'Water-y' taste in low ABV beer

[sherwicf]

Hi all,

So I've got a minor problem with a beer I was making, I was hoping to channel my inner Stone and Brewdog and make a low ABV beer (Levitation and Dead Pony Club) which was also hopped well, so I decided to make a red ale ~ 3.7% and 30ish IBUs but when I taste the beer, its somewhat water-y, there's no real malt/sweetness backbone.

Other than the excessive Crystal malts, is there something in my malt bill that would cause this sort of problem?

2.8kg Maris Otter
.25kg of Crystal (60L) Malt
.25kg of Crystal (90L) Malt
.25kg of CaraAroma
.05kg of Chocolate Malt

Yeast was S-04

 

[RM-MN]

How long has it been bottled? I'd expect this beer to mature into the kind of flavor you want after about 6 weeks in the bottle. Light colors beers mature much faster than the darker ones.

 

[wmilas]

Have you thought about adding a little white wheat or maybe a touch of oatmeal to lend a bit of backbone?

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

When I get ESBs / bitters (that were made in Europe), they are typically lighter on the body side anyways. I'm curious as to what your numbers were. SG, FG, mash temp etc.