This week we taste a latecomer batch of Kolsch from Matt. Matt sent us his Kolsch and let us know he wasn’t happy about. We opened it up and took it for a ride.

Kudos all around for having the guts to send in a beer that you aren’t happy with and allowing These Two Dudes to taste it on camera and offer critique. We certainly think its great. We all learn something that way. Hopefully, we can translate what we are experiencing in the beer in a way that allows other readers/viewers to “get it” without actually being able to taste it.

Matt complained first that the beer was hazy. We didn’t find that to be the case. In fact, having travelled by mail then sitting in my fridge for a few days certainly sets a high bar for stuff settling out. It was fine. Very minimal haze, not enough to really even call it cloudy. So no worries there.

The beer is a little darker in color and a little more characterful specialty malt-wise than I think a traditional Kolsch would be. It think its obvious from the recipe below that the Munich and the C30L are responsible for that. When designing a Kolsch or Kolsch-like beer I’d simply start with great European Pilsner malt and just that. If you want a little deeper malt character I can see using a little Munich but I’d keep it under 5% total and use 10L Munich or lighter. A touch (<2%) of melanoidin malt would help out too and control the color some. I like the hop profile here as well but it didn't come through as strong as it could be due to the other aspects of the malt profile and fermentation issues. Clearly (and Matt knows this) there was a bit of a phenolic aroma and flavor in there. His info to us suggested maybe it happened during bottling that something changed or got a light contaminant. There was also a noticeable DMS/corn aroma in the beer which could be do to a weak boil with that Pilsner malt. Or just the brand of Pilsner malt, I am not experience with Avangard Pilsner Malt to be honest. Clearing that up is a process issue. But at the time of this writing vs when we shot the video, I suppose some of that corny character could be something weird from the contamination issue with another microbe. All these issues are totally manageable with a couple small process tweaks and perhaps using super clean bottles or new bottles at packaging. Big thanks for Matt for sending in the beer. Hopefully, he chimes in and lets us know if he rebrews the beer or if he agrees/disagrees with us on our tasting notes. We plan to change up the swap format soon so keep checking in for that announcement. BREW ON! Matt's Kolsch Recipe: Malt: 7.82 pounds Pilsner Malt Avangard 1.5 pounds Wheat Malt Avangard 1.25 pounds Light Munich Avangard 0.25 pounds Caramel 30L Avangard Hops: .4 Ounces Magnum @ 60min .5 Ounces Tettnang @ 20min 1.24 Ounces Hallertouer Hersbrucker @ 10min Yeast: WLP029