Honey ale, why are you such a jerk to me?

So I've been holding off posting this for weeks, hoping that the longer my honey ale sat in the bottles, it would get better. Well, it isnt. So here's the story/question.

We made a honey ale from a kit. We followed all the directions. We sanitized the living crap out of everything. And after several weeks in the bottles, and then several MORE weeks in the bottles, it has a sour smell/taste. To the point where I find it to be unpalatable. We used tettnang hops, vanguard hops, 8 oz carapils, 3 lbs of clover honey, and 3.3 lbs of gold LME. 4 weeks in the primary as well. We also used s-05 yeast, which is the closest I can point to for a potential taste like this. Any ideas, suggestions, stories similar? I don't think or know if it could be infected, and I'm reluctant to say it is because of the many posts of "no it isn't" that I have seen on here. Any help is awesome and appreciated.

What temperature did you ferment at?

It varied between 65 to 68, but never higher than that.

Another point that may be noteworthy- after the hotbreak during the boil, there were large chunks of what looked to be protein boiling around in there. Never seen it that prominent before, but assumed it had something to do with the honey itself, seeing that there was so much of it.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what's causing the sour taste.

I know that boiling honey drives off desirable aromatics, which is why I add it post-boil. I've only used orange blossom honey in beer, but I've used clover honey in mead, but never had an issue with sour flavors.

US-05 isn't my favorite yeast by any measure ( only used it a few times ), but I've never heard it giving a sour off flavor. I do know that at lower ale temperatures it's really clean.

Is the sourness getting more pronounced as time goes on, or is it constant. I would think that it getting more sour over time would be an indicator of an infection.

Other than that, I'm stumped. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

How many bottles have to sampled? Is it consistent through all the bottles you've had so far?

Could be old LME. Could be the honey itself. Honey won't add sweetness. It's going to add more floral notes. How long did you boil the honey? Did you maybe over heat your steeping grains or somehow extract tannins from the husks?

I brewed a honey ale kit from Midwest Supplies and had similar trouble. I bottled 6 and put the rest in a keg. After 3 or 4 month it was so unpalatable (can't remember if it was sour - don't have notes with me) I dumped the keg.
Recently I tried the bottled portion, and around 2 years after brewing it it tastes great. I did not taste it between 3 or 4 months and ~2 years.

ombre42 said:

I brewed a honey ale kit from Midwest Supplies and had similar trouble. I bottled 6 and put the rest in a keg. After 3 or 4 month it was so unpalatable (can't remember if it was sour - don't have notes with me) I dumped the keg.
Recently I tried the bottled portion, and around 2 years after brewing it it tastes great. I did not taste it between 3 or 4 months and ~2 years.

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I brewed an AG batch of Honey wheat a few months ago. I added the honey in the secondary. I kegged it a month ago. It also has an unpalateable sour taste. My son and I brew together we made 10 gallons wort and fermented our 5 gal separately. He hasn't tried his yet.

I have about given up on this batch but after reading all of the do not dump threads, I have just pushed it to the back of the kegorator for now. This post gives me hope.

IXVolt said:

How many bottles have to sampled? Is it consistent through all the bottles you've had so far?

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I've tasted the ale of which the OP speaks, it's consistent across all the bottles we have tried (which up to this point is about 8). It improved marginally over the time it's been in the bottle, however, it seems the improvement has stopped.

I think i could envison honey giving a dry tartness,is it that strong of a sour? Only thing you can do now is age it and see how it goes.

sometimes a new brewer makes great beer right off the bat and other times it just sucks, it takes practice just like making any other food. my first few batches were bad and i dumped them, almost 2 yrs later i'm confident my beer will taste good and if it doesn't i usually know exactly why.

How did it look in the fermenter before you bottled it? Did it still have the chunks up at the top? Sounds infected. Lactobacillus will give beer sour taste. Happened to me about 3 weeks ago.

3lbs of honey is a lot if your malt bill is only 3.3lbs lme, i would let it sit and mellow out for a while.

If you used half honey and half malt extract, that sounds more like a braggot than a beer per se. I made one that required 7 months of bulk aging and 6 weeks in the bottle, even at only 6% ABV, in order to start being palatable.

Also, the few meads that I've made at about 6-7% ABV have required 3-4 extra weeks in the bottle to smooth out; prior to that, they had a sourish aftertaste to them. Not a lactic sourness, just a honey-with-no-more-sugar-in-it sourness.

I'd suspect that you might just need to age it some more.

JJL said:

Could be old LME. Could be the honey itself. Honey won't add sweetness. It's going to add more floral notes. How long did you boil the honey? Did you maybe over heat your steeping grains or somehow extract tannins from the husks?

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The honey boiled for 20 minutes. And the steeping grains were at 155-160, never higher than that.

sanibel14 said:

How did it look in the fermenter before you bottled it? Did it still have the chunks up at the top? Sounds infected. Lactobacillus will give beer sour taste. Happened to me about 3 weeks ago.

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We let it ferment for 3 weeks. It did not still have chunks in it when bottled, but the yeast in the bottles is pretty present (also probably more noticeable because of how clear the ale is before pouring. Then if the yeast gets moved around it turns fairly cloudy.)

Did you try it before it went into the fermenter? I'm just curious because I brewed a Honey Cream Ale last week that tasted great prior to going into the fermenter, worried that after fermenting it will have the same sour taste.

rmaloney86 said:

Did you try it before it went into the fermenter? I'm just curious because I brewed a Honey Cream Ale last week that tasted great prior to going into the fermenter, worried that after fermenting it will have the same sour taste.

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We did try it before going into the fermenter, and it tasted fine. I actually was worried it wouldn't have enough honey flavor at that point.

Is it possible that the sourness is just a really low pH? Honey is pretty acidic on its own, and that ratio of honey to malt is fairly high (that almost seems more like a braggot than an ale). It probably just needs to age for a much longer period. Young meads taste sour to me, but that goes away after several months.

This type of issue is why I don't brew with honey anymore. The few times I did use it, it gave me unusual flavors. I've never had a sour flavor, but I've had flavors ranging from floral to bitter. I prefer to use honey malt. It gives me more consistent results.

I have made a honey wheat that wasn't very palatable after two months that mellowed out to be delicious in six and I have a cyser that is 10 months old that is just now starting to come into its own. I think it will be better around Christmas or next April.

In my experience, there is a reason that mead has to age; honey throws off some funky stuff when it's young. Let it age and it will get better... I hope.

Great, now I'm paranoid. I just brewed the same honey bee ale 3 days ago. I was hoping it would be ready this summer but now it sounds like it won't be ready untill the fall or Christmas.

BTW what was your OG? Mine was 1.040 which seemed a little low, but I might of drawn it from the top after adding water.

Sounds like this is a braggot,as said previously.More than 30% honey and your in non-beer taste territory.Looks like you need to age it,like meads need but maybe not as long since its not all honey. Hope it turns out good for you. I just wouldnt expect it to taste like beer exactly. I did 30% honey and used honey to prime and i love the beer so far which is still conditioning but about ready bascically.

NateM137 said:

Great, now I'm paranoid. I just brewed the same honey bee ale 3 days ago. I was hoping it would be ready this summer but now it sounds like it won't be ready untill the fall or Christmas.

BTW what was your OG? Mine was 1.040 which seemed a little low, but I might of drawn it from the top after adding water.

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Our OG was 1.044. FG was 1.004.

This is how clear it came out. No signs of infection... Just totally stumped. I'm hoping you folks are right and it just needs more time. Its already been 4 months since the brew date, which is why I'm concerned with it...

So we waited a month, and tried it again. It was still just as sour. I hate to say it, but this batch is getting dumped out... Something is definitely wrong with it. April through mid August, and nothing improves. Such a shame, my first bad batch.

So I gave the bottles I had of this another taste test, I just didn't have the heart to dump them out. It improved a *little* but is still weird. It tastes more like a champagne now... This batch continues to baffle me almost a year after my last post in this thread.

Pour some in a sanitized jug and leave it somewhere warm or a while. If a pellicle forms, it's infected. If not, then something else is wacky with the process.

Whoops - just notices this thread is a year old. Ha!

I just made a Honey Ale and know from my batches of Honey Mead that this beer will take some time. It spent 5 days in the primary (I did not add the honey during the boil). I racked it over to the secondary and then added the honey. I expect it to stay in the secondary for 4-5 weeks. I am going to keg it after that. I have quite a few kegs so this one set off to the side won't be a huge deal. I love toying with honey.

Subscribed. I brewed my version of a honey ale 4 weeks ago. I used 8 oz Carapils, 3.3 lbs golden LME, 4lbs of wild flower honey, 1tbsp cinnamon and 2 oz of hops. Added bittering hops at 60 mins. 3# honey at 30. Then at flame out added 1 extra lbs of honey, cinnamon, and 1 oz hops. Added dry s-05 and fermented at 64 degrees for 2 weeks. Cold crashed 2 days and bottled for 2 weeks. Smelled very sour when bottling. Tried at 1 week in bottle and had a very sour pungent taste at end. 2 weeks in and totally changed. Nice spice flavor up front and honey flavor in back now. Unbelievable how much it changed. I would say honey beers take some time to condition giving the ingrediants. Leave it bottle as long as possible and keep trying week to week and see if it changes. I would say this may have fermented too warm causing a off flavor. Just my ..02 cents. Good luck. Here's mine

Wow, that looks great!!

So I broke out one of the old bottles this past weekend, just out of curiosity. This time, it tasted like an apple juice. This is the strangest beer I've made, it just seems to defy all expectations and gets weirder as it ages. I am considering trying this recipe again, to see what another batch is like. From sour weird flavor, to champagne flavor, to an apple juice like flavor... bizarre.

I have brewed with honey and brewed a honey brown today. Last honey red I made was my best beer ever. This honey brown already promises to be better.

I'd say you got a weird bug.


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