Has anyone actually brewed a hopless beer? and without bittering of any sort?

I'm sort of surprised that I haven't found a post of a recipe where someone tried making a hopless beer. Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough. And I'm not talking about substitutes using heather, horehound, yarrow or some other herb. I understand the point of using substitutes (for bitterness), but I'm looking to see if someone just brewed a regular beer, just without hops or any other bittering agent.

I know probably 99% of people who read this will be thinking "but it'll be cloyingly sweet!". This may be true, but has anyone actually tried it? My wife wants to try a beer without hops or bittering in it. After my own initial "cloyingly sweet" reaction, I started to think that well, soda is awfully sweet. She likes a good rootbeer. How sweet can it possibly be? Those were actually her words but I concur. I don't particularly care for a sweet beer myself, but I'll admit I'm intrigued. I'm surprised, though, that I haven't seen emperical evidence of this cloying sweetness based on actual experience.

Anyone have any experience with this that they'd like to share?

For my experiment, I was thinking of a lower-gravity split-batch breakfast stout, half with hops and half without. That way the hopless half would still have lots of other flavor...

beowulf said:

I'm sort of surprised that I haven't found a post of a recipe where someone tried making a hopless beer. Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough. And I'm not talking about substitutes using heather, horehound, yarrow or some other herb. I understand the point of using substitutes (for bitterness), but I'm looking to see if someone just brewed a regular beer, just without hops or any other bittering agent.

I know probably 99% of people who read this will be thinking "but it'll be cloyingly sweet!". This may be true, but has anyone actually tried it? My wife wants to try a beer without hops or bittering in it. After my own initial "cloyingly sweet" reaction, I started to think that well, soda is awfully sweet. She likes a good rootbeer. How sweet can it possibly be? Those were actually her words but I concur. I don't particularly care for a sweet beer myself, but I'll admit I'm intrigued. I'm surprised, though, that I haven't seen emperical evidence of this cloying sweetness based on actual experience.

Anyone have any experience with this that they'd like to share?

For my experiment, I was thinking of a lower-gravity split-batch breakfast stout, half with hops and half without. That way the hopless half would still have lots of other flavor...

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Dont know if technically thats even possible, if the 4 main ingrediants required to call something beer is Barley, Water, Yeast and Hops, if you remove one of them do you technically have beer?

I imagine it will be along the lines of a malt liquor like micky's or hurricane. I am sure you can produce MUCH better product than these two examples.

Rouge brewery actually has a fine malt liquor. I havn't tried it but I would reccomend trying it and seeing if it is something you would enjoy!

Either way sounds like a cool idea and I see no reason you couldn't experiment

i think you can, just try to have it finish very dry

or it might work well with a stout because of all the roasted malts

I think it would be really, really sweet, even if you tried your best to dry it out, but if she REALLY likes sweet drinks it might be worth doing a 1 gallon test batch to see if it would actually be drinkable for her.

You might not even have to make it totally hopless. Just a little bit of bittering hop to take the edge off the sweet, but leave it still well on the malty side might be to her liking.

Their used to be an Ontario brewery that was ultra small time... They did minimal to no hops on all their beers... They sunk pretty fast but I read somewhere they were trying to do 1 bbl batches... which is just too much work for too little beer in a commercial setting... My grandfather who was a whiskey drinker loved it... It was great for mixing with some low shelf rye

Budweiser.

cheezydemon3 said:

Budweiser.

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Well, Budweiser doesn't really have much malt in it, either.

See if your grocery store has Malta Goya.
That might give you an inkling of a hint of what the result might be.

I've made sparkling barley, which is 1/3 malt, 1/3 corn, and 1/3 sugar; no hops.
Primary fermentation with ale yeast and finish with champagne yeast.
Even at 1.002 it tastes sweet to me, but SWMBO loves it.

Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it. Yes, my wife and most of her friends are turned off by bitterness, and I'm sure they're not alone. Sweet coffee, sweet dessert wine and maybe a lambic on the sweet side is pretty much her speed right now.

I may do a 1-3 gallon trial run as one of you indicated just to see if it's palatable before diving in. She doesn't drink much alcohol anyway so even that may last awhile. That way if I do need to add a smidgen of bittering hops I can do so on a smaller scale.

So yes, maybe it's not technically "beer" without hops...perhaps if it's worth drinking we'll have to devise a new name. I'll have to check out Malta Goya....sounds familiar but I've never purchased it.

Thanks again, folks...

beowulf said:

Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it. Yes, my wife and most of her friends are turned off by bitterness, and I'm sure they're not alone. Sweet coffee, sweet dessert wine and maybe a lambic on the sweet side is pretty much her speed right now.

I may do a 1-3 gallon trial run as one of you indicated just to see if it's palatable before diving in. She doesn't drink much alcohol anyway so even that may last awhile. That way if I do need to add a smidgen of bittering hops I can do so on a smaller scale.

So yes, maybe it's not technically "beer" without hops...perhaps if it's worth drinking we'll have to devise a new name. I'll have to check out Malta Goya....sounds familiar but I've never purchased it.

Thanks again, folks...

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judging from what she likes, I wonder if a mead, or perhaps some aplelwine would be more to her liking? I've been making apfelwine with a half gallon of pomegranite, and a half gallon blueberry, and the women in my life are crazy for it.

Isn't beer without hops essentially "malt liquor"?

i dont think malta goya would be similar, since malta goya isnt fermented

Just throw in a single hop pellet, then you can at least call it "beer".

I'd definitely go with a 1 gallon test batch because I'm willing to bet that it's just going to be too sweet, even for her. Then you can experiment some more with just enough hops to take the edge off, but still leave it extra sweet.

The only "law" saying beer has to have hops is the Reinheitsgebot, which was actually more geared to keep stuff OUT of beer, not keep stuff like hops IN.

The Reinheitsgebot is an old outdated beer law that really had more to do with taxation than anything. So the answer is...yes its still beer with no hops. I'd venture to say any fermented beverage made from malted grains can be called beer. If beer is the oldest fermented beverage in the world, how the hell were they making it for so long when hops only came in to popular use around 700 AD? Also, just a note, I'm pretty sure Malta Goya IS hopped, its just no fermented!

Unhopped beers fall generally under the umbrella of "Gruit". Most gruits will employ other "spices" that may or may not mimick the bitterness of hops. Some popular ones are heather, juniper berries, chamomile, bitter orange peel. Cocoa is pretty bitter and could probably be used. Rememer, people have been brewing for thousands of years. I'm sure all kinds of crazy stuff has been in beer at one point. One good thing to do when brewing no hop beer would be to get the FG as low as possible. Mashing low and using honey or other sugars would help this. A low FG = less sugar in the final beer = less sweet. Alcohol can be percieved as sweet, so don't get the gravity much above 8%. I have a 13% beer that finished at 1.000 and probably has 100+ IBUs, but everyone comments on the sweetness.

Basic Brewing Radio just had a really good Gruit episode. James interviewed the brewer with New Albanian Brewery who has done a series of no hop beers. Off the top of my head, I know he talked about at least 2 beers that employed no bittering of any sort. I think one might have been a braggot,and the other one spiced with mugwort, which isn't necessarily bitter.

Try making a hard lemonade... aka blonde ale with lemon juice. my wife loved it at a local brew fest. i couldnt tell it had any hops and it was sweet.

I've got this fermenting right now.

It's a psuedo ale. It does have chamomile in it. However that's not really as a hop substitute, as it has no bitterness.

I'll brew a couple of gallons in a week or so.
I have wondered about this myself.
I will probably use some Amber DME
What is the worst that could happen.....I'll get some sparkly sweet water.

Isn't a starter really an un-hopped beer?

Cold crash a starter to drop most of the yeast, decant to a sanitary container with an air lock and finish fermenting it. Should be able to bottle condition a single bottle from that. You might have to pay extra attention to sanitation without the hops though.

Another idea...

You could try something along the lines of the Unibroue Ephemere. Ephemere is very light on the IBUs (I think it's pretty much the Blanche de Chambly with apple), very bubbly, and with a bit of sweetness to it.

I also think that using (dried) sweet orange peel might be worth a shot (vs. bitter orange) and using fruit like apricot/peach or apple in the secondary might be worth a shot. The BMC / Blue Moon fans I know don't drink anything "bitter" or with too much funk.

You can't go wrong with a Belgian Wit with just a whiff of noble hops at the finish (for nose), sweet orange peel, and some kind of fruit.

Crunch the numbers and see what you come up with - that style might work for your lady.

(I'm working on a recipe for a girly beer for myself, an AG Belgian "specialy ale" brewed with honey and peach. I have to be in a mood for hop bombs, unless they're super malty like Rogue's Dead Guy ale)

There's a reason beer is brewed with hops, and that reason has nothing to do with purity laws, tradition, antiseptic properties of hops, etc. Taste. Pure and simple. I made a spiced stout with almost no hops. It was horrible. The base beer before the spices was bad, too. Once you've tasted a truly underhopped beer, you'll realize why other herbs fell to the wayside in favor of hops. They're just great.

That being said, as others have suggested, try a style with barely any IBUs.

Thanks everyone for the multitude of ideas! Looks like I have my work cut out for me.

In response to some of the suggestions:

I'm not opposed to adding just a smidgen of hops but would like to try it without first, if even just a small batch. If I need to add one pellet or .25 oz just to take the overly sweet edge off or to help balance the flavors, I've got no problems with that...perhaps a series of one-gallon batches to experiment with different hop amounts in addition to hop substitutes...

Yes, I plan to ferment this but keep it around the 5% or so range.

I have looked at gruit and braggot and may go down that road at some point as well. I know she likes mead so I may have to dive into that sometime as well...just requires more patience on my part...

There are so many options that I thought I would start with unhopped beer and work from there since at least I know how to do that right now and it'll take less time. So, perhaps the other beverages will be on my list for the coming months/years. Of course, I still have to make time for the really important stuff like IPAs, porters and stouts, old ales and dubbels, brown ales and blonde ales

The other unmentioned reason why hops are used is for antibacterial purposes. Hops need to go to 8 IBUs to keep lacto and several other bacteria out of the beer. Although you can make beer without hops, you will have to supplant the beer with something different to provide antibacterial properties or be even more sanitary than usual.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

Although you can make beer without hops, you will have to supplant the beer with something different to provide antibacterial properties or be even more sanitary than usual.

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Or just drink a little faster.

What you're describing is an ale. At least in the older British terminology to mean an unhopped or at least low hopped fermented malt drink, rather than the current American usage that usually defines ale to mean top fermented I think.

That's why you get those stories about laws in the middle ages banning the use of hops in ales. It was perfectly fine in contemporary beers of course - the defining difference between ale and beer being the use of hops. It isn't so distinct these days, IPA being an obvious example of a well hopped ale, but I sometimes think there is a lingering sense that some ales in Britain should be sweetish and not overhopped and maybe it harks back to this notion of them being two quite different drinks. But that might just be me.

I've not only tried it, I've brewed many, many batches of it and enjoyed every minute of it. It's the way malt beverages were consumed for centuries, and while it's an acquired taste for many modern people, it's immensely interesting.

Here is a very good thread on HBT discussing medieval unhopped "ale" .

Addressing the legality of hops, in America commercial breweries must by law include a certain proportion of hops in order to be called "beer" or "malt liquor" - 7 pounds per 100 barrels. This I discovered researching the legality of brewing true braggot at a brewpub. Note that equates to 0.03 ounces per gallon, or 0.18 ounces per typical five-gallon homebrew batch.

Addressing whether or not it will be horrible: That's in the eye of the beholder. It is an acquired taste, to be sure. The equation "No bitterness = horrible" is not chiseled in stone, and anyone who insists this must always be true is giving terrible advice, because one man's "blech" is another's "yum".

Further, the assumption that flavor was the cause of hops winning widespread acceptance is not supported by any historical data whatever. We simply don't know why hops not only came to dominate the bittering-herb competition but eclipsed unbittered malt beverage.

Not to get too dry and boring, but...The rise of hops coincides with the rise of commercial brewing over house-brewing. Hops are known to increase the shelf life of malt beverage due to preservative properties; the only real possible preservative in "ale" is alcohol. This in turn allowed commercial brewers to use less malt and less fuel to brew a batch of a given size, a considerable savings which helped their bottom line. Knowing this, brewing historians consider it more likely that hopped "beer" simply pushed unhopped beer out of the market regardless of what the consumer really wanted to drink.

More to the point of consumer desire vs. economic stimuli, even a century after the advent of hopped "beer" in England, people still railed against the stuff.

In 1542, Andrew Boorde, in his A Compendyous Regyment or a Dyetary of helth, wrote:

Ale is made of malte and water; and they the which do put any other thynge to ale than is rehersed, except yest, barme, or goddesgood , doth sophysticat there ale. Ale for an Englysshe man is a naturall drinke. Beere is made of malte, of hoppes, and water; it is a naturall drynke for a doche man, and nowe of late dayes it is moche vsed in Englande to the detryment of many Englysshe men … for the drynke is a colde drynke. Yet it doth make a man fatte, and doth inflate the bely, as it doth appere by the doche mennes faces and belyes. [1557 edition.]

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Regardless of Boorde's fury, beer almost completely supplanted indigenous ale by the end of the 16th century. (Traditional unbittered "ale", by the by, was brewed in homes in Britain until the very late 19th century the same way it was brewed in Anglo-Saxon times.)

All this is very interesting (at least to me), but it doesn't really address your specific problem: Your wife thinks she doesn't like what she perceives as "bitterness".

Gruit is still bitter, or it isn't gruit. Mead is not bitter, but it is, relative to beer, very strong indeed (10-20% ABV).

Frankly, I think she just hasn't tried enough different styles of beer. There are over 20,000 different beers produced on Planet Earth. Her saying, "I don't like beer" makes as much sense as her saying "I don't like food". Bullcrap. You just haven't found one she likes yet.

If she prefers sweet, try her on Mild or Nut Brown or Scotch ales. Belhaven's Wee Heavy springs to mind as a great starter, or even Sam Adams Scotch Ale.

Your best bet is to ask her what beverage alcohol she really enjoys. If it's Chardonnay, you can go one direction. If it's merlot, another. If it's coconut rum drinks, you're well and truly screwed.

Cheers,

Bob

If you are looking for something sweet, I brewed once trying to copy a very sweet and low alcohol beer called Malzbier. Dispite the hight IBU of 40, you can't taste that due to the high sugar content.
I had malta and it is quite different than malzbier, all I could taste was molasses. Malzbier, although off the scale on sweetness and ABV%, taste like beer.
Anyways, this is what I brewed. Tasted similar to what I was looking for, but I'm using it for cooking though . Roasting a ribeye with this beer tastes awesome!:cross:

Crystal 120L 1 lb
Crystal 40L 1 lb
Chocolate 350 1 lb
Briess aromatic 1 lb
Dextrin Malt 3 lb
Lactose 2 lb

Mash Temp 152F
Yeast 1084 Packs 1



Boil for (min) Ingredient Amount
60 Home Horizon 0.5oz
30 Home Hallertauer 0.5oz
20 Irish Moss 1tsp
10 Home Hallertauer 0.5oz
10 Lactose 2lb

Original Gravity 1.038
Final Gravity 1.030
Final ABV% 1.0
Color 28
IBU 40

bob said:

frankly, i think she just hasn't tried enough different styles of beer. There are over 20,000 different beers produced on planet earth. Her saying, "i don't like beer" makes as much sense as her saying "i don't like food". Bullcrap. You just haven't found one she likes yet.


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+1

I didn't really care for "beer" until I tried my first Belgian ale (Chimay's dubbel/red).

Two of my favorite beers are Unibroue's Ephemere and Avery's Sixteen (a saison brewed with honey, peaches, and jasmine flowers).

I also really loved a Belgian wit I tasted this summer at the Goose Island brewpub (their Willow St. Wit that had a wonderful orange aroma and taste to it).

Not a fan of sweet anything, but I do think there is something to what Bob said. See if you can try a few of the fruit-wit beers on your sweetie and see if she likes them.

Another trick might be to try a Belgian wit on her (blue moon would be fine, or pick someting like Witches Wit, which is also really nice), with a shot of Chambord in it. One of my old friends (an ex-bf) used to serve this at parties to the gals who didn't like "beer". It might be a way to introduce her to beer in a more sweet, girly sort of way (and it looks really pretty served in a tallboy - the chambord sort of makes a pretty purpley-pink layer at the bottom).

21st amendment normally has an imperial coffee stout on tap. the 80IBUs are incredibly deceiving, not a hint of bitterness IMO but the coffee flavor is intense. idk if your wife would like something like that, but good luck to you in any case.

edit: just remembered this recipe from my LHBS
http://www.sanfranciscobrewcraft.com/product_p/rec211.htm

no hops, made with star anise, wormwood, and lavender though.

Hello folks....I'd like to take this opportunity to set a few things straight, as it seems like throughout the course of this thread some assumptions may have been fabricated....

She doesn't like overly bitter or hoppy beer, and in her opinion most beers are bitter and/or hoppy. There are some that she enjoys, if just a drink or two. She does enjoy a lambic sometimes as well as beers like Sahti from Nøgne Ø and some coffee or chocolate-laced stouts (thank you, Avery Tap Room). This thread was constructed primarily to see if others had experience with brewing without any bitterness, hops or otherwise. Furthermore, I am the last one person to make a blanket statement about anyone "disliking all beer" and I'm certain that I did not say this. I'm merely seeking out some options regarding unhopped beer.

I do appreciate all of the helpful feedback as a lot of knowledge has been passed on through this thread. I've definitely learned quite a bit! I just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea, assuming that I've never introduced her to malty alternatives such as wee heavies, brown ales, dopplebocks and the like. It could be that it's not always bitterness that turns her off, but most of the time that's the case.

Bob - thanks for the info and the link to the Medieval Ale thread. Looks like it has a good recipe to try!

As I write this, she is informing me that it is specifically the hop flavor and bitterness that she does not care for. I think for some beers, the hoppiness may be detectable even if the IBUs are low. I think that's why she likes stouts as the malty and roasty flavors almost completely block out the hops. Sometimes it's a hit or miss but I guess part of the fun is that it's a challenge

I wonder if you might be able to find a specific hop profile she may enjoy. My SWMBO really doesn't care for noble hop profiles (especially willamette) but she loves the more citrusy/grapefruity flavors in amarillo and cascade.

I brewed a pale SMaSH with Amarillo and Belgian Pils that was really low on IBUs thanks to tons of late hop additions. She loved it.

Just a thought.

"Has anyone actually brewed a hopless beer?"

Yes, it's called Coors.

O'Doyle Rules

Hey Beowulf I had another thought.

Like others have mentioned beers without hops might be too sweet. So instead of bitterness to balance the sweet you might try sour. I think you mentioned she likes lindemanns or some such?

While lambic brewing is time consuming there is an alternative, try doing a sour mash. I recently brewed a variation of my peach saison but opted to sour it partially. It was my first time doing a sour mash so I only soured it a little. I took a couple quarts of water and added a small amount of LME (about 1/2 lb) and heated it to about 120 degrees. Then I took 1lb. of raw grain (whatever you use for base grain, I use belgian pils) and added to that in a large bucket.

I popped on a lid then let it set outside for a couple of days in the hot sun. It soured nicely. Then I added this sweet/sour mixture to my mash and then continued on as usual (mash, sparge, boil etc....) .

This beer is really lowly hopped (just a touch of willamette) but the sour balanced everything out. I brewed it for a friends wedding and everyone (much to my surprise) loved it.

After 3 weeks in the bottle it smelled like vomit. However after about 3 months for the wedding the smell got downgraded to "feet" (as most of the wedding congregation told me). But the taste was great.

My point is that the lacto smell (vomit/feet) seems to be mellowing with age. I saved a few bottles and have no plans to open one for at least another month.

Anywho, just a thought.

cheezydemon3 said:

Budweiser.

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... beat me to it ....

I suspect that beowulf's lady is a "super taster" - it's a genetic thing where they taste what is considered "normal" levels of bitterness - off the charts. Sometimes supertasters don't like cruciferous veggies like broccoli and brussels sprouts because they taste extra bitter and unpleasant.

I think my boyfriend is probably a supertaster, he picked out the coriander in my first batch, said the beer tasted like soap (I pegged it as astrigency caused by uncontrolled fermentation temps).

Anyway, you could try "bittering" with tea as well (a gruit), while technically it's not a "beer" it might have a nice flavor.

Other flavoring ideas to consider that are not hops, would be a wheat beer or saisson style brewed with rose hips and hibiscus. It would probably give a slightly sour flavor, give it a nice nose, and turn the brew a lovely shade of pink.

Or to that end, as someone else mentioned, a braggot with some nice herbaly tea (rose hips, hibiscus, chamomile, jasmine, sweet orange peel, could all lend some nice flavors) used to give it extra flavor and aroma.

I suppose that would make it a sort of misfit gruit, but might be something even I would attempt at some point.

My super taster boyfriend likes Rogue's "Dead Guy" ale which is pretty darn hoppy, and really liked the clone I made because its extra malty (probably because it's still a bit green). I think you may be on to something with malty, rich brews maybe appealing to her because the sweetness shines through the edge of the hops.

Good luck

It's a different kind of sweetness (maltose vs sucrose) but I say go for it dude. I'd make a small hopless beer 4-5% then add sugar and champagne yeast to dry it out.

Ideas abound! Thanks to all for your insight and recommendations. I have since added gruit, mead, braggot, medieval unhopped ale and several other options to my list of things to experiment with.

Mermaid - I think you hit the nail on the head with your "supertaster" moniker....I'll need to explore this further. Thanks for offering your ideas!

Homebrewtastic - The sour factor sounds like a winner. At a visit to Avery earlier this year, we sampled some Depuceleuse (a "barrel-aged wild ale")....OMG yum! Wife loved it too. I think the sourness overpowered the hops and bitterness, and like lambics made the experience vastly different than non-sour beer. On my list! I still have 3 bottles of this rare gem...hoarding them for a special occasion.

I'm sorry, but for those of you who provided such valuable and insightful recommendations such as "Budweiser" or "Coors", I'll reserve the right to withhold my appreciation...how utterly imaginative and original...

Here's the soured saison I did. This is for a 7.5 gallon batch. 2.5 gallons of it is actually going with some brett, pecan wood and cherries right now. Also the hops in this are minimal. 1 oz. of willamette that only happens for 10 minutes. You don't miss the hops at all in this beer. The peach puree in here is from peaches from my own peach tree, not canned peaches. You could use canned peaches but I would cut it down a shade because they're typically much sweeter. My puree consisted of a 2:1 unripe: ripe ratio. I've found the tarter the peaches are the more flavor they leave behind.

9 lbs. belgian pils
2 lbs. vienna malt
1 lb. torrified wheat
8 oz. 40L
1 oz. willamette - 10 min
6.8lbs. peach puree
5 lbs. underipe black plums -14 days secondary

1 lb. light LME

24 - 48 hours before brewday put the LME in some water (1/2 gal) and bring up to 120 - 130 degrees. Pour into a bucket and add 1lb. of grain. Put it somewhere to keep warm. I put it outside because it was over 100 degrees out, but a thermal blanket will work well too. Once this smells like satan's anus it's ready.

Mash grains with sour mix at 151 for 75 minutes in 4.5 gallons water. Sparge etc... as normal. Have the peach puree mostly frozen as it helps with chilling the wort.

Once your boil is done toss in the peach puree and chill. I pitched onto a cake of WLP575 (abbey) and added some Wyeast 3711 (french saison).

Ferment at 74 degrees for first day. Ramp up 3 degrees each day for 7 days until you hit 95 (I know I know that's high but you get some awesome yeasty funk).

Cut the plums into small enough pieces to fit in a carboy and freeze. Let them thaw out slowly in the fridge (the freezing helps kill some bacteria and reduces risk of infection) and add to the beer. Secondary on the plums for two weeks.

Rack off the plums and place in another vessel. Take a gravity reading here, let ferment a while longer (3 days) and check again. It's really hard to tell how much sugar you've added by adding the plums, and even once you've racked off you may still have some residual sugars floating about. So it's not a bad idea to practice extra caution.

Bottle as normal. Age for at least 3 months. What you end up with is a fairly dry beer with soft fruitiness and a sourness that's quite refreshing... and that smells a bit like feet... or maybe good cheese.

I've found that as this thing ages the more fruit comes out and the feet like smell dies down. It's definitely one of my favorite brews.

Well I tried it today.
I made a non-hopped beer
1# of Bavarian wheat Dme
3/4 # of clover honey
O.G. 1.032

Total of 2 gallons in a Mr. Beer Fermentor.
I should know in about three weeks how it tastes.

With the honey and wheat, who knows, it might already have a name and someone will get on here and say its not beer, its something else.

Maybe its a Wheat/Honey wine.

Whatever it is, I tried it.

I'll be back in a couple of weeks when I bottle it.
I'll taste it when I take the F.G. If its too sweet i'll add some hops to it.