Good afternoon all,
I am puzzled by a recent brew and am still trying to put my finger on what happened. I brewed the Arrogant Bastard clone recipe a few weeks ago. The recipe was scaled to my system. BeeerSmith estimated the IBUs at 91. OG 1.067 FG 1.017. When I tasted it and as I taste it now it has a flavor I am unable to describe and its not good. I't not sour in any way and has not grown in intensity as the beer has sat in keg/fermentor. A friend of mine came up with tomato paste as a descriptor. The beer really bitter and somewhat harsh. It tasted fine going into the fermentor. Potential issues are obviously infection or I was thinking salt additions in combination with big dose of Chinook hops. I've since done an intensive clean and sanitation of my Therminator and my following batch has no sign of the issue. I've never had this flavor appear in any batch before.
My water looked like this after diluting 50% with distilled and salt additions:
Ca 103
Mg 17
Na 16
Cl 30
SO4 220
CaCO3 91
I plan to dump the beer as soon as I need the kegs for a party I am having in 3-weeks so I am still able to taste it. I know it's really difficult to troubleshoot in a forum, but I figured I'd see what ideas anyone had.
Thoughts?