Too Sweet...

I have been brewing for about a year now and still work with extracts. I've come up with a recipe that I really like except for one thing. Its a little too sweet.
Brewing a brown ale and too get the FG up use a bit more dry extract than a typical recipe would call for. It tastes great but has a bit of a sweet after taste.

Is there anyway to lessen the sweetness of the beer and keep the ABV near 7%?

Thanks for the help.

 

Increase early hop additions.

Sweetness and bitterness levels are subjective, but if I were making a beer like that, I'd hit it with a neutral high-alpha bittering hop (e.g., Magnum) for however long the boil is (60 min, 45 min, whatever) such that this addition provides about 30 IBU. Then, I'd "fill out" the hop profile with additional hops later in the boil (15 min and on) to get a bit more complexity and a final IBU in the vicinity of 40. To my tastebuds, this level in a brown ale will provide a nice firm opposition to the sweetness without being obnoxiously bitter.

Personally, for the later hops in these types of beers, I enjoy UK strains like Fuggles and EKG.

 

Exactly what @mattdee1 noted in regards to bittering hop additions. If it gets too bitter you can reverse it with alcohol sugar (ie: something that won't ferment off)...use sparingly if needed.

 

Not a lot to go on here, do you have the full recipe, yeast, OG and FG? As mentioned above you can increase the bittering, but also sometimes it might make sense to make a slight grainbill adjustment. Or maybe your yeast is not attenuating well and we need to look at that.

 

Need to know your OG/FG, grains used (and at what temperature), and yeast strain.

If you haven't reached final gravity, it's going to taste sweet. If your yeast promotes fruity flavors, it's going to taste sweet. If you steep your specialty grains at too high a temperature it will produce non-fermentable sugars and it's going to taste sweet. You might also want to try late extract additions to prevent caramelizing which can also taste somewhat sweet.

 

Substitute some of the extract with sugar. Will keep up the ABV and dry out the beer. Use a yeast that attenuates well.

Also, "sweet after taste" could be esters from the fermentation. Esters can give the perception of sweetness in dry beers.

More details needed on recipe and process.

 

Try pitching more yeast to get better attenuation.

 

Thanks guys, great advice I will try all this. Brewed again last night using the Magnum and Fuggle as recommended, so we will see how it turns out.

 

You might need to move away from extracts if you're sensitive to sugar (I am)

I find even using 100% maris ends up too sweet for my taste

Doing all grain (even with my cheap setup) I can take out the sweeter grains - and ramp the hops a bit

My main brew now is some random dark porter - with half MO, half pale or something, 500-1KG of something dark (special III, chocolate etc.), maybe something smokey, some oats, maybe a bit of rye or munich but rarely any very sweet grain - mash around 68C

I'll then do 30-40g of heavy bittering like target - then 100 or 200g of something flowery at 80C on the cooldown

That gets me a big heavy bitter porter without much sweetness

I bought a half of porter for £5 the other day (a £10/pint!!) - it was good - but what I'm brewing is easily equal - I think the water helps - I've still never brewed a decent IPA