Brewed 10 gal of a German ALT, which came out perfect for Alt. Problem is the beer just seems a little boring now and I am only about 1/2 way through it.
I have a full 5 gal keg of it sitting ready to go on tap as soon as the first keg empties (1st probably has 1 gal or so in it still).
Question… I am thinking about opening the full keg and adding some (qty ??) cascade home grown whole hops for a dry hop in order to change the beer. I know it won’t give any bitter change and very, very little flavor change if any. But, maybe even a slight change in the flavor and a aroma addition would make the beer more interesting. Do you think adding a couple ounces of cascade at this point will do anything positive to the beer ? I don’t care if it falls out of style, just looking for something “extra” in this last 5 gal’s so I can get excited about getting through this keg.
Beer was originally kegged in early March. Made from mostly pils malt and some munich with magnum and tettnag.
I guess it would depend on what the alt is like now and what you expect out of it. For the alts I make, I can’t imagine Cascade in it. But I haven’t tasted yours, so it could be a totally different situation.
Your beer might be getting stale, early stages of oxidation/aging are characterized by a generally “dull” profile - fewer esters, and less hop aroma and flavor, plus hints of chemical bitterness and/or honey-like notes. Drink the last of the first keg first or use the remains of that keg for cooking.
If you can, keep the other keg as cool as possible to minimize oxidation.
Adding dry hops couldn’t hurt to bring up the hop aroma, especially if you’re worried that second cask might be getting oxidized, too. A Cascade dry-hopped alt sounds interesting.
Just make sure that you put your dry hops in a bag so you can easily get the hops out. Otherwise, you’ll be picking up a lot of hoppy trub and might have problems with the pickup tube getting clogged.
I think what I am going to do is take some 22 oz and larger bottles and do some testing with different hop varieties. Be a fun experiment to take a little amount of different hops and dry hop in bottles. I know it won’t be a perfect test, and I’ll probably clog some bottles and get hop matter in my glass on some, but it will be interesting.