Grape flavor in German beer?

[camonick]

DM's post said Veltins did not have the flavor... The flavor is like grape juice or even a bit of grape jelly. Sounds odd paired with beer but that is the flavor. I do not think it is grain related or it would show up more often in all beer styles. Seems pretty straight forward that the flavor comes from the use of sauergut in German brewing. They are pretty much the only folks who use sauergut and are the only ones to produce commercial beer examples with the grape flavor in my experience.

I have never picked up the flavor in the cereal Grape Nuts.

My recent experiments with homemade sauergut are definitely beginning to prove this to be the case. If we’re all talking about the same “flavor”, I almost always taste it in imported beer from Germany, but rarely in similar American lagers. If it was grain related, I’d think it would be more common in American beers. I have a Pilsner fermenting right now that should help me make a final decision. I’ve used it in a Hefeweizen and a Vienna lager so far and I like the results.

 

[Red over White]

With Sauergut it's there automatic. I have got it with honey in my house helles as it ages (6 weeks+) without Sauergut, never young [*no professional reference available]. As if it (the Sauergut flavor) developed as small levels of complex sugars in the honey eventually broke down while lagering. <-- think Rocky Raccoons Crystal Honey Lager for you old timers.

I'm drinking a helles brewed with Sauergut as I type and it's divine. So German, so good, so made 4 feet from where I'm sitting right now. I'm 150% committed to brewing clean, wonderful fresh lagers with slight bends in the traditional temperature and pressure format, but very much in the macro style of brewing. Keep pushing things until you find your perfect repeatable flavor. Cheers

 

[SFC Rudy]

Any German beer you buy in the states will not taste like the beer you buy in Germany. It has been pasteurized and you do not know how it was treated during transport.

I was stationed in Germany for 10 years and drank more than my fair share of German beer. I have tried numerous German beers from the liquor stores, and it is not the same.

 

[CornKing]

I got this on a pils I made in 2019! But it took a couple months in the keg to show up. It was really weird.
My notes say:
"hop flavor changed to weird white wine like ~3-1/2 months after brew" and "use less late hops"

Avangard pils, Breiss Carapils, melanoidin in the mash, Edelweiss for bittering and Spalter Select for flavor additions, WLP803.

I had this happen with a pils I brewed a couple years ago. Cargill german pils malt, WLP 802. It was an absolute noble hop bomb, I whirlpooled a 4 oz mix of spalt, saaz, mittlefreuh and tettnang, and then threw the exact same in as DH. It was absolutely incredible... until like 3-4 months later when I was on the last dreggs of the keg. I've repeated the same recipe a couple times and not gotten the same effect, although I usually kill the keg before that 3-4 month time.

Interestingly, I encountered the same flavor not long ago in a bottle of KC Bier Co's Helles. Per their clone recipe there's not nearly the same hop quantity, and they use a different yeast. Hard to imagine whatever metabolite is causing this flavor doesn't originate from either yeast or hops, but the fact that it takes some months to appear suggests its a slow chemical change (oxidation of a hop derived compound maybe?)