What's the link between turbid brew and a heady taste?

Question

I know a few local beers, like Ayinger Kellerbier, that are not filtered and are turbid when looking through. Those are quite taste, but go the head quickly (meaning light headache, not basic drunkenness). Now, my first batch of cider has fermented. I fermented from mashed fruits, not juice, after filtering through a cloth I arrived at a very turbid fluid. It does not taste like much, the yeast is still settling but it does have this heady qualtity that I know from these non-filtered beers.
So, what makes the brew heady (in lack of a better word) and has it anything to do with the turbidity?

Answer 1

From what I can gather, you are wondering if there is a connection between taste, headache-inducing qualities, and cloudiness in both beer and cider.

For beer, one connection could be allowing kraeusen to sink back into the beer during primary fermentation. Kraeusen contains bitter hop resins (which contribute to the taste), but it also contains fusel oils (which can give you a headache). I quote from Charlie Papazian's The Complete Joy of Home Brewing:

The kraeusen is topped with a very bitter and brown resinous scum, some of which will adhere to the sides of the fermenter as the kraeusen shortly disappears and falls back into the beer. There is an advantage to the removal of this resin before it falls back into the fermentation: There will be less of a bitter 'bite' to your beer. In the process of removing the bitter resins, 'fusel' oils are also removed. Fusel oils are a by-product of fermentation and contribute to what are often referred to as 'beer headaches.' If the removal of hop resins during the kraeusen stage can be done under sanitary conditions then it is advised to do so.

Also, letting the kraeusen sink back into the brew can make it cloudy, although that is not the sole determining factor.

With cider, I am no expert but as long as you aren't using hops, I don't see any reason why there would be headache-inducing fusel oils. Edit: I retract this statement. It appears as though fusel oil is a by-product of ethanolic fermentations in general. From Papazian's text, I gather that the fusel oils just happen to get caught in the hop resins.