First brew. IPA fruity taste.

So my first brew I ever made is now ready and it was a kit beer. It was an all grain IPAD. It has a great head and color but it has an apricot fruity taste. I follow the kit instructions exactly. Any ideas?

Welcome to the forum.

You might have fermented a little hot, or otherwise stressed your yeast. How "old" is the beer now?

What temp did you ferment at? What yeast did you use?

+1 above.... and

bottle conditioned? carbing in the bottle too warm can do that also.

It was Munton's ale yeast that came with the kit and it was fermented at 68 degrees.

rumainex said:

It was Munton's ale yeast that came with the kit and it was fermented at 68 degrees.

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68 room temp or wort temp?

Is that 68 degrees ambient air temperature? Or temperature of the beer itself? If that's ambient air temp, you could have been fermenting as high as 78 which could throw a fair amount of esters.

I just have a tape on thermometer on the side of the fermenting bucket. It says 68 to 70 degrees.

The most important question: Does it taste good to you? If yes, then I wouldn't worry too much about it, but learn why you had the flavor in the first place.

Its an IPA. What hops did you use. Some hops are very fruity/citrusy

Munton's yeast is a poor quality yeast, and it's a small package (7 grams) as well, so it's probably a combination of underpitching the yeast (not using quite enough yeast at the beginning) and the funky off-flavors that Munton's produces.

I'd not use Munton's or Cooper's yeast, and instead buy a quality ale yeast in the future.

Been there. I agree with above. You should try to control the temp of the fermenter to under 70 if you can. I wonder if the room temp was what was at 68 to 70. That' why I plan to use a water cooler w/ ice bottles and a room heater on a thermostat.

I think you all may be right. I just tasted my second batch of beer tonight which is German light beer from the same kit company. It also had Muntons yeast in the kit. It had not quite conditioned completely yet but definitely has the same fruity apricot type taste.

My first experimental beer that I hand picked the ingredients for is in its secondary fermentation stage right now. I used US 0.5 yeast and this time filtered all the water I used in the brewing and fermenting process. I also will be using molasses instead of corn sugar for the carbonation. So when that batch is ready to taste I'm hoping it does not have the same fruity flavor. If it does then it is for sure the fermenting temperature because I have changed the yeast, hopes, grains, water, and malt extract. The one thing that will be the same is the temperature.

Thanks for all the good info. I will let you know the results of whatever I find.

Yooper said:

Munton's yeast is a poor quality yeast, and it's a small package (7 grams) as well, so it's probably a combination of underpitching the yeast (not using quite enough yeast at the beginning) and the funky off-flavors that Munton's produces.

I'd not use Munton's or Cooper's yeast, and instead buy a quality ale yeast in the future.

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This. I used that yeast one time, never again. I would suggest Notthingham personally, but an Ale yeast from WL would work well also.