strange taste related to temperature

Bear with me, this might be a long one...

I'm on my 6th or 8th batch, brewing browns, porters, stouts. Always seemed to notice a strange aftertaste, and wondered what it was. Had the same strange aftertaste, but even moreso, on a buddies rootbeer that overcarbed. On all my other brews before my last one, I used Nottingham yeast. I changed types of water several times to make sure that wasn't it, and on this last batch (oak bourbon vanilla porter) I used the upgraded liquid yeast, as I was SURE that the yeast was doing it.

Primary for two weeks, secondary for 3, been bottle conditioning at 73 degrees for about a month. When I stick one in the fridge for a day, and pull it out, open it up, and start drinking, I get the same funny aftertaste as all the others.

BUT---- If I let it warm up to almost room temperature, the aftertaste all but dissappears, and I am left with the best I have made to date.

I can't figure it out, since I got the taste with a buddies brew as well, and the only thing that has remained consistant is the priming sugar, which has been the fine corn sugar, but from different companies.

It's almost like the amount of carbonation and temperature is proportional to the taste/aftertaste. The opened room temp stuff is still carbed though. I really wish I could describe what its like, as it's not present in any of the professional stuff I get, and my brewing buddy says he has noticed the same thing in his beers, but doesn't care...

 

Am I answering my own question with the priming sugar imparting a certain taste? But why would temp affect it?

 

Different temperatures likely cause different tastes to "shine" more than others. As a simple and probably inaccurate example: maybe when the beer is cold, the hop flavor is slightly more subdued than the hop bitterness, and you taste more of that. But when warmed up, the flavor/aroma are slightly more enhanced and help mask some of the bitterness?

Again, that's just an example, and not necessarily accurate. Could happen to any of the beer's flavors, like yeast, water, grain type, etc. Might even be how you perceive CO2 at different temperatures.

 

I've always noticed that regardless of style, homebrew, or commercial, stale, green, or perfectly aged the temperature makes a big difference. Some beer is simply better ice cold, some is better warm, or somewhere in between.

My favorite example is a Guinness Irish Stout. -- If you refrigerate one of those and get it near ice cold, you're wasting your time drinking it because you're missing out on what it actually tastes like. a Keystone Light? Better get that bad boy next to freezing otherwise you might not be able to drink it at all.

Also, temperature will affect aroma, and your sense of smell has a great influence on your sense of taste.

 

What temp are you fermenting at? The off-tastes you describe sound like your fermentation temp might be a little high.

 

been fermenting at 73-75. Had a brown I fermented at 85-90 for 3 days (don't ask), so have a good idea of that taste... LOL It took me a good two months of drinking that stuff after getting buzzed to get rid of it all. I let it sit for several months and it never recovered....

This is different, and like I said, I have tasted it in all of my beers, a rootbeer one buddy did, and several beers another friend brewed, all different styles. And with my last batch, once its out of the fridge and warm, the taste goes away...

 

73-75 is high and will cause off flavors. Drinking the beer at room temperature will make the malt and hops flavor stronger....probably masking the funk from fermenting too high.

Get that temp down to 67 or so via a swamp cooler and your beer will taste a lot better.