can you age out too much hop?

[justenoughforme]

so my batch i'm sipping, it's good given all the mistakes i made.

but it's too bitter. i aimed for 50 IBU's and this stuff tastes like 70+ (it tastes like 100 if you ask swmbo)

i think the farm fresh hops i got are just more potent than expected. there's no way this is only 50 IBU's.


anyway if i leave a case to age for a few months, will the bitterness subside? i know hops break down, but i only hear that in regards to aroma, not bitterness.


it's very drinkable, but i didnt know what i could do to mellow out that strong bitter aftertaste. it really lingers.

 

[McKnuckle]

Are you sure it's hop bitterness rather than an unpleasant lingering bitter taste from another factor? This can happen, for example, if you brew a beer with mostly light colored malt using water with high residual alkalinity from carbonate content. (I know that's technical... but what type of beer is it, and what is your water like?) The bitterness in that situation can have an astringent, possibly soapy aftertase.

I have aged too-hoppy beer for months and it does smooth a bit, but also loses the aroma and brings the malt back to the surface. It can seem less fresh though, and doesn't get rid of the bitterness to the point where I ever wanted to drink it vs. other, better brews at my disposal.

 

[justenoughforme]

oh this beer has all kinds of reasons to have weird tastes.

what kind of beer is it? mistake porter?

i used chocolate and black patent malts, but i didn't know you were supposed to crush the grains, so it got very little color / malty character. i think that's why it's so out of balance, the malt didn't really absorb, so all you taste is hop bitter.

it also fermented warm.


that said, it doesn't taste soapy, it just, it's really bitter. it's actually good beer, but after two you really start to notice the lingering bitter. i'm not generally an IPA guy.

 

[Sir-Hops-A-Lot]

Did you steep the grains at over 170 degrees? What would lead to some tannins that are bitter.
If you posted the recipe and the process you might get better feedback.
Then again, it's effort to type all that and you seem to like the beer well enough.

 

[andy6026]

Sounds to me like your beer is highly out of balance - not because you put in too much hops but because you didn't crush the grains. This means that the malt won't come through half as much and offset the hops. Did you take an OG and FG? And then what was the hop schedule. Those numbers will probably tell us a lot.

The buttering hops (when you first start boiling) might mellow a little over a long time, but the taste and aroma hops will dissipate a lot faster.

Sounds to me like you want to plough through this batch as fast as you can and get to the next batch.

 

[pablosbrewing]

Consider blending it with a low hop beer, or invite over some hopheads to drink it for you

 

[Brettomomyces]

Could you post the whole recipe?

The answer to your main question is yes, the hop bitterness, flavor and intensity will fade with age. It's why really hoppy DIPA and IPAs are best when they're fresh.