WY3522 flavor changes?

[bmaupin]

A local brewery makes a belgian dark strong (10% beer using Pils, C120 & Carafa II) that uses WY3522. I loved the beer when it was fresh as the yeast character was faint, but just enough. Now a month later, the yeast character is much stronger and I am not liking it. I am a fan of WY3787 but I was liking the absence of clove in this bdsa. I was going to use this yeast for an upcoming dubbel, but the change in this beer is making me want to go back to WY3787 or Rochefort (bottle harvested).

Has anyone had a similar experience with WY3522/WLP550 or is this unusual?

 

[mr_samsonite]

I wonder at what temperature they fermented. I am curious about this potential change as well. Having just sampled from the fermentor a (not sure what category you'd call it) Belgian spelt table beer with WY3522, I am very pleased at the restrained yeast character.

I have experienced this progression you describe with the Chimay & Westmalle strains as well.

Are you going to be kegging or bottling?

 

[Dcpcooks]

It's tough to say since we don't know what they did to the beer. Do you know if they bottle condition? When did they brew it? Was it aged? Or did they push it out and it needs to condition?

I've brewed with that yeast a few times and it does evolve a bit over time. In my opinion it changes more during conditioning under pressure.

 

[TungstenBeer]

I am not that familiar with this style, but are you sure it was the yeast character growing or hop character decreasing through natural hop progressions, which allowed the yeast flavors to be more accentuated?

 

[LLBeanJ]

WY3522/WLP550 is known for having a strong clove profile, so I'm not surprised the clove came out more as the beer aged. I did have a similar experience with some bottle harvested yeast from Great Divide's Colette I used in a saison in which the clove was subtle early on, but became over the top after about a month or so in the keg, so I have seen it happen. My current Belgian go-to is Chimay yeast I harvested from a bottle of Chimay Red. I ferment cool, around 57°F, and it produces a nice, noticeable clove presence that seems perfect to me. Ferment it warmer, say 65-68° and the clove should pretty much disappear.

 

[bmaupin]

My estimate on a recipe would be:

Belgian Pils 16 lbs
C120 1.25 lbs
Carafa Special II 6oz

20 IBU: Columbus @ 60, Mt Hood @ 30

My guess would be fermented 64-66 degrees. FG around 1.010

Not bottle conditioned - they have a professional bottling (or canning) line come in for all of their beers.

No clove in beer initially or now. No hop flavor initially or now. Initially had faint yeast character, but not like WY3787. Now has more yeast character and I'm not really liking it. I understand that most belgian yeast character evolves over time as I have used WY3787 5 times. I recently had a bottle of Gigantic Brewing The City Never Sleeps (https://gigantic-brewing-company.myshopify.com/pages/the-city-never-sleeps-recipe) which had the same yeast flavor - liked the yeast in that beer quite a bit, but the beer is a little too malty for me.

I believe that this year they changed the yeast as I don't remember almost any yeast character in past releases. I bought 3 bottles of this beer (The Giant Made of Shadows - https://www.silvercity.beer/limiteds/) and still have a bottle from 2 years ago for an upcoming comparison