[Peter Batt]

Hi

I wonder if you can help me with troubleshooting my beer all grain beer tastes.  I am Uk resident mainly using Maris otter as base grain rather than US 2-row.  I have been brewing all grain for about 10 years, I currently use a Grainfather G40 and Brewzilla Gen 4 , I previously used SS brewtech 10 gal mash tun and 15 gal boiler kettle.

I have recently (last 2 years) being getting batches of my lighter beers (US style IPA mainly) that a have sharp resinous taste at the back of my throat. I really do not like that taste and whilst the beer is not "off" I end up throwing it away. Can anyone suggest what that taste is attributed to and how I can stop it. I always thought it was hops in the boil but I am not sure having experimented  a bit with that.   

My darker, Stouts and "bitter" beers are fine and whilst some are "bitter" they do not leave residual resin type taste at the back of my throat.

Typically  I am using 50-60g of bittering hops in IPAs per 45l of pre-boil~38-40 litres of actual fermentable wort.

Many Thanks for any assistance you can offer

Best regards Pete

[majorvices]

Do you know the alkalinity of your water? My guess is that it is high since you say the dark beers turn out fine. Darker malts are more acidic so they lower the pH of the mash. You might try diluting your tap water with distilled or RO water 50/50 ratio and see if that helps.

Another option is tp cut way back on your bittering hops. On my hoppy beers I sometimes don't have the IBU much over 35... at least on paper. Sometimes all the bittering hops go in at 20 minutes (to about 35 IBU) then just load up on last-minute and WP additions.

[hopfenundmalz]

Keith's suggestion to look into the water matches my thinking. The UK has many areas where the water is Alkaline due to the chalk. Other areas can have very good water for brewing.

If you can't get a water report from the water supplier and want to see if alkalinity is a problem you can do a little test. Boil a gallon of water for 15 minutes in the evening, leave the pot overnight. If there is a white fluffy layer at the bottom of the pot that is chalk that has precipitated. I  used to preboil all of my brewing water as my tap water is alkaline. Now I use RO water and add minerals back based on what style I'm brewing.

I hope this helps.

[jeffy]

The above replies have excellent suggestions and may point to the problem. Another thing to consider is the timing of the hop additions. If they are all late additions, like the current craze for hazy IPA's, then that will cause an astringency in the flavor/mouthfeel as well.

[ynotbrusum]

The above are a start and if adjustments on water, pH and/or hop additions don't prove to solve the issue, go to RO or distilled water and adjust salts back from that.  I also don't recommend Maris Otter for lighter, pale British beers (I go with Golden Promise, instead) - YMMV on that, of course.

[Village Taphouse]

I had a similar issue on pale beers.  It was a pH issue.  The darker beers were okay because the darker malts lower pH but I wasn't getting the pH low enough on pale beers.  I also noticed that the color of the pale beers was a little unusual because of this as well.  Also, I have learned that it's tricky to diagnose these problems on a board because the brewing process contains so many variables so I'm just pointing to the most likely cause.  The strange thing is that you have brewed for 10+ years and this just started in the last 2 years so then it points to a change either in your water or your process.