Beer went bitter

[dblalock]

I brewed my second batch ever, an IPA kit from the local homebrew store, and it tasted great throughout the entire brewing process. The day that i bottled the beer I drank the last bottle that didn't get completely filled. I had extremely high hopes, it seemed like a perfect beer without carbonation. Wonderful hop presence, etc. After 2 and 1/2 weeks in the bottle I cracked one open and all of the hop flavor was gone. There was an extremely odd bitter flavor on the back of the tongue as it went down. It surprised me since it tasted so much better before it was in the bottle. I lost the recipe sheet so I can't type it out. But there were 3 different kinds of hops in this batch. Spent 7 days in primary and 7 in secondary. Any ideas of what could have gone wrong here? Thanks!

 

[eschatz]

Hop flavor dissipates over time pretty dramatically. That recipe would really be helpful but oh well. Your beer will change over time. However, without the recipe it's hard to say whether this is a ingredient problem or something that you've done wrong technique wise. Try your beer in 2 weeks more and tell us what you think. It's still pretty green.

 

[david_42]

4 1/2 weeks isn't long enough to normally lose the hop flavor/aroma. Most likely the weird flavor you are noticing is masking the hops. I'd give it another two weeks.

 

[dblalock]

Thanks. Can you think of anything that could have gone wrong in the boiling process that could have caused this off flavor? I want to start on my next batch, but I don't want to make the same mistake

 

[Dr Vorlauf]

I see this happen in my IPAs after a 2 weeks in the bottle. It always conditions out after an additional 2 weeks.

 

[ZBrewMan]

I may be jumping the gun on this....

.... but this sounds EXACTLY like the problem I've had with my last few batches.

I believe I had a problem with chlorine and/or chloramines from my tap water.

I had great tasting beer before I bottled it. Then it changed dramatically. It was a very dry and un-sweet aftertaste. Some called it "bitter". It tastes medicinal to me. Some say it tastes like band-aids. It is very apparent when I burp.

Does this sound familiar?

Apparently this can be caused by various factors: Infection, stressed yeast, water profile.

Are you using tap water or bottled water for brewing?
Are you using tap water in your sanitizing solution during the bottling process?
If so, is your tap water treated with chlorine or chloramine? (You can probably find this out online. You can also test this for yourself with these test strips.)

Maybe this isn't your particular issue. I hope that you can just RDWHAHB and that this is just a green beer taste that will improve over the next few weeks!

 

[dblalock]

I may be jumping the gun on this....

.... but this sounds EXACTLY like the problem I've had with my last few batches.

I believe I had a problem with chlorine and/or chloramines from my tap water.

I had great tasting beer before I bottled it. Then it changed dramatically. It was a very dry and un-sweet aftertaste. Some called it "bitter". It tastes medicinal to me. Some say it tastes like band-aids. It is very apparent when I burp.

Does this sound familiar?

Apparently this can be caused by various factors: Infection, stressed yeast, water profile.

Are you using tap water or bottled water for brewing?
Are you using tap water in your sanitizing solution during the bottling process?
If so, is your tap water treated with chlorine or chloramine? (You can probably find this out online. You can also test this for yourself with these test strips.)

Maybe this isn't your particular issue. I hope that you can just RDWHAHB and that this is just a green beer taste that will improve over the next few weeks!

Sounds spot on to my problem. No idea about the water around here. Would it be better to try some purified spring water?

 

[Yooper]

Sounds spot on to my problem. No idea about the water around here. Would it be better to try some purified spring water?

Yes- that sounds like chloramines or chlorines in the brewing water.

 

[TheFlatline]

Yup. Try bottled water. See if that helps.

 

[ZBrewMan]

Would it be better to try some purified spring water?

Yes changing your water is probably the best place to start. Either use spring water or distilled water, or just use campden tablets on the tap water.

Just eliminate the untreated tap water from all parts of your procedure...

If the problem still exists after that then I would definitely start replacing the plastic components in my system. Most likely a tap water issue though...

(In my noobish opinion)

 

[TheFlatline]

I'd suggest spring water. Distilled water is fine in some situations, but if I'm doing something like AG, I actually want water that has some minerals and impurities in it. Otherwise I get *bland* beer.