Pre-bottle sample tastes sweet, hop flavor not coming through

I bottled a batch this weekend and was drinking my final gravity sample. I noticed that it was a bit sweet and there was no hop flavor at all. It was almost a bit Budweisery. The post-boil wort sample I tried on brew day had a noticable hop flavor.

I did a 2 gallon batch with the below recipe:

HOME BREW RECIPE:

Brew Method: BIAB
Style Name: American Pale Ale
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 2 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 3 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.035
Efficiency: 65% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.053
Final Gravity: 1.011
ABV (standard): 5.49%
IBU (rager): 46.69
SRM (morey): 5.88

FERMENTABLES:
4.2 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (94.6%)
0.12 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 20L (2.7%)
0.12 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 40L (2.7%)

HOPS:
0.2 oz - Simcoe, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 14, Use: Boil for 40 min, IBU: 25.42
0.4 oz - Citra, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 13.9, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 13.95
0.4 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 5.24
0.4 oz - Citra, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 13.9, Use: Boil for 1 min, IBU: 2.08

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Temperature, Temp: 150 F, Time: 60 min

YEAST:
White Labs - California Ale Yeast WLP001

2 week primary at 69 degrees

Is it just that I'm drinking a flat, warm sample or did something else go wrong?

Yes, flat, warm, samples aren't nearly as good or always very representative of what the beer will turn out like.
Carbonation decreases sweetness and increases perception of hop flavor and aroma.
Some things to consider:
Some of the hop aroma was blown out by CO2 during fermentation. Did you dry hop?
Was the beer finished fermentation? Had the beer stayed at a consistent gravity over at least 2-3 days? Had the yeast flocculated out leaving clear beer? If you are drinking green beer it won't taste as good, and if it hasn't finished fermentation suspended yeast and other trub particles may make the beer taste different than the final product.
How fresh were the hops? How were they stored? Old hops may have lost alpha acids and oils may have degraded, cutting flavor and aroma.
Update us on how the beer tastes after conditioning.

pdxal said:

Yes, flat, warm, samples aren't nearly as good or always very representative of what the beer will turn out like.
Carbonation decreases sweetness and increases perception of hop flavor and aroma.
Some things to consider:
Some of the hop aroma was blown out by CO2 during fermentation. Did you dry hop?
Was the beer finished fermentation? Had the beer stayed at a consistent gravity over at least 2-3 days? Had the yeast flocculated out leaving clear beer? If you are drinking green beer it won't taste as good, and if it hasn't finished fermentation suspended yeast and other trub particles may make the beer taste different than the final product.
How fresh were the hops? How were they stored? Old hops may have lost alpha acids and oils may have degraded, cutting flavor and aroma.
Update us on how the beer tastes after conditioning.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the thoughts. I didn't dry hop, just spent 14 days in primary. I took a FG reading three days before bottling at 1.011 and another the day of bottling at the same 1.011. I considered fermentation to be done at that point.

I had bought the hops at a local supply store the day before brewing, they seemed pretty fresh at the time. They are stored in a ziploc inside an airtight container in my freezer.

I plan on trying one this weekend to see how the carbonation is going and conditioning is progressing. Two weeks is my planned conditioning period, I'll let you guys know what I end up with.

Thanks! :rockin:

Keep us posted. ~45 IBUs and you should be tasting something, even warm and uncarbonated. Carbonation increases hop presence but cold temps numb the taste buds, so I don't see that the bitterness in particular should be different in a warm uncarbed sample (aroma yes, bitterness no). If there's still nothing after carbonation, the hops may have been stale/oxidized, or the boil may have been much lower than 212F... though if you went from 3 to 2 gallons in 60 minutes that doesn't seem likely.

I was thinking, would not squeezing out my hop bags at the end of the boil make a difference?

Did you account for using bags on your brewing software? Bags can cut utilization too.

pdxal said:

Did you account for using bags on your brewing software? Bags can cut utilization too.

Click to expand...

I'm using Brewers Friend, not sure they have an option for hop bags.

I definitely did not like the IBU hit from hop bags, I quit that noise after one batch. That would officially be my guess as to your culprit, since everything else looks normal.

People make hop spiders and do all kinds of stuff to keep hop material out of the ferment, but I'm not convinced that hop material has any effect on fermentation, and it's easy to filter out whenever you need to, using exactly the same material you use for hop bags. *shrug*

oljimmy said:

I definitely did not like the IBU hit from hop bags, I quit that noise after one batch. That would officially be my guess as to your culprit, since everything else looks normal.

People make hop spiders and do all kinds of stuff to keep hop material out of the ferment, but I'm not convinced that hop material has any effect on fermentation, and it's easy to filter out whenever you need to, using exactly the same material you use for hop bags. *shrug*

Click to expand...

If this batch does end up being off I'll try brewing a batch without using bags and see if it makes a difference.

Just gotta wait for conditioning to complete.

Opened one up after two weeks in the bottle at 72 degrees. The hop flavor was there but not nearly what I expected. Going to brew another batch with no hop socks and maybe a flameout addition to see if that helps.

Also didn't carbonate very much at all, was almost flat. I think I may have left too much headspace in the botttles or had slow yeast. I used one cooper's carb drop per bottle. I'm flipping the bottles to re-suspend the yeast and waiting another week, see if it helps.

I have always found a huge difference b/w beer out of the fermenter and cold conditioned carbed beer.

Too early to judge IMO.

No_Nrg said:

Opened one up after two weeks in the bottle at 72 degrees. The hop flavor was there but not nearly what I expected. Going to brew another batch with no hop socks and maybe a flameout addition to see if that helps.

Also didn't carbonate very much at all, was almost flat. I think I may have left too much headspace in the botttles or had slow yeast. I used one cooper's carb drop per bottle. I'm flipping the bottles to re-suspend the yeast and waiting another week, see if it helps.

Click to expand...

If it is not carbed it needs at least another week or maybe two. Don't panic yet.
Chances are this will turn out fine.

All the Best,
D. White