation of the bitterness level dropping in the future. It depends on whether they plan on drinking it all in a relatively short amount of time, or plan on cellaring the beer.

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The bitterness is barely detectable. I need to look up the recipe in beersmith.

If 115 ibus came from your early addition hops it might work out. I dont believe the late addition help as much to contributing balance of sweetness.

Yeah, give it a year... we made an Old Curmudgeon clone which was absolutely atrocious right away. Horrendously syrupy. After 6 months it was pretty respectable.

After nearly a year, it's out-freakin'-standing. So put it in the back of a cool closet and forget about it...

Carbonation eats up sugar and adds bitterness.

It needs to be fully carbed to be judged.

You BOTTLE CARBED THIS???

You are lucky it is carbing at all.

What yeast is surviving in that monster?

924RACR said:

Yeah, give it a year... we made an Old Curmudgeon clone which was absolutely atrocious right away. Horrendously syrupy. After 6 months it was pretty respectable.

After nearly a year, it's out-freakin'-standing. So put it in the back of a cool closet and forget about it...

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Thanks that's great to hear!!!

cheezydemon3 said:

Carbonation eats up sugar and adds bitterness.

It needs to be fully carbed to be judged.

You BOTTLE CARBED THIS???

You are lucky it is carbing at all.

What yeast is surviving in that monster?

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Yes. I pitched on a WLP007 cake and when fermentation stuck @1.050 I pitched a 1gal decanted starter of WLP099 and that took it down to 1.022.

Then I transfered to an oak cube secondary for 2 months and bottled using champagne yeast.

924RACR said:

Yeah, give it a year... we made an Old Curmudgeon clone which was absolutely atrocious right away. Horrendously syrupy. After 6 months it was pretty respectable.

After nearly a year, it's out-freakin'-standing. So put it in the back of a cool closet and forget about it...

Click to expand...

Isn't beer amazing that way? I have nothing else to add to this thread.

Ours (at something well above 10 ABV) was bottle-carbed on SA05. Took a while, and now it's over-carbed! Of course, there's only one 22oz after 10 months... but our SA05 never stops putting out, it seems! We've had it bottle carb as high as 12.5% beers... just takes a while.

That's not outrageous for a gravity. Yeast will do their job as long as you didn't let it sit for MONTHS to clear before bottling. But it will take a while.

I am actually planning on brewing another barleywine. My last one is so thick I have to spoon it.

I want to make another with more hop bitterness and less dark fruit and a bit drier. The last one I made was my last extract batch from 2008. I just rediscovered the small box of bottles.

We kicked out a second round of barleywine mid-year, to prep for the winter... since the first was so sweet, we dialed back the Munich malt and added in some roasted barley. Also tried some with more straight sugar, to go eve further with the dryness. Both did a nice job of drying it out and taming the raging sweetness of the orig Old Curmudgeon. Gonna try one this weekend, I think, and see how it's doing, if it's carbing better; we gave it more time in carboys to age prior to bottling, and pitched some champagne yeast at bottling to speed up the carbing...