Off flavors.. Infected, or just needs to mellow?

[Phan71]

Alright, I've got a spiced ale that's been in the bottles for nearly 5 weeks now. It tastes a little weird to me, but I don't know if it's bad, or if it just needs more time to age and mellow. My sanitation is good, and I haven't had an infected batch yet. The only batch I had to send down the drain was due to too high of a ferment temp, which turned it into solvent.

Anyways, here's the recipe (this is my first experiment with a "spiced" beer):

Spiced Summer Ale
6 pounds Northwestern Gold LME
1 pound Crystal 60L
1 pound belgium biscuit
.5 oz Nugget (11.6%) @ 60 min.
1 oz Willamette (4.5%) @ 30 min.
.5 oz Cascade (5.8%) @ 5 min.
1/2 tsp. yeast nutrients @ 15 min.
1/2 oz crushed coriander seed at flameout
1 oz sweet orange peel at flameout
1 Tbsp. whole cloves at flameout
1056 American Ale Wyeast
Add 2 gallons water to brew pot and heat to 160’. Put specialty grains in grain bag and steep at 160’ for 30 minutes. Heat 1/2 gallon water in separate pot. Remove grain bag and place in strainer above brew pot, pour hot water from other pot over the grains. Turn up heat and add liquid malt extract, bring to a boil. Add hops and yeast nutrients according to schedule.
Place coriander, orange peel and cloves in a grain or hops bag. At end of boil, remove wort from heat and add bag with spices. Let spices steep for 20 minutes while wort cools. Put 1 1/2 gallons cold water in fermenter. Remove bag with spices and place in strainer over fermenter, pour 1/2 gallon cold water over bag.

So, how do I tell if this is bad, or just needs more time?

 

[Beerrific]

What was the weird flavor?

 

[homebrewer_99]

The only thing I can tell is it's the cloves.

I used some in a Pumpkin Ale that was still not drinkable 2 years later.

Put it away for a while and forget about it until next year. You never know.

 

[Professor Frink]

On the bright side, I read somewhere that cloves keeps ants away, so you can always spritz some around your house.

 

[Phan71]

What was the weird flavor?

That's the thing, I can't really tell. I guess my pallet is not sophisticated enough yet to be able to judge these things. It could be a phenolic odor, but it could be the cloves (as homebrewer_99 suggested), I just don't know.

Maybe I'll just let it sit for a while and taste it every couple of weeks. I'm thinking of taking it to the Chicago Beer Society meeting at the beginning of August and let more experienced tasters try it and tell me what they think. (Although, I hate the idea of the first beer I bring there being a bad beer. I wanted to have something really good to bring with me the first time I went to one of their meetings!)

 

[DeathBrewer]

lol. spritz seems to be the word of the day.

 

[homebrewer_99]

That's the thing, I can't really tell. I guess my pallet is not sophisticated enough yet to be able to judge these things. It could be a phenolic odor, but it could be the cloves (as homebrewer_99 suggested), I just don't know.

Maybe I'll just let it sit for a while and taste it every couple of weeks. I'm thinking of taking it to the Chicago Beer Society meeting at the beginning of August and let more experienced tasters try it and tell me what they think. (Although, I hate the idea of the first beer I bring there being a bad beer. I wanted to have something really good to bring with me the first time I went to one of their meetings!)

I know where you[re coming from, but there is a solution to your (perceived) dilemma...blending.

All you have to do is mix one of your brews with a lemon-lime soda. Since you want to cut the cloves I'd start the mix at 1 beer and 1/4 of a can of Sprite.

You'd be surprised how much that really helps marginal brews. In Germany it's called a "Radler" (for cyclists).

Give it a try. Get back to me.