Bitter beer!!

I just tasted my first bottle after letting it all sit for two weeks. The kit was for pale ale, but that first bottle was very bitter...definitely not pale ale. Anyone have any ideas for what would have turned a pale ale to something this bitter? Meaning, what did I do wrong?

What was the recipe?

Let it sit!!! I forget exactly what the statistic is but I think that a beer becomes 50% less bitter after about 6 months or something like that. Just be patient and let it age a bit. Don't pour it out! If you don't want it, send it to me!

Where did the kit come from? Maybe somebody has had it and can confirm if it is normal or not.

Is this the first time you tasted young hoppy beer?

Did you add all the hops at the beginning of the boil?

This is my first batch ever, so I don't really know what to expect, and it probably is my first time tasting very young beer. Perhaps it is just a case of needing to age it more. The directions actually said to ferment for two weeks but to add another 4-6 weeks for better flavor, but the beer brew store told me that I didn't have to wait that long. Perhaps they were wrong. I think I'll just sit on it for a while and try another bottle after a month. Thanks for the inspiring words. I was having nightmare visions of dumping it all out!!
Just so I know then: young beer is bitter and it becomes less bitter as it ages?

pale ale should be pretty firmly bitter...at least the way I make it

From the bjcp guidelines for American Pale Ale
" The balance is typically towards the late hops and bitterness, but the malt presence can be substantial. Caramel flavors are usually restrained or absent. Fruity esters can be moderate to none. Moderate to high hop bitterness with a medium to dry finish. Hop flavor and bitterness often lingers into the finish. No diacetyl. Dry hopping (if used) may add grassy notes, although this character should not be excessive."

strat_thru_marshall said:

pale ale should be pretty firmly bitter...at least the way I make it

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Oh, I agree. It should have some bitterness. But not this much! It's very, very bitter, like a dirty boot stomping on your tongue bitter.

slafaive said:

Oh, I agree. It should have some bitterness. But not this much! It's very, very bitter, like a dirty boot stomping on your tongue bitter.

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hmm, give us the recipe...need it to help diagnose

That just means you made an IIPA.

Seriously though, need to see the recipe.

slafaive said:

like a dirty boot stomping on your tongue bitter.

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Funny, that's the first sign that I look for to make sure I hopped sufficiently. Somewhere between stomping and nuking the tongue.:rockin:

GuldTuborg said:

Funny, that's the first sign that I look for to make sure I hopped sufficiently. Somewhere between stomping and nuking the tongue.:rockin:

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Well for american pale ale i prefer "punch in the face" bitter but that's just personal taste.

Like others have said, OP, please post the recipe. We literally have no idea what happened until you do.

Recipe

1. Steep one pound of crushed crystal malt in two gallons of water for 20 minutes.
2. Boil and then add 6.6 pounds of plain amber malt extract syrup.
3. Add two ounces of Columbus hops (bittering)
4. Boil for 55 minutes and add one ounce of Columbus hops (finishing) 15 minutes prior to end of boil. Add one ounce of Columbus hops (aroma) five minutes prior to end of boil.
5. Rapidly cool wort to 70 degrees (I think I only got it to about 95).
6. Pour into main fermenter and add yeast.
7. Then I let it ferment for two weeks (the specific gravity wouldn't come to what I needed; I think it might have something to do with the 95 temp?)
8. Dissolve five ounces of priming sugar in two cups of water and boil for five minutes. Add to siphon bucket with wort.
9. I then let it sit for two weeks per the instructions. I does say for best flavor to age for an additional 21 days.

Hope that helps.

slafaive said:

Recipe

3. Add two ounces of Columbus hops (bittering)
4. Boil for 55 minutes and add one ounce of Columbus hops (finishing) 15 Hope that helps.

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Umm, yeah it does. Columbus is a high AA hop

Let's see, at 15% AA I get 133 IBU assuming 26% utilization for the 60 min
addition but since it's mostly extract and there's not much hot
break it's probably more like 30% utilization or 150 IBU. So basically
you used about 4 times as much hops as you need for a nice
IPA. IOW, maybe half an ounce for 60 min and a quarter ounce
at 15 min would have been good.

Ray

What was your final gravity (FG)? When did you reach that FG? Did you rack it into a secondary fermenter?

The recipe states to bottle after 2 weeks, which may be too short. Normally we ferment for at least 3 weeks whole weeks in the primary/secondary fermenters combined. This is to alloww the yeast to clean up some of the off flavours produced during a fermentation. One common problem is acetadelhyde(sp?), which is often described as a "green apple" taste. This will go away, don't think about your beer for at least a month unless you want to experiment. I think we can all say for sure that this will go away. I recently brewed an ESB that I thought I was going to have to dump even after being bottled for 2 weeks, 2 weeks later its SWMBO's favorite beer.

Thanks for the information. Sounds like my kit might have been wacked out. It was a Brewer's Best kit. I'll just wait four weeks and pop open a bottle to see how it tastes.

Brewing beer certainly sounds like more of a chemistry project than I had thought. Does anyone have a good book or site (maybe even this one ) that goes into the chemistry of brewing beer so that I could understand this stuff myself instead of just relying on someone's recipe?

slafaive said:

Thanks for the information. Sounds like my kit might have been wacked out. It was a Brewer's Best kit. I'll just wait four weeks and pop open a bottle to see how it tastes.

Brewing beer certainly sounds like more of a chemistry project than I had thought. Does anyone have a good book or site (maybe even this one ) that goes into the chemistry of brewing beer so that I could understand this stuff myself instead of just relying on someone's recipe?

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Give that beer a few months or a year. I bet it'll be awesome.

'How to Brew' by Jon Palmer....you can read it on line here http://howtobrew.com/ or buy it from Amazon or any HBS or website. Its a great read and handy to have around.

dvdanny said:

Give that beer a few months or a year. I bet it'll be awesome.

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Yes, this ^^^


3 oz of columbus will be WAY bitter. 2 oz at 60 mins is crazy for an APA..

Did you use tap water? If so, check into chlorine or chloramine. Either one could give you a strong, harsh, bitter flavor.

Pilgarlic said:

Did you use tap water? If so, check into chlorine or chloramine. Either one could give you a strong, harsh, bitter flavor.

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I think 133 IBU's of columbus hops gave him a harsh bitter flavor

Laffing... I'd say so.

ITs not crazy it sounds quite tasty actually

I'm bitter and i like it that way..

strat_thru_marshall said:

Yes, this ^^^


3 oz of columbus will be WAY bitter. 2 oz at 60 mins is crazy for an APA..

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So are Brewer's Best kits not good then, or did I probably just get a bad one?

^^^ I'm fairly surprised a BB kit came with 4oz of Columbus hops. You're sure they were Columbus?

Another vote siding for the option of setting it aside for 6 mo. to a year.

Get brewing on a new batch and put this one out of your mind. When you come back to it, I'll bet it's delicious. You'll then thank yourself for waiting, rather than choking down the bitterness way back when.