What does "malty mess" mean?

It's like racism, except in beer. 'Malt' is bad. Hops are good.

 

I've heard people call beers a mess, but never a "hoppy mess" or a "malty mess". I feel that there should be a comma there. As in, it is a mess of a beer that happens to be hoppy or it is a malty beer that is a mess.

 

i've seen "hoppy mess". more often "boozy mess". meh.

 

When the flavours that come out just don't mesh together very well and it blurs into a giant blend of blech.

 

'malty mess' - noun, A term used to describe a beer that is actually hoppy but not as young as the speaker wishes thus suggesting that the hop flavors have completely vanished and the beer has become "messy". See also, "This DIPA has become a Barleywine"

 

Messy, to me at least, is a synonym for a very, very unbalanced beer. A hoppy beer with no malt foundation, and a noticeable alcohol taste would, IMHO, a hoppy mess. Vice versa, a sweet beer, with no grain aspect to the malt, and low hops, where nothing really melds together, would be a malty mess.

 

Or vice versa.

 

Any remark that uses 'malty' in a disparaging way says more about the commenter than about the beer.

 

A messy beer in my opinion is one that has too much going on. Either too much spice or too many different flavors overpowering each other.

My example of a hot mess would be Pumking. Way too much spice and booze. I found it very difficult to drink and drain poured it. But that's just my opinion and there are plenty here
to disagree with me.

 

A messy beer is one where the flavors don't blend well. I've had beers that a flavor jumps out, then drops off to another flavor or two, and it's just too sudden of a transition. A well balanced beer flows with the flavors, some bitterness that gives way to another element of the beer. Another type of messy beer is when one flavor completely dominates all others, and that's bad.

 

Bingo!

 

Wrongo. There is definitely such a thing as too malty. I don't even mean too malty, just a malty domination usually due to age. There's a fantastic shop close to me that cellars many of their beers and will sell the vintages whenever you ask. Anyways I went in the other day looking for some winter warmers they might have kept from last year. The owner produced an Old Man Winter Ale from ST that was two years old. It was decent but still was a malty mess for something that used to be somewhat balanced. Tasted like drinking a coca cola with caramel syrup mixed in.

 

Never heard any beer called a malty mess, hoppy mess, or mess.

 

I guess you didn't read the post before yours.

 

Had you had that beer fresh, so that you had a reference point? What were you using as a guide to make you think it was 'Too" malty?

 

Whenever I've called something a mess is when it's warmed up a little, and the beer just can't keep itself together as a whole, deteriorating into several main components that don't harmonize anymore, and one of those components may be malt. Warm up an Old Chub for an example.

 

A year old Maharaja fits that description.

 

OK. Malta is "too malty" for me (aka drinkin' molasses), but I can't fault it for living up to its name. When something is too malty for you, is it too bready, sweet, fruity or roasty? Personally, I think of aged beer as becoming oxidized rather than maltier. Unfortunately, the most common occurrence of the word malty in Beer Talk is usually accompanied by "so I drain poured that two month old IPA."