American Pale Ale with Galaxy not tasting as expected

[Brew2Be]

Hi HBT.

A while ago I brewed an APA with galaxy hops. I was quite excited when I ordered the hops for the batch, since I read on BYO that it had the following profile:

"When used as a late addition or dry hopped, it contributes a pungent flavor of passionfruit and citrus."

So I thought, great! A fruity, citrusy APA. When the big day came and I opened a bottle of it, it neither tasted or smelled anything like any of those characteristics. It is not bad tasting but the hops are only present as a lingering bitterness (I hit the bitterness quite well I think. A tad bit too much maybe), slight hint of something undefinable when smelling it. Drinkable but all in all very disappointing. What did I do wrong? This was the recipe I used:

Maris Otter - 89.7%
Crystal 30L - 10.3%

6 gr @ 45 min
6 gr @ 20 min
6 gr @ 10 min
10 gr @ 5 min
10 gr aroma steep for 20 minutes (let the wort cool a bit and pour in the hops and let them stay for 20 minutes)

IBU/S.G: 0.857
Batch size: 9L
O.G: 1.052
F.G: 1.010
IBU: 43.4
Est. Abv: 5.2

Yeast: US-05

I am really frustrated so any feedback would be appreciated!

 

[Soviet]

You're not giving us much to work with here... can you describe what you do smell? What does it taste like? Are you getting any off flavors or aroma?

Also, why didn't you dry hop it? In my experience, dry hopping creates the maximum amount of aroma—I think many would agree. I look forward to more details.

 

[Brew2Be]

You're not giving us much to work with here... can you describe what you do smell? What does it taste like? Are you getting any off flavors or aroma?

Also, why didn't you dry hop it? In my experience, dry hopping creates the maximum amount of aroma—I think many would agree. I look forward to more details.

Hi Soviet. Sorry, about the missing information.

It tastes a bit alcoholic which puzzles me a bit since the room it was fermenting is was generally around 20 celcius (68 F). It doesn't really have alot of depth but just comes on as quite heavy (malty with quite some bitterness from the hops).

To be honest, the reason I didn't dry hop was because I hadn't done it yet and was a little unsure about the risks doing it (I did it in my next batch which was an american porter though) and from experience brewing APAs with centennial, could get a nice taste and smell of the hops by doing late additions and flameout additions. So I thought I could do the same with Galaxy hops.

I'm quite curious as to why the hops didn't shine through more though.. Even without dry hopping. Do you think a big dry hopping would solve the problem?

 

[flars]

It tastes a bit alcoholic which puzzles me a bit since the room it was fermenting is was generally around 20 celsius (68 F). It doesn't really have a lot of depth but just comes on as quite heavy (malty with quite some bitterness from the hops).

What you have described is what I taste in beers brewed exclusively with Galaxy hops. Malt forward with, if it is passion fruit, the fruit is less than fresh.
Alcoholic taste may come from to warm of a fermentation. At 20°C ambient ,given your OG of 1.052, fermentation temperature was probably 23°C to 24°C.

 

[NathPowe]

A couple of thoughts -

Even for a 9L batch, there just aren't a lot of hops in the recipe. For a 5 gal batch of hoppy pale ale with similar OG, I'm usually at least in the 5-6oz range (boil and dry hop combined). You're at about half that after accounting for batch size. I'm certainly not saying 5-6oz total for a pale ale is the Right Way or the Only Way, just throwing it out for comparison. For your batch size, maybe shoot for a total of 3oz (84g) of hops (boil and dry hops combined). Or more.... probably more Definitely do the dry hop though, and use at least 28g. It will make a huge difference. Also keep the whirlpool hops, and bump up the amount used in there.

Another thought is that you do have a fair amount of crystal in there. 10% for a pale ale certainly doesn't seem out of hand, but it's still a decent amount of crystal and I wonder if that's also taking away from the hops' In-Yo-Face Factor.

Lastly, you might look at your water profile/mash pH to see what can be done there to bring the hops out more.

Galaxy is an awesome hop though, so good luck and enjoy the brew.

Cheers.

 

[MotorcycleMatt]

Try dropping your fermenting temps, if you had no temp control it could have gotten as high was 78°

 

[Craft_brewer]

The problem is you bottled a hoppy beer. These sensitive styles need to be force carbed under co2 and kegged. Or force carbed and bottled under CO2, bottle conditioning will ruin a Hoppy style before it's even carbonated

 

[Twinkeelfool]

Wow, 6 years later haha

 

[abrewer12345]

if you're not selecting the galaxy hops personally, they usually are a rough hop. i get peanut butter from galaxy too. honestly, we try to avoid it