That Hoegaarden Flavour

[jcfontario]

After 3 weeks of priming, I finally opened a bottle from my latest batch and it had that nice spicy Hoegaarden flavor. The only problem was that I was brewing a 5 gallon batch of Hoegaarden clone, I was making Biermuncher's Oktoberfast Ale!

For reference, I did a partial mash with Munich, Vienna, Crystal 15, Xrystal 60, Aromatic and 2-row malts at 152-153 F (no wheat). Added LME at the end of the boil, but still missed my OG so I added another 1 lb DME before pitching S-05 yeast. Fermented for 15 days at 64 F. Cold crash at 34 F for 3 weeks then bottled with corn sugar.

If I closed my eyes, I would say that it was a Hoegaarden so it is still drinkable, but, of course, it is nowhere near what I was expecting, This is probably my first miss in a couple of years of brewing.

Did I likely have an infection, or could something else be the cause?

 

[mashpaddled]

Witbier strains like the Hoegaarden strain are phenolic-forward. If you got that with a clean ale strain then either the beer is infected or you introduced phenols somewhere along the way. Brewing with chlorinated and untreated water? Cleaning with bleach? Not a lot of ways you'll introduce phenols outside of those two or an infection.