19 days in.. beer tastes... "gamey"

I can't quite describe what I am experiencing, but I get what I can only describe as a "gamey" flavor in the after-taste of my first batch.

1056 yeast + citra hops, pitched at 72 degrees and left in primary fermentation until a few days ago.

I've sampled the brew a few times when taking my final gravity reading to confirm fermentation as stopped.. get the same bleh aftertaste every time.

I dry hopped hoping to improve the flavor... It smells amazing. But the crappy aftertaste is still there...

Wonder what I did? Oxidation?

First mistake? You sampled beer that wasn't done.

It's green. It's not carbed. So many advocate sampling out of the fermenter, trying bottles at 1 week, 2 weeks, etc... all that does is waste a lot of beer before it is ready, and make new brewers worry.

Until the beer is fully carbed (3 weeks at 70 degrees is the baseline for normal gravity beers), you can't be too sure WHAT it might taste like... and even then, it may need a couple of weeks (or more) to age.

Relax. Yeast know how to make beer. Let them.

Just like he said, it is amazing how much the flavors and mouthfeel can change in a few weeks time. Let the brew sit, it will get better.

idiosyncronaut said:

I can't quite describe what I am experiencing, but I get what I can only describe as a "gamey" flavor in the after-taste of my first batch.

1056 yeast + citra hops, pitched at 72 degrees and left in primary fermentation until a few days ago.

I've sampled the brew a few times when taking my final gravity reading to confirm fermentation as stopped.. get the same bleh aftertaste every time.

I dry hopped hoping to improve the flavor... It smells amazing. But the crappy aftertaste is still there...

Wonder what I did? Oxidation?

Click to expand...

Hmmm, at what point in the boil did you add the Leg of Lamb?

Here's some anecdotal evidence for the OP:

My first brew was an English brown ale kit from AHS (extract + specialty grains). I tasted the wort before I pitched yeast; good, sweet (expected). I was excited.

I tasted it when transferring to secondary, and was worried - very thin and watery. Little grain taste. Alcohol bite.

Much the same at bottling time. A little more grain flavor, but still thin, with a serious "warming" feel.

At three weeks? A very solid, nicely carbed brown ale with nice body. Not breathtaking, but honestly, one of the better brown ales I've ever had.

Oh, and two nights ago, I had another one - been in bottles almost four months now. The little faults I'd seen in it (an odd twang of an aftertaste) are all but gone completely. I'd now call this an EXCELLENT brown ale.

Patience, grasshopper.

idiosyncronaut said:

I can't quite describe what I am experiencing, but I get what I can only describe as a "gamey" flavor in the after-taste of my first batch.

1056 yeast + citra hops, pitched at 72 degrees and left in primary fermentation until a few days ago.

I've sampled the brew a few times when taking my final gravity reading to confirm fermentation as stopped.. get the same bleh aftertaste every time.

I dry hopped hoping to improve the flavor... It smells amazing. But the crappy aftertaste is still there...

Wonder what I did? Oxidation?

Click to expand...

Look at the top right of the page, there's a mug of beer with a search function. Search "green beer"....... then wait a couple weeks and try your delicious beer again.

homebrewdad said:

First mistake? You sampled beer that wasn't done.

Click to expand...

there's nothing wrong with sampling your beer along the way...as long as you know the end product will probably be something pretty different.

atom said:

there's nothing wrong with sampling your beer along the way...as long as you know the end product will probably be something pretty different.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but most new brewers don't understand that.

Think about it. How many posts do we see here every single week with people wondering what they did wrong, how they can fix it, shoould they dump the batch, etc, etc. 95+% of the time, they perceived off flavor is from a green beer. 99+% of the time, the issues evaporate, given just a little time.

Why drink beer that isn't ready? It doesn't bring you pleasure. It makes you worry what you did wrong. It decreases the amount of good beer that you have available.

I know it's a losing battle on this forum, but the term "green beer" refers to the green apple taste of acetaldehyde in unconditioned beer. This goes away completely within roughly 48 hours of the end of primary fermentation - which takes about 3 days for an average to mid gravity ale. I keg and force carb, so I can cut some time off compared to bottling, but most of my beers go grain to glass in 21 days. At 19, yours should definitely not be "green."

If your beer is cloudy, what you're most likely tasting is "yeast bite," a tart, citrus-like or sulfurous aftertaste due to yeast cells themselves. If that's the case, all you need to do is get them out of suspension. If you have the ability to cold crash and / or use finings, this can happen in as little as 12 hours. If not, it'll take a little longer, hence the month long primary advocated by many on this site.

Once your beer is clear, if you still have an off flavor, there's a deficiency in your ingredients or process that should be addressed. Without carbonation, mouthfeel and hop balance can be way out of whack, but you shouldn't have any identifiable flavors that don't occur in a good beer. A list of the most common off flavors and their causes and remedies can be found in Palmer ( http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html ). Yes, the yeast can "clean up after themselves" to a degree, but it's best to "brew clean" and not create the problem to begin with.