Really Sweet Brown Ale

Hi All,

Whilst I've been brewing for a little while now, I'd still class myself a beginner as i simply brew from kits. I've had some great results and beers that I've really enjoyed.

I've recently brewed an English Brown Ale that has turned out tasting really sweet.

There is a story here so I'll do my best to explain all that went on.

When I first mixed this one up I noticed the OG seemed a little low (Approx 1.035) but I was too worried about this so I set the beer to ferment. I have a tempurature controlled fermentation fridge which I set at 19 degrees c.

It appeared to ferment as normal over the next two weeks at which point I tested the gravity again and it seemed high for a finishing gravity (1.015) so I decided to leave it in the fermenter a little longer to finish off.

During this time I went into hospital for knee surgery and afterward was not very mobile (on crutches). I should have probably known better but my father-in-law offered to help me keg my new beer and rather than pass up the help we kegged the beer without testing the gravity of the beer. I assumed that given almost another week fermentation would be complete, however upon testing the "leftovers" (beer that wouldn't fit in my 19L keg) I found the gravity was still around the 1.015 mark.

I then carbonated the beer in the fridge. Upon pouring a beer I found it had a really sweet taste.

The guy at my homebrew shop told me I should age the beer to get a better flavour out of it and its been sitting in the keg at room tempuature for about a month now. I taste it every now and then and haven't really noticed any change in the flavour.

Is there any way to get this beer tasting as it should?
Have I wrecked it completely?
Am I being too impatient? Should I wait a few more months?
How can I test the gravity of a carbonated beer???

Any advice would be greatly, greatly appreciated...

What was the recipe?

Apologies all,

I assumed I should include the recipe but figured my first post was long enough. Anyways here tis:


Guinea Pig Brown Ale

Date Brewed: 2/2/2012

Ingredients
Mangrove Jack’s Tyneside Brown Ale Kit
Briess CBW Sparkling Amber Liquid Malt Exract
1 x Sachet SAF English Style Ale Yeast – 11g (Blue)

Brewing Notes
Brewed in an effort to increase my brew production. Brewed to 20L. Hoping better quality yeast makes a difference. Recommended by Mark’s Home Brew as a great brown ale to age. Not sure if I’m that patient

Original Gravity: 1035
Finishing Gravity: 1014
ABV : 2.93%

Date Kegged: 20/02/2012

Tasting Notes: Very sweet, especially for brown ale. Not the big malty result I was hoping for. Quite possibly kegged too early as FG was higher than expected and not properly tested over a few days, however couldn’t refuse assistance in post knee op state.

Will age brew in the keg and hopefully true flavours will appear.

Did you use any hops in the batch (at all)?? I don't see any in the recipe. Without hops to balance the malt, it will be rather sweet tasting.

I'm guessing the kit is a hopped malt extract. Usually a really sweet taste is a sign the beer did not ferment out all the way. The FG would suggest that it did. Tell us what you used to take the gravity and all about that process. I know it's a pain but you have to trouble shoot these things don't to the smallest detail.

Wow, thanks everyone for such timely advice.

Going on the advice of my local home brew guy, (Who is a bit of a guru, i think) I didn't hop this brew. My preference for this style of beer was for a more malty tasting beer.

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure if the beer kit i used here is hopped or not.

I simply used a hydrometer to take the gravity readings. And it was my first though that perhaps the fermentation had not completely finished.

Run through of the process of this brew is as follows:

Thourough clean and sanitation of all brewing equipment
Added 2L of hot water to fermenter
Added Briess CBW Sparkling Amber Liquid Malt Exract and mixed (1.5kg)
Added contents of Mangrove Jack’s Tyneside Brown Ale Kit (1.7Kg) and mixed
Filled fermenter to 20L with cool water. Wort temp approx 22 degrees c.
Took initial gravity reading of 1035
Added 1 x Sachet SAF English Style Ale Yeast – 11g and sealed fermenter
Left to ferment in temp controlled fridge at 19 degrees c
Fermentation appeared normal (airlock bubbled, "low tide" mark on inside of fermenter etc)
After 10 days bubbling had all but ceased.
Left for 3-4 day longer to allow yeast to "clean-up"
At this stage I took second gravity ready (1014) and tasted beer. Tasted particularly sweet for a brown ale.
Decided to leave beer longer to completely finish ferment and "clean-up"
Had knee surgery
Returned home on crutches a few days later
Kegged beer (19L Keg) and took gravity reading on leftover beer. (still at 1014)
Force carbonated beer in normal fridge at around 6 degrees c for 24 hours
Tasted beer. Still very sweet.
Decided to age brew on advice and removed from fridge.
Beer still aging in keg at room tempurature. Have been relieving gas from keg once a day.
Tasted beer this week (just under 1 month since kegging) and still very sweet.

I think that covers everything. Probably some schoolboy errors in there but am more than happy to take advice from more experienced brewers.

Is there anything I can do to save this one? Is adding more yeast out of the question, in order to clean up some of the left-over sugars etc...

Or do I just need to leave it longer??? I do tend to be inpatient with such things and perhaps I just need to accept that good beer takes time.

I'd say that the zero hops is the reason for the end results you have. You need at least SOME hops in the batch to offset the sweet of the malt. You can hop lightly, to make a batch more malt forward, if you like. But eliminating all hops make me think the 'guru' you listened to doesn't know Jack about brewing.

For example, I have a brown ale that is very much malt forward. But, it has enough hops within it to balance the batch so that it's not TOO malty. You get to taste the malt combination, along with a little bit of the hops used (a 1oz 10 minute addition for flavor, other than the 1oz 60 minute addition for bittering). The batch has about 26 IBU's and is about 6.5% (FG of 1.018)...

As for what to do with this batch, I'd set it aside and brew something more hop forward to blend with it. Make it a very similar recipe, or something that will combine well with it. You can blend some in a glass so that you don't risk oxidizing the brews by mixing them otherwise.

Thanks again for all the advice.

My initial thoughts are that the beer kit I used was most likely hopped. I can't imagine Mark (my home brew shop guy) would give me a kit that required the addition the hops and not recomend any. I been able to rely on him in the past to steer me in the right direction with all of my brews thus far.

Is there any point in adding some hops (in any form: ie dry hops, pellets etc) to the brew now (whilst in the keg) given that I'm quite prepared to age it for some time if need be.

It won't do anything for the sweetness. It will only add aroma no bittering. Bittering hops have to be added during the boil.

out of curiosity, would it be possible for the OP to create a hop tea with a small amount of DME on his stove, and add the tea to his brew? A long enough boil would get the bitterness needed. Just a thought

Yes you can do that. It will help but it will not 100% fix the issue.

I think that blending it with another brew is going to be a better 'fix' for this batch. With making a 'hop tea' you have to be careful to not go too far and end up on the other end of the spectrum.

BTW, chances are the malt extract you used wasn't hopped. So unless there were hop pellets included in the kit, or he simply omitted them when pulling the yeast and hops for you, you have no hop additions in the batch... I found info on the extrac with a quick google search, no mention of it being hopped already.

If the person you got the kit from really is a 'guru' give him a taste of the finished brew and see what he would do to correct his F-up...

Again to everyone, thanks for all your help.

I do like the sound of emcarthy25's suggestion of adding a hop tea to help bitter my brew.

"OP to create a hop tea with a small amount of DME on his stove, and add the tea to his brew? A long enough boil would get the bitterness needed"

However being somewhat of an amateur I was wondering if i could ask for some more details instructions on how to do this in regard to quantities (of DME etc) what type of DME, what hops you guys would reccomend for such a brew (english brown ale) and the procedure by which one could do this. (Boil time, amount of water etc??)

My apologies for what are probably really basic principles in the world of more experienced brewers. I will get there one day, I'd just like to become consistant with one form of brewing (at this stage, kit brewing) before progressing.

It looks like your kit was prehopped. According to their site it has 14-18 EBUs.

http://www.mangrovejacks.com/core.php?psec=intern_series

Cheers for the advice tombstone. I figured that would be the case, rather than the malt extract coming pre-hopped.

From m limited knowledge I would consider 14-18 EBU to br fairly low and possibl not quite there for a good english brown.

As has been reccomended by a previous poster I am considering making a hop tea and adding to my brew.

What is the best way to go about this. I have read many different approaches but what would suit me best considering that I want to impart bitterness to offset the sweetness rather that giving it distinctive hop taste or aromas???

As a side note, I took another gravity reading of this brew today after almost one month of "ageing" at room tempurature. The reading is still the same (1014) as when it was kegged. To me this indicates that no fermentation has taken place in the keg. Should i pitch more yeast in to "finish" it off an hopefully clean up the overly sweet flavours...???

Pitching more yeast won't drop it any more. I think your best bet is hop tea or a blend. A hop tea is probably your easiest choice then brew something new to enjoy if it doesn't work out

Sounds like sound advice.... Brew more beer...

I've done some research into this whole "hop tea" thing and have come to the conclusion that to add bitterness more so than hop aroma . flavour he following may be a good plan.

Boil some bittering hops (possibly Chinook) for an hour in about 2 litres of water with a little DME added then add small measured amounts to a few glasses of my brew to get the ratio right. Then scale up and add to the keg.

Does anyone have an reccomendations on the type of hops i should use and how much??

Or for that matter any advice at all on the subject of making and adding a hop tea to increase the bitterness in an overly seet beer???

2 Liters of water boiled for an hour? You are only going to have burnt tar on the bottom of the pot. You will have to do more volume and boil it down to what you want to add.