My first brew tastes a bit like champage. Did I do something wrong?

Question

I just got finished with my very first brew! It is a blonde that I made from a Mr. Beer kit. It smells and tastes good, but I was a bit worried because it also has sort of a champagne taste. Did I do something wrong to get this to happen, or do blondes just taste that way sometimes?

Answer 1

champagne has lots of qualities that contribute to it's taste, so it could be many things, depending upon which part of the champagne taste you are detecting in your beer, but a few things jump to mind

• excessive fizziness caused by over carbonation
• yeast death - autolysis is usually present in small amounts in champagne, and this can occur in beer if it sits too long on the yeast
• dry, thin body - this can be the result of a large amount of adjuncts, such as sugar, in the brew.

It could be that the beer is overcarbonated - more fizzy than normal beer. If that's the case, then next time use less priming sugar, or, if you added to each bottle individually, add instead to a separate bucket first, and then rack the beer to that and then bottle.

A distinctive flavour in champagne is that of yeast autolysis, it's usually in small amounts. You may pick up some of the same traits in beer if it's sitting too long on the yeast. How long is too long depends upon the strength of the beer and the quality of the yeast. For a regular strength beer, bottling after 2-3 weeks reduces the chance of autolysis.

I've not brewed with a Mr Beer kit, but some extract kits include instructions to add several pounds of sugar. This makes the final beer drier and thinner in body compared to a full malt beer. If you can get hold of a can of unhopped liquid malt extract, or dry malt extract, use that instead of the sugar to create a fuller body.