My porter turned a corner...for the worse!

[Beerthoven]

What happened to my robust porter?

Brewed on 3/29, bottled on 5/4. At first it was great, very three dimensional, sharp, and alive. I considered it one of the best beers I'd brewed to date.

The last few bottles have just been 'blah'. Merely a shadow of its former self. It's not infected or anything, it's just...deflated. And I still have 16 bottles left!

It's a very dark beer with an OG of 1.060, I expected it would have a long shelf life.

I have three theories:

1) Oxidation. Could only be HSA, as I do splash hot wort from my collection bucket into the kettle on brewday, but am very careful otherwise.
2) Sub-optimal storage temps. The room where I store my bottled beer gets into the upper-70's during the summer.
3) Death by natural causes. Beer wasn't meant to last forever.

Any other ideas?

 

[zoebisch01]

Well the thing I have noticed with my nutbrown that after it hits a certain time frame, it goes downhill very fast. It's not bad then, it just is not what it once was. I'd vote for number 2 coupled with a little of number 3. Write down your timeline. Brew it again and compare.

 

[Revvy]

I think you should send the last 16 bottles out to some of us so we can taste it....betcha we'd still think it was fanatastic....or at least could tell you what we think..

I don't think it's HSA, you're talking about a porter, not a light lager, and if HSA existed in the homebrew setting (I'm not 100% in belief on that) I think it would be masked by the depth of the flavor profile.

Oxydation after 5 months IS possible...it's probably to far back for you to remember if there were any problems with racking or anything that could have over aerated the beer....anything you can recall?

I too would think that a 1060 porter would last at least 12 months...

These weren't bottled in fliptops were they?

 

[Beerthoven]

I think you should send the last 16 bottles out to some of us so we can taste it....betcha we'd still think it was fanatastic....or at least could tell you what we think..

I don't think it's HSA, you're talking about a porter, not a light lager, and if HSA existed in the homebrew setting (I'm not 100% in belief on that) I think it would be masked by the depth of the flavor profile.

Oxydation after 5 months IS possible...it's probably to far back for you to remember if there were any problems with racking or anything that could have over aerated the beer....anything you can recall?

I too would think that a 1060 porter would last at least 12 months...

These weren't bottled in fliptops were they?

I doubt it's HSA either. These are bottled in regular pry-off bottles.

It's possible I'm simply being too hard on it. I recently read a thread where someone talked about a soy-sauce type flavor in dark beers. Now all I can think about is soy sauce when I drink this beer, because that flavor is definately there when you look for it. It kinda grosses me out a little, TBH.

The porter was batch #19. Batch #22 is a light English Pale Ale, and I still have some of those left. They are holding up just fine. So, I'm a little stumped.

 

[FreakinA]

I doubt it's HSA either. These are bottled in regular pry-off bottles.

It's possible I'm simply being too hard on it. I recently read a thread where someone talked about a soy-sauce type flavor in dark beers. Now all I can think about is soy sauce when I drink this beer, because that flavor is definately there when you look for it. It kinda grosses me out a little, TBH.

The porter was batch #19. Batch #22 is a light English Pale Ale, and I still have some of those left. They are holding up just fine. So, I'm a little stumped.

I let my neighbor try one of my brews. She hardly cant stomach the lightest of lights from the BMC rejects(natty/stones) and she kept saying my beer(it was a scottish ale) had a soy sauce flavorr. I never tasted that from it, but she was adament.