I live in Oregon and am an all grain brewer. And of course I use a lot of cascade hops to brew pale ales and IPA’s. About 6 months ago my brewing partners and I began brewing some beer that tasted pretty bad. It has a very distinct sour flavor. We figured that we had gotten some kind of contanimation in the fermenter so dumped the yeast and tried again and the flavor is back. We made some stout and it tasted pretty good, but we figured there were so many flavors, they covered up all the funky bitterness we were picking up in our pale ales.
I was down at my local pub tonight and tasted a local commercially produced IPA and guess what. This beer had the same sour flavor, although a bit less powerful. When I told the pub owner that I thought he had a bad keg, he said when he reported the flavor to the brewer, the brewer told him that the flavor was from 2011 cascade hops that had a stronger alpha than normal and that he just hadn’t adjusted his recipe.
Doe this make sense to anyone out there? Is my beer bad or is it just an off year for Cascade hopes?
Well, high alpha hops would explain a beer that’s more bitter, but sour? That’s another story altogether. I’m assuming your cleaning and sanitizing is up to par. I guess try brewing something with hops other than Cascade and see what happens.
Once I got a very weird off flavor from dry hopping with some home grown hops. Such an odd flavor that I decided not to use the rest of the hops and dumped the beer.
That said, “sour” sounds like an infection to me. Hops have a myriad of flavors, sour is not one of them. Unless it is possible you are misstating the off flavor.
Is sour the right word? I would think the pub owner wouldn’t sell sour beer. I have used 2# of the 2011 Cascade crop from Hops Direct and they were fantastic, although high at 7.2%.
I sort of thought I might get a question about my use of the description “sour,” but that is what it is. I know bitter and like it. This was a very different flavor.
I was mostly wondering if anyone had heard of off flavored cascades this year. The reply about the home grown hopes is intriguing
though.
And to answer the question about our sanitation, we are fermenting in 15 gallon stainless kegs. I do question our ability to properly sanitized these vessels. I am fermenting my current batch in clean glass. I will also be dry hopping with last year’s Amarillos.
I just tasted some beer I made last weekend and it is good. Now I think the hops are fine and the problem is in our sanitation. Thanks for the input, it helped me identify the problem.
Cameron