Lingering bitterness

[Braufather]

My latest brew, a hazy pale ale has an annoying lingering bitterness. This is my third brew of this particular recipe, the previous two have been great and whilst ive made malt tweaks its made with the same hop schedule. ( actually also used verdant dry instead of London fog, but cant see that being an issue) Everything else about it is great. amazing aroma, Juicy with a slight and pleasant bitter finish, then after you have put it down a delayed but persistent strong sort of unpleasant bitterness that spoils it for me. it was there at first taste and is still there after 3 weeks in keg.

Googling it, Water could be the culprit? i filter my tap water but maybe the filter needed changing, and i missed it? Going forward i will add campden as insurance but does anyone think the issue could be elsewhere?

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

My first instinct would be magnesium level. I'm probably wrong so take it with a pinch of salt, but one of my recent brews had a low magnesium level and it had the same taste you are describing.

 

[damienair]

I made the mangrove Jack's Juicy Session IPA during the summer and it was amazing. I did it again about 3 months ago. Just like you when I first tasted it there was a lingering bitterness. 3 months later it is much nicer, definitely not the same bitterness, but not as nice as my first attempt. I used liquid malt extract instead of DME, that was the only change I made.

 

[m_kc]

My latest brew, a hazy pale ale has an annoying lingering bitterness. This is my third brew of this particular recipe, the previous two have been great and whilst ive made malt tweaks its made with the same hop schedule. ( actually also used verdant dry instead of London fog, but cant see that being an issue) Everything else about it is great. amazing aroma, Juicy with a slight and pleasant bitter finish, then after you have put it down a delayed but persistent strong sort of unpleasant bitterness that spoils it for me. it was there at first taste and is still there after 3 weeks in keg.

Googling it, Water could be the culprit? i filter my tap water but maybe the filter needed changing, and i missed it? Going forward i will add campden as insurance but does anyone think the issue could be elsewhere?

What hops are you using out of interest? I find with my tap water higher alpha hops, particularly citrus profiles (Citra, Sabbro, Harlequin etc) I get an unpleasant late bitterness but otherwise the beer would be great.

 

[Braufather]

Mosaic, Citra and Equanot here, - use them all the time with no issues, and same quantity and timings in previous brews of this beer.

 

[Dorst]

Check question: did you dry hop the beer with pellets? I've had multiple beers that still had hop residue in suspension / the bottle. It leads to a harsh bitterness that lingers. It also numbs the tongue.

It's quite easily fixed by cooling your beer before packaging and waiting a bit. The hops will fall out of suspension and will not make it into your keg/bottle.

 

[Braufather]

Check question: did you dry hop the beer with pellets? I've had multiple beers that still had hop residue in suspension / the bottle. It leads to a harsh bitterness that lingers. It also numbs the tongue.

It's quite easily fixed by cooling your beer before packaging and waiting a bit. The hops will fall out of suspension and will not make it into your keg/bottle.

i know what you mean, i sometimes get that with first pour from Keg. but whilst this had a lot of dry hops its cold conditioned for 3 weeks and has had about 4 pints drunk from it now with no change.

 

[Clint]

My first instinct would be magnesium level. I'm probably wrong so take it with a pinch of salt, but one of my recent brews had a low magnesium level and it had the same taste you are describing.

...take it with a pinch of salt. I see what you did there!

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

...take it with a pinch of salt. I see what you did there!

This is where I pretend it was intentional...

 

[Clint]

This is where I pretend it was intentional...

A razor sharp wit...or daft as a brush like me!

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

A razor sharp wit...or daft as a brush like me!

I'd go with daft as a brush to be fair Was singing the shakira song to the dog earlier - you know the waka waka one. But I was singing wagger wagger....... oh dear!

 

[Clint]

They like singing. We'll my 5 cats and three dogs seem to.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Woah! That's a lot. You must be busy!

 

[Clint]

Woah! That's a lot. You must be busy!

Busy finding somewhere to sit usually!

 

[Braufather]

What a difference a few days made. Unpleasant Bitterness completely gone ( and so has my head cold) and it’s tastes great now.

Impressed with verdant yeast, will be using this again. Liquid yeasts may be a thing if the past. Aleadry decided us05 is as good as liquid options for clean west coast IPAs. And now maybe verdant a go to for hazies. I’d like to do a side by side test between this and London fog/London iii.

I’m probably going to invest in a stir plate anyway as I really want to believe liquid yeasts are superior but the evidence , for US bees at least, is not really supporting that with me at the moment.

although the jury is out on liberty bell, and maybe Better liquid options are available for US malty pales.