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honestly, I just had a local homebrew group contest that was specified for a "Red Ale".. decided to come here to find a recipe and just went with it (only my 5th batch, never brewed a Red Ale before).. as Smithwicks is an Irish Red Ale, that sounds good to me.. I have it packed up and should be sending it tomorrow..
Posted 34 days ago.
Hey man,
I had the chance to review your Temptress last night.
Before I get into the review, I want to thank you again for giving me the chance to try your beer. Having someone else brew your recipe is an intensely gratifying thing, and I was really looking forward to it.
Also, I want to say that you have been a fabulous member of the community so far. You're active, you seem to be a cool guy, I have been very glad to have you.
All of the above makes this a tough review to deliver. I wonder if it's possible that I got an infected or contaminated bottle?
I wanted to share my review with you privately before I post anything for the consumption of others. I would never, ever want someone to be uncomfortable or feel like I'm putting them down, which I absolutely am not. Also, please understand that even the best brewers have issues sometimes. Heck, my most popular blog post still to this date is about the time I sent some beer (that I was quite proud of) to be reviewed by a couple of pro brewers... and they reported that it gushed and tasted like SOAP.
I do think that it's very valuable to have negative reviews posted publicly, especially if there is a dialogue as to what could have gone wrong and how to fix the issues; after all, we all learn way more from mistakes than we do from successes. But I'll leave it up to you if we keep this private.
One final note that at this point, I'm not going to include any score elements. I'm not a BJCP judge, anyway, and I don't know if attaching a number to my comments is helpful or not. I'll be happy to share those if you want them, but I don't think they should be the focus. On to the review.
The bottle itself is attractive, featuring the "Temptress" name and a voluptuous dark fairy. I've given it a good 48 hour chill at this point, and I let the bottle sit on my counter for a half hour or so before I open it.
I get a light hiss upon opening the beer, suggesting a low carb level, which proves true. The beer pours a dark brownish red in my pint glass, with a thin cap of light tan foam. When held up to the light, the red color comes through pretty nicely, though the beer is quite murky. There is no lacing at all, and the head melts pretty quickly.
Aroma is strong malt, and a bit boozy. There is some caramel and bready/toasty here, but there is also a really noticeable estery presence that combines in a discordant way with the alcohol smell to suggest overripe fruit.
When I taste, I get a big shot of harsh, dark fruit esters before anything else, and these are almost a bit sour on the palate. The overall impression of the beer is rather sweet. There is caramel and malt body, with a touch of roast to the finish, though this isn't as dry as I would like. Bitterness is in balance with what I would expect from this style. As it warms, I get ever so slight impression of hoppiness up front.
The medium body of this beer, combined with the low carbonation level, makes the mouthfeel feel a bit fuller than a higher carb level would have done.
Overall... well, the beer's flaws really drag it down. I have brewed this recipe several times, and I've had a sixer from someone else's brew of it; I have a good idea of what to expect.
The cloudiness is no big deal; Irish moss/whirlfloc in the last ten minutes of the boil can go a lot way towards clarifying your beer, and if you can cold crash and add gelatin, you can make it nearly crystal clear. And honestly, I don't mind cloudy beer one bit.
The esters, though, are the big problem. Hints of fruity esters in an Irish red are okay and to style, but the presence in this beer really detracts from both the aroma and the flavor.
Now, I'm assuming that I didn't just get a bad bottle. If I did... meh, that happens. Ignore anything else that follows.
I would be interested to know about the health and pitch rate of the yeast; to me, this beer's most glaring flaws lie in the ester impacts to both aroma and flavor. If you used liquid yeast (assuming WLP004), did you make a starter? Next, I'd look at fermentation temps; if this got warm, that could explain some things. However, I feel like you probably had a high FG; combined with the esters, yeast health seems like the most likely issue to me. I'd like the beer to be carbed to a bit higher level, but that's personal preference (not an issue).
Now, if you're still reading...
I very much appreciate the chance to review this beer, and I do look forward to trying your kolsch!
Posted 34 days ago.
Hey man,
Thanks so much again, for taking the time to review my beer and giving honest feedback.
I want to thank you for being sensitive about posting a critical review for the public to see, but I want you to know that it doesn't bother me one bit. I honestly knew there was something off about the upfront/initial taste, and wanted to get your take on it. Perhaps there was something in the process along that way that caused that.. I'll walk you through everything I did, and I'll let you be the judge..
I even submitted this beer in for a local homebrew competition, so I got some of the critical reviews from them as well.. the most critical of which stated, "nutty aroma, strange astringency, malty fights through.." and "could be good after it gets cleaned of DMS/Diacetyl".. I understand that there is always room for improvement, and without getting critical feedback it is impossible to improve the quality.. I want to know exactly how you felt about the beer.. worts and all.. and posting it publicly could potentially help out some of the other users, so please don't be concerned about hurting my feelings on any beers I sent you.. I really hope you give me a fair judgement and want to be able to build off that for any future brews..
My Process:
I did in fact use a yeast starter, I know it was a month ago, and you're a pretty active user.. so I'm not quite sure if you remember this post on reddit.. I did exactly as you said, cold crashing the starter, decanting off some liquid, then pitching.. I also have a BrewPi temperature controller used on my chest freezer.. this is the first few days of active fermentation.. This of course does not mean that yeast pitching rate and temperature control wasn't the problem.. I'm just saying that those two things were definitely something I was concerned with while brewing this beer.. and any beer for that matter..
I had my first stuck sparge on this beer, and it took quite a while of stirring, waiting, shaking, waiting, shaking, blowing back into the false bottom, waiting.. for it to finally finish sparging.. I initially attributed that to the large grain bill.. a large amount of grains with what seemed like a small amount of water at the time.. this past weekend I brewed the MACC IPA, as I'm sure you are aware.. the grain bill seemed considerably lighter, and the mash was not nearly as thick as the Red Ale.. I still had a stuck sparge.. IMO, the grains seemed to be milled really fine, and may have contributed to the problem in both beers.. It's something I will at least bring up to the owner of my LHBS.. that may have been an issue, maybe not.. I have brewed 6 batches, and had 2 stuck sparges.. both times, I bought grains that were milled at that store..
After dealing with a stuck sparge, I did not end up with the pre-boil volume I wanted, and added dilution water directly to the boil.. probably not the best practice.. and then continued with the hop schedule/chilling/etc.. during fermentation there was no usual signs of infections, and I don't think you were sent a bad/infected bottle.. I did leave the temperatures pretty low for the full 2 weeks of fermentation prior to cold crashing, which I now realize was a mistake.. (if I find it later, I can send you a screenshot of the BrewPi page during its full fermentation process)
Again, I definitely got the same "harsh" initial taste to the beer, however it seemed to mellow out with a very malty taste.. I tasted it during bottling and didn't get any of that harsh taste, which is what my rating on your website reflects (maybe something happened at bottling?).. I am not experienced to detect what esters/tannins/DMS/diacetyl it might have been, but I did notice it.. I plan on keeping a couple bottles to age and see if somehow the yeast cleans some of that up.. the judges at the competition mentioned that almost everybody's beer was "too young" and needed some sort of aging.. who knows, perhaps that will help..
I again appreciate your honest feedback, and your sensitivity prior to publicly posting this review.. I just want you to know I have a lot of respect for your opinion and love the great content you provide to the community, which makes me happy to be a part of it.. In no way do I feel uncomfortable with you posting a critical review of one of my beers now, or in the future.. please feel the same way when reviewing my Kolsch.. I personally think its the best beer I've ever made, but I would not at all be offended if you had a different opinion..
I appreciate honest feedback.. I didn't send beer to be reviewed just so I can have an untrue glowing review that will boost my confidence if its not an honest review.. I am glad you took the time to review my beer, and I hope you have a different experience with the Kolsch.. but if not, don't worry about posting publicly.. I won't take offense..
Thanks so much Olan
Posted 34 days ago.
Hello,
Got your message. Looks like I need to look at the sent item script.
I will move our conversation to the thread tonight. I cannot say how relieved that I am that you took my words in the spirit they were intended. I know that if I had a bad batch, I'd want to know about it, but I also know that I would never want to discourage anyone.
I wonder if you have a bottling issue. Hey, I have definitely been there, done that. I think that having community input to this can only be valuable.
Posted 34 days ago.
Okay. I administratively moved our conversation from PM to public.
So, the beer was good in the bottling bucket - none of these off flavors?
Walk us through your bottling process, if you don't mind.
Posted 34 days ago.
I guess this is relevant information as to why the carbonation was off.. I didn't use a bottling bucket, I transferred straight from the primary to bottles.. in other words, I guess-timated the amount of fermented wort, so I might have underestimated..
Posted 34 days ago.
What size batches are you doing? Did you boil the sugar, or dump it in dry?
Posted 34 days ago.
5 gallon batches, sugar boiled in water, waited until cooled then added it.. my first batch ever was a Texas Bock that I made the rookie mistake of just "adding dry sugar" and it came out under-carbonated.. so I have learned from that mistake..
Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by blur_yo_face
If you're doing five gallon batches, I think that you need to invest in a bottling bucket/bottling wand combo. I think it's going to be tough to get a good mixture of priming sugar without really kicking up the trub. Plus, you can get a pretty precise measure of how much beer you have in the bucket, boil the exact amount of sugar, and mix it in with a sanitized spoon. No variation.
I'm still stumped at the off flavors, though. To me, it really does taste like a yeast/temperature issue. Unless...
How do you clean your bottles? How do you sanitize? Do you re-use commercial bottles, old homebrew bottles, etc?
Have you ever had another batch with similar flavor issues?
Posted 34 days ago.
I did reuse commercial bottles by soaking in oxyclean to remove the labels.. Then re-wash in oxyclean day of bottling, then immediately rinse in hot water and dunk in a bucket of diluted star-San solution..
Posted 34 days ago.
Sounds like a more rigorous cleaning method than I've ever employed.
Posted 34 days ago.
Agreed. So where is the issue coming from?
Posted 34 days ago.
Wonder if part of the problem may be the rewashing with oxiclean at the time of bottling? I soak my bottles in oxiclean, hit 'em with a bottling brush, and then let them soak in water for several hours before I rinse them well and put them on the bottling tree. After they've dried, I put foil over the top and place them in the oven. I bring to oven to 350 F and bake them for an hour. I let them cool gradually and then store them until I need them for bottling. STERILIZED.
Posted 34 days ago.
I don't think it's the oxiclean. I do pretty much exactly what blur does, no problems whatsoever as long as your rinsing thoroughly. It really sounds like a temperature issue, but if I am reading correctly you fermented it a bit cool.
Posted 34 days ago.
I have been rinsing thoroughly with hot water, shaking the bottle with the water in it, then dunking in Star-San..
Posted 34 days ago.
