Oh what a difference 2 weeks make

[bosox]

I had recently brewed a Christmas Ale back in early December and had let the beer bottles condition for about 3 weeks, and opened them up as part of our tailgate at the last Patriots game of the regular season on January 2nd (unfortunately there wouldn't be many games after that )

Upon tasting the beer, I was extremely disappointed. I could not taste ANY of the multiple spices I used, such as allspice, cinnomon, ginger, or orange peel, and the beer came off as very bitter, didn't taste carbonated, and was very cloudy.

I knew that I should give it at least 4 weeks conditioning, as it was a moderate OG/FG beer and had plenty to work with and mellow out, but I though damn, if this is 3 weeks into it, it's either a dud or wont be good to drink until Christmas 2011.

Fortunately with me, I never put all my bottles in the fridge at once. I only put a few in, and let the other keep conditioning until I drink them all up. So I put 3 more in the fridge recently after now a little over 5 weeks and WOW!!!

The beer is practically CRYSTAL clear, the bitternes has mellowed out a lot, the head foams nicely, you can see bubbles rising up the glass, and it has that crisp taste of a beer. I can also now detect the orange and possibly a hint of aroma of cinnamon. a BIG BIG BIG improvement from 2 weeks ago.

So I guess everyone is right, RDWHAHB and wait for your beer to do it's thing on its own.

 

[bovineblitz]

My spice beers suck until at least 3 months I've been finding. My September squash beer started tasting good in January. It's too bitter before then. I get this kind of weird harshness at the end mostly towards the back of my mouth, all my spiced beers have this and it never completely goes away.

 

[mlyday]

Almost all the beers I brew are good at 3 weeks, but much much better at 6 weeks.

 

[birvine]

Great to see this thread. In November I brewed Papazian's Holiday Cheer brew and let it sit in the carboy until last weekend when I bottled. Prior to this, because I was curious, I bottled two flip-top bottles and let them condition a few weeks.

The first bottle I drank about 2 weeks after bottling - the bitterness made my mouth turn inside-out. I figured I'd better not keg this one if I had to struggle to drink it. So last weekend I bottled the rest (rather than keg) and later that same day I tried the second bottle which had conditioned more than a month. Wow! What a difference that time made. Funny how we KNOW these things about beer maturing/mellowing/developing yet worry a bit too much initially. What a hobby that we can create something that is so out of our control and yet so within our control. The bitterness is now a subtle crispness to the mellow flavour of the ginger and cinnamon. The carbonation is perfect, the head perfect and the clarity and colour are beautiful.

Time is our friend!

B

 

[mlyday]

Time is only your friend if you have a good pipeline built up, otherwise time is a *****.

 

[birvine]

Agreed.