Four weeks after brewing the witbier, it was time to taste how it turned out. Well, I have to say I thought it would have been better.
When I was bottling this beer up, I was tasting it and there was some good flavors coming out of it. I really got a sense of the silky mouthfeel of the oats and the softness of the wheat.
Since it carbonated, the phenols from the yeast are really up front and present. The spice/citrus notes are very present too, making this white ale play more like a saison.
I don’t think there are any off flavors from contamination. I think this is more of a fermentation temperature issue. I did my best to keep the beer at 68°F for the majority of the fermenation. Maybe the water bath I had the carboy in wasn’t enough to insulate it from the warm ambient air temperature, which was around 80°F in my basement.
I don’t know. I am going to have Mike taste it and get his notes. The bottles are now in the beer fridge. I hope that some cold conditioning will help mellow out some of the flavors. I’ll put this one into competition to see what judges say.
I took some photos to show the color off. It’s not as “white” as I’d like it to be.
Mike
Bring some over when I brew the Baltic Porter, or the Pale Ale or the Belgian Dubble. Not sure when I’ll be doing any these actually, just pour one and leave it in your mail box. I’ll swing by and drink it when I walk the dog.
Mike
Hey! When did you brew this? I was brewing last night and today and I think the water tastes funny all of a sudden. It seemed like it had more chlorine in it than usual. I wonder if they upped the chlorine due to late summer heat, or post Irene to handle any water leaks they had or dealing with excess run off into the treatment plants… Well I brewed two different beers today, we’ll see if you can taste any chorine flavors when they are done.