No taste ESB

My neighbor and I brewed an ESB.

Brewed according to the instructions. Primary and secondary fermenting. Matching hydrometer readings before bottling. Blah, blah, blah.......

It has absolutely no flavor to it whatsoever.

Tastes like a (very) low alcohol mineral water.

Any diagnoses from my vague description? Bottle condition longer? (its been two weeks)

Classic case of "off flavors"?

Also, this is only our second batch. First one, an Imperial Pale Ale, was awesome.

Thanks and happy holidays,
Dan.

whats the recipe? from a kit or did you put it together?

"off-flavors" are flavors Going from an IPA to an ESB is quite a shift. I'd recommend getting a couple commercial ESBs for comparison. You can always make some hopjuice by boiling 1/2 oz. of any good aroma hop in a pint of water for about 10 minutes. A teaspoon or so per bottle should take care of the problem. I actually have some hop oil concentrate, but it is difficult to find.

I can't find the exact recipe to post, but it was a kit I got from our local supplier.

I would think it's something we did wrong as opposed to the quality of the ingredients.

I mean it taste just like soda water. No flavor at all.

Thanks again,
Dan.

First time I've ever heard of this.
Most post's like this are "It taste like vinegar or paint stripper or tea"

Can you remember roughly what you used and what you did?

TRNDRVR said:

I can't find the exact recipe to post, but it was a kit I got from our local supplier.

I would think it's something we did wrong as opposed to the quality of the ingredients.

I mean it taste just like soda water. No flavor at all.

Thanks again,
Dan.

Click to expand...

Extract, partial mash or DME?

Not sure what you could have done wrong in order to acheive no flavor...

What was your OG and final?

Maybe let it age a bit longer, two weeks is probably not enough time. I brew an amber bock that taste like "sweet" carbonated water until it has aged for at least a month then it has a nice malty flavor followed with the hops flavor. ESB's should have a firm hop flavor and be a "mild" tasting brew, but it shouldn't taste like soda water. some times it takes hops a bit of time to come out.

Is it "lightly" malty at all? it should be.

TRNDRVR said:

First one, an Imperial Pale Ale, was awesome.

Thanks and happy holidays,
Dan.

Click to expand...

Well it isn't gonna be as big as an IPA and it is not supposed to be. That might be part of what you are tasting. Especially side by side. On the other hand, dried malt extract kits have been known to be adulterated with corn sugar dextrose which would give you that alcoholic mineral water taste (think Busch Lite). Not that I'm saying your supplier would do that.