I am sitting here sipping at the gravity sample from my maple barley wine that has been fermenting for the last 11 days and it smells and tastes exactly like pineapple juice. Never experienced this before.
The recipe
25 lbs Gambrinus organic pale malt
1.25 lbs grade A dark amber maple syrup (Vermont)
1 oz organic Ivanhoe at 8% alpha FWH
1 oz ivanhoe at 30 m
1 oz ivanhoe at 15 m
1 oz ivanhoe at 10 m
1 oz ivenhoe at 5 m
added the maple syrup at the end of the boil.
Pitched 90% of a yeast cake of Wyeast 1968 from an IPA. temp was 62 and then dropped down to the upper fifties and has been fairly stable between 64-68 with one brush with 70 for the whole fermentation.
I partigyled this brew and the first runnings plus a little of the second runnings got me my 7 ish gallons pre boil volume while I got 3.5 gallons of small beer at 1.032 hopped with a little left over cascade. The barley wine ended up at 1.097.
There are lots of yeast still in suspension and the gravity is still dropping (the BW down to 1.016 the small beer 1.002!)
but man it’s like drinking Pineapple juice. The mouth feel is even thick and rich kind of like pineapple juice and rum.
Any ideas? is this an infection? Just the hops or yeast?
Had a string of bitters back in 07 tasted exactly like ruby red grapefruit juice. Unbelievable. It was a combination of columbus and cascade at 60 40 and 20. I say it’s the hops.
Could be the hops. I’m not familiar with Ivanhoe, but I’ve had beers that are heavily C-hopped that have a huge grapefruit presence. Don’t know if Ivanhoe has any pineapple tropical fruit character. Did you pick up any of that at all when smelling the dried hops?
Another possibility might be oxidation. I’ve occasionally picked up HINTS of pineapple along with sherry or cardboard notes in aged barleywines or other big beers. But those were just hints, not tasting like pineapple juice. Of course, sensitivity & perception levels of various flavor components vary with the taster. Wouldn’t expect this though in a newly fermenting beer.
Another possibility is esters from the yeast. It’ll be interesting to see if this flavor stays, develops further, or goes away as the fermentation & conditioning continue. What is the alcohol character like at this point?
I did think about this when I was doing some research about this someone on another forum mentioned Brett C. I don’t think i would mind if that is the case and it seems possible. the small beer is down to 1.002 at this point from 1.032. However I am not getting any pineapple from the small beer. It tastes bready and grainy no pineapple. I am leaning towards the hops at this point but either way it’s facinating!
EDIT so I went and sniffed the 2 oz of Ivanhoe that I have left for dry hopping and there is a noticeable pineapple character once your nose gets past the strong hop character.
well, there you are! though, as Buckeroo Banzai said, “Wherever you go, there you are.” If you’re detecting noticeable pineapple aroma in the hops themselves, ain’t much doubt then.
