Why do some of my beers taste Belgian?

[teriyakimonkey]

I've now done 6 brews from kits for my wedding in a couple of weeks.

The second, a St. Peter's Ruby Red, tasted lovely after a couple of weeks post bottling. A month and a half or so later and it tastes almost Belgian and nothing like it did! It's still tasty, just not the beer it should be. Also the Wherry I did before that is also slightly Belgian.

The only thing I can think is it's because they've been in a warm place after bottling for too long, although a second Wherry I did that has only been in said warm place for a week and a half is also exhibiting a Belgian sort of taste.

Any ideas?

All of the beer is now conditioning in the back of a stationary old Transit van (classy).

 

[jamesb]

How warm?

 

[teriyakimonkey]

Room temperature, say 22 degrees.

 

[Laurin]

Does the van get hot when the sun is shining?

 

[teriyakimonkey]

I don't believe so. Every time I've been in it the bottles still feel cool to the touch. I haven't actually tried any from the van since it's been down there. Could it be that it's because I haven't been trying the beers from a cooler place but before I've put them in the van?

 

[Laurin]

I am not an expert in beer making but I think the questions about temperature come from fact that belgian beers use some caramelised sugars in their beers and i guess this was the idea.

Other ideas may be the water but I think more unlikely, boiling the wort to much during brewing, adding sugars, malt extract to the brew?

 

[teriyakimonkey]

Sorry I forgot to say they were all kits.

 

[Mark1964]

If they have a banana fruity taste its because the fermentation temp was too high. When we started all grain brewing we never used anything to aid fermentation just bog standard room temp thats all you need really. Within reason though