Beer Forum

I'm on the process of developing an imperial stout recipe and decided to taste a few commercial versions before brewing my test batch. There was one thing that I found in 90% of the beers that I drank that I hated: a distinct soy sauce flavor. Is that a normal flavor in the style or something that can be avoided?

Seems like that's pretty common for the style, sometimes it's oxidation though.

It "should" never be there, and in my experience is almost always caused by oxidation after a long period of time (and with temperature fluctuations), as mentioned above. Also, I seem to recall listening to a previous show where someone talked about another cause of it being too much melanoidin malt, mainly in beers like bocks. I probably wouldn't ever use melanoidin malt in a stout anyway though. Would probably avoid munich malt as well.

Sounds like you just experienced the classic "umami" flavor that our taste buds can perceive. I also agree that one should not taste this flavor in any stout at all. Most likely oxidation of darker malts.

+1 on oxidation.

Am I the only one who saw "terrencetheblack" and "Soy sauce" and figured he was announcing the name of his next child?

Thanks for the input...and thanks for naming my next kid!