Best palate on HBT?

So I have a wet hop ale from my 09 crop. I have always detected something in it that I do not like. I have had two other experienced brewers taste it and they either couldn't pinpoint it or didn't pick anything wrong up. I know it is supposed to be grassy which it is, but there is something else there. I suspect the brewer who didnt pick it up had a beer before that compromised his pallet. Im not sure how to describe it but I pick up some sort of slight chemical or peroxide taste. I can almost taste the great malt beginning and hop ending behind the strange flavor. I would say I am good at picking things out in beers but I have yet to experience any infections or off flavors so am not very educated in tasting them. I just had great divides fresh hop and liked it which pushed me to want to figure this out. I am willing to send a bottle or two out to have others try to nail what it is, so who on Home Brew Talk has the best pallet for faint off flavors

So who can help me or who would you guys recommend?

You are asking for an opinion, which as everyone knows are just like a$$holes.

Your best bet would be to enter it into some of the better known competitions with experienced judges. I'm not saying you wont be able to find those here, but hey maybe your beer isn't that bad and you might end up winning an award.

Maybe talk to these people:

http://www.siebelinstitute.com/services/


Forrest

Thanks Forrest, thats pretty cool but a bit on the expensive side. Im not sure I am desperate enough to want to figure it out that bad....yet that is. I know everything is relative to opinion but there is something definitely there and Im sure someone who has delt with common infections and or wild yeasts and bacterias will be able to identify it pretty quick.

Local homebrew clubs are a great way to get your beer assessed. There are usually at least a few people in most clubs that have experience judging beers and are happy to do it. I recently joined my local club and there's one dude associated with Shipyard that has an amazing talent for spotting flaws in beers. It's humbling, but edumacational.

I think you have three good options, two already listed (club and competition).

The third is to go get the BJCP study guide which has instructions for doing off flavor training with items you can buy at a grocery store or homebrew shop.

Send a few in to the Brewing Network or BBR, get them to taste your beer. I'm sure you (and everyone else listening) will get your answer.

I'm not a great taster, but if you want to send a couple of those to me, I can tell you what I think. I'd love me some wet hop ale!

What is wet hop ale anyway? I've never heard of such a thing.

steinsato said:

What is wet hop ale anyway? I've never heard of such a thing.

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Normally hops are dried after the harvest, and used in that form. A "wet" hop ale is made from freshly picked hops, before they are dried. The flavor changes. I've only ever had Founders version 2 years ago, but it was GOOD!

IMO it tasted more like fresh hops than ever.

Homercidal is right hops go straight off the bine and into the boil, they should be used within 24 hours of picking which is why its only an option once a year and few commercial breweries put one out.

Anyone got a link to any info on sensory training with grocery store or HBS supplies? I checked out the BJCP guidelines but it only lists them, nothing on what you can get to learn the flavors. Learning how to detect flavors myself would be my first choice, not much for homebrew clubs in this area but Ill look around some more.

GC89 said:

Homercidal is right hops go straight off the bine and into the boil, they should be used within 24 hours of picking which is why its only an option once a year and few commercial breweries put one out.

Anyone got a link to any info on sensory training with grocery store or HBS supplies? I checked out the BJCP guidelines but it only lists them, nothing on what you can get to learn the flavors. Learning how to detect flavors myself would be my first choice, not much for homebrew clubs in this area but Ill look around some more.

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Fellow Pullmanite here. I probably cant help you figure out whats wrong with your beer, but I think WSU has(had) a homebrew club... it may be gone though, I have not heard anything about it for a few years.

We have a fresh hop festival here every year, often I've noticed a foul flavor common in those beers, it sort of comes of as boiled vegetables or I've always thought artichokes, although others describe it as garbage or sewage flavor. Typically the boiled vegetable flavor is associated with DMS, but I'm not sure why it would show so often in fresh hop beers, are they taking longer to cool the beer? Other possibilities are the hops weren't used soon enough after picking and got musty since they weren't properly dried, or maybe it's a bacteria infection of sorts?

I wouldn't call this a vegetative taste or the common grassy flavor (which is there but not unpleasant). I get more of a chemical type taste out of this but this is my first experience with any off flavors in any of my batches so I don't know exactly what to call it. If anyone has any info on off flavor pallet training and what can be used that is readily available I would be interested. That would be my first choice for identifying it, the biggest reason I want to figure this out so bad is for my own educational purposes.