Does excess bitterness fade over extended aging?

[TheOriginalDBS]

Hey Everyone! Long time reader of this forum, but a seldom poster.

After 10+ years of homebrewing, I decided to brew an english barleywine. I love rye, and have a sack of rye malt to use, so I created a recipe with 32% rye malt. Here's the recipe:

6 gallons
OG: 1.100
FG: still fermenting (more on that below)
IBU: 50
32% rye malt
3% caramunich ii
3% aromatic malt
2oz of Simpsons DRC (for color more than anything)
the remainder, Maris Otter

I do BIAB. I collected a lot more wort than I anticipated, so I ended up boiling for 7 hours. 1oz of magnum at first wort, 1 oz of EKG at 10 mins to go, and 1oz Mt Hood at flameout.

At yeast pitch, the malt aroma was awesome. But the hydro sample was really bitter. My water chemistry is fairly dialed in (I send my water to Ward Labs twice per year, and it's consistently pretty hard, so I cut every batch with a few gallons of distilled and then add 3-5g of calcium chloride--imprecise...I know...sue me), and I don't think I oversparged by any stretch of the imagination, so I think astringency from that source is unlikely. I pulled a sample today (day 8) out of curiosity, and the bitterness has improved slightly, but not by much. If this amount of bitterness remains, I candidly think this beer will be undrinkable without blending it into something sweeter later on.

My hypothesis is that the bitterness is coming from either the rye, the long FWH boil of the magnum, or some combination thereof. The head-scratcher is, at 50 IBUs and a 1.100 OG, this beer just shouldn't come across as bitter.

Bottom line question: In your experience, do you all think the bitterness will fade over extended aging (i.e., at least 6 months)? If so, is bulk aging in a keg or carboy better than in the bottle to facilitate that process? Alternatively, would it be worth boiling some dextrose and dumping that into the keg, and racking on top? I'd also be curious to see if anyone has had experience brewing with a lot of rye like I did, and whether that could be a contributing factor.

 

[AlexKay]

Two things going on here. First, green beer (day 8 is absolutely still green) is often unpleasantly bitter. Bitter hop compounds will precipitate out, either by themselves or along with the yeast, in the first few weeks. Second, the bitterness of finished beer will also fade with time as the iso alpha acids oxidize, usually on the timescale of months to years. It's standard to make a barleywine that's too bitter, correcting for the fact that when you drink it at 6 months or two years or whatever, it'll taste right.

 

[dwhite60]

Yes, it will.

I've made a few I've had to wait out. Sadly though, any hop flavor or aroma components tend to fade too. Aroma goes faster than flavor.

Think I'd have lived with the bigger batch, thinner beer, with maybe a two hour boil, rather than do a seven
hour boil. I'd have then tried this recipe again.

 

[Bobby_M]

Barleywine is pretty much undrinkable the first month AFTER fermentation.

 

[Jack Arandir]

Barleywine is pretty much undrinkable the first month AFTER fermentation.

I agree. It's far too early to know if the bitterness is appropriate. Any interventions you make now could make it worse. I would let primary finish, rack it to a carboy/keg/barrel, and bulk age it. Taste test monthly and take notes. If at 6 months it's too bitter, then think about interventions.

Chances are this will be a phenomenal beer.