My AHA rally wort is carbonated and I’m getting an astringency from it. I doubt it is a production issue unless others have noticed something similar. For those who don’t know, the wort was produced by Heretic. My last couple batches have been plagued by poor fermentation. I’m narrowing it
down to either bugs in my plastic Speidel fermenter or my temperature controller. I might replace the controller and see what happens.
Do you think you may be mistaking “astringent” for phenolic? Astringent is “puckering” and drying, like tea. Phenolic will be like band aid or clove.
I’m with Keith. Didn’t you use a Belgian strain?
I can confirm that it wasn’t from the wort itself. I chose a Belgian strain so had banana and clove flavors, but my friend chose a cleaner yeast, and didn’t experience any off flavors. At least none that my admittedly untrained palette could detect.
Which yeast did you use?
Keep in mind that astringency in beer usually comes from a mash pH/temp issue extracting too much tannins from the grain husk. Other culprits could be over oaking (too much or too long on oak cubes/chips) or another ingredient like tea. Fermentation won’t cause astringency so if other worst are non astringent that probably means you are misdiagnosing the problem.
Any beer can seem to present some astringency if you have eaten certain foods before hand. Skinned fruits and nuts come to mind. Eat some walnuts and I can guarantee that any beer you sip for the next 30min. will seem astringent. There are other foods that do it too. Make sure you have not eaten anything next time you go to taste it. Just one possibility.