I recently brewed the below recipe. I don’t have any experience with Vienna malt but the beer has a slightly sweet finish both me and my wife thinks takes slightly like cherry. Not an off flavor I don’t think and it’s a great beer. The only thing that I can think of is it might be the Vienna malt? Anyone have any input?
Bitterness: 20.1 IBUs Boil Time: 60 min
Est OG: 1.052
Est FG: 1.009
ABV: 5.6%
Ingredients
7 lbs 14.61 oz Vienna Malt
3 lbs 6.26 oz Pilsner (2 Row)
0.50 oz Perle [8.0%] - Boil 60 min
0.51 oz Tettnang [4.5%] - Boil 45 min
1.00 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15 min)
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 15 min)
0.50 oz Tettnang [4.5%] - Boil 0 min
Starter. Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007)
I have definitely detected cherry in German lagers before like marzen which often use Munich and Vienna malts, or personally I would describe it more as almond, which makes sense since both cherries and almonds are closely related stone fruits – an almond is really the seed from inside a peach pit. While I think the cherry/almond character is inconsistent and not always present every time these malts are used, it is certainly a possible attribute on occasion. I enjoy this character when present and hope you do too. Very perceptive, well done.
I’ve picked this up too, mainly as a retronasal aroma. That’s usually my sign that I overshot the amount of Aromatic malt in my recipe and back it off by about a 3rd for the next go around.
It’s just a guess. I do not have the real recipes from the German breweries. The one I was thinking of was Spaten’s marzen. There was one time, one time, when I swore it tasted like almond. Maybe twice. Other times, I have not picked this flavor out of the same beer.
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Do you have a specific brewery example? The reason I ask is that I can’t think of any of them off the top of my head that actually uses Vienna.
Most of not all are
Märzen
Pils/ Munich ( some toss in caramunich)
Festbier
Pils and carahell (or caramunich)
I am not sure where the Vienna comes from in the US? Maybe to make up for maltiness that we can’t get with beers made here?
Vienna is used almost exclusively in Austrian beers ( I wonder why!)
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DuClaw Mad Bishop uses Vienna. Pils for a Marzen??? Are you thinking 2 row?
I actually didn’t think about the yeast. I’ve used 007 in IPAs and stouts/porters but not a clean beer like this. Could’ve been that I guess but it tastes more like a malt flavor. I fermented it at 65. As far as oxidation I would be surprised if it’s that. I push all of my beer with CO2 and keg it in a keg that I purge starSan out with CO2 in so my beer never touches any oxygen. Anyway the taste is not unpleasant, just trying to figure out for further recipes. My wife and her friends absolutely love it.
The problem there in lies. I feel like I need to spread this word.
All beer in this world is oxidized, ALL OF IT. It’s just a matter of how much. Somehow in the homebrew rhetoric oxidation has become synonymous with cardboard and sherry. Which is not wrong, but that is the last stage of oxidation, with many stages in between. For instance degradation of hop aroma is one, sweetness coming forward is one, flavors changing, etc. The curve ball is some oxidation effects don’t even need oxygen! Fats, lipids, heavy metals ( copper, iron, etc) all can cause oxidation in the beer without even touching oxygen. Now even the smallest traces (50ppb) of oxygen start off chain reactions. The commercial standard for DO in the package is 50ppb, with 150ppb being the max upper limit before accelerated staling. Just so we are on the same page do you know how minuscule 50ppb of oxygen is?? lets say you laid out 1 BILLION skittles. Out of those 1B, you stole 50, thats the scale we are talking about. https://www.hach.com/asset-get.download.jsa?id=50544340479
So anyone with a handy dandy DO meter can do these tests (I happen to have one), if you ferment to final gravity, you purged your keg out with starsan (don’t forget tap water has 8-12ppm o2 in it so depending how much you left behind), then you force carbonated the beer with the co2 from your bottle (depending on co2 purity you are looking at 10-50ppm 02 in it). You most likely picked up about 2-4PPM(20 times above the recommended level for accelerated staling) of o2 on your transfer, sani-water, and force carb. You will continue to add o2 as you dispense the keg as well.
So everyone who uses this process immediately puts their beer in accelerated status, does it taste like cardboard and sherry, not yet, does it tastes as good as it could/should? Nope and its easily verifiable with the DO meter. The nice part is there are easy ways to mitigate this, but the flipside is, it’s hard to get them across cause everyone thinks that they don’t have oxidized beer to start with!
Ok I am off my soap box now and will let you guys carry on.
I agree if you like it thats fine. Oxidation brings flavors forward that people prefer. However your beer (and mine) is still oxidizing as we speak.
No, I’ve gotten a cherry flavour from Red-X, but really just toastiness from Vienna.
My last batch used 007, and I swear I detect a little ethyl acetate, which has a sweet smell to it. Maybe you’re getting something similar?
Though I agree almonds are closely related to peaches, they are not the seed from inside a peach pit. They are a distinctly different drupe grown from a distinctly different tree. Almond - Wikipedia
Peach and almond are very closely related. I haven’t eaten almond fruit before, but I’m willing to guess that it resembles a small peach. Maybe more dry or not as sweet or something. Pretty dang close. One was selected for the quality of its fuzzy fruit, and the other for the quality of its inner nut. I could be wrong but that’s the impression I get.
Cherry on the other hand is a more distant cousin. We wouldn’t dream of cracking a cherry pit open and eating whatever is inside it.