Green olive taste in certain stouts

Olives, no. Soy sauce, bigtime. I think my palate isn't quite used to a lot of BIG beers yet. I get rotten onions from most DIPA's and everybody else is going, haha, you're high.

 

Better than the onions I taste in some IPAs

But I've only noticed olives in a Porter..once...a few years go

 

1st Prairie bomb! I had tasted like green olives, everyone thought I was crazy. Prairie made it right though, and the three they sent me were fantastic.

 

Guanabara is awesome but I haven't had Siberian Night. Sounds like a pallet issue or bottle variation. No big deal though, just don't manifest by thinking about that olive taste before drinking something new, like an anxiety.

 

Maybe someone has started making a martini stout. It worked with bourbon.

 

The Shaken, not Stirred Stout.

 

That is an odd one that I've never noticed, and I've had a lot of different stouts, but I'll definitely be on the lookout in the future!

 

I haven't and I'm a huge stout fan/drinker. I don't like olives, so I assume I would pick the flavor out. Were the bottles old, stored improperly or some other assignable cause?

 

Only time I've gotten green olive from a beer is with certain strains of Brett. Maybe those beers were somehow infected with Brett?

 

I have always tasted massive green olive in Torpedo, but I can't recall it in any stouts.

 

That's that umami. I get a salty/savory flavor from lots of big, bitter stouts and I love it. I've never had the two that you mention, but Ten Fidy and Expedition come to mind.

 

I can't say I've ever picked green olive as a descripter for a stout, but that doesn't mean you aren't tasting it. I agree with the soy sauce flavor/aroma being more common and possibly what you might be perceiving as green olive. Have you had a green olive lately? Taste/smell one after sipping a Siberian Night. Taste/smell some soy sauce while you're at it. See if that seems to be what you are really tasting.

 

I may sound like a wimp but I find the soy sauce taste in some stouts and the onion in some ipas to be god awful. But hey that's just my palate.

 

I've noticed some "Green Olive" notes in some Hoppy Brews. It might be just certain Hop Acids gives off those Flavors/Aromas. I've gotten some Flack because I pickup "Green Pepper Skin" flavors on Amarillo Hops other than Citrus.

Edit: Those Stouts might be Hoppier than Normal Stouts, that would be my Guess.

 

North Coast Brother Thelonious has an olive brine taste imo... one of the worst beers i have ever had...

 

Not so much in stouts but I immediately thought olive the first time I tried Rayon Vert. So much so my fiance and I refer to it as the "olive beer".

 

Which aspects of the green olive taste are you getting?

A quick search of beer off flavors and green olive doesn't come up, but sour/salty comes up frequently within that context which sort of points toward the soy sauce off notes.

If I remember right, green olives are cured in lye, caustic soda, salt brine, or other stuff to make them edible. So just thinking that the olive taste might be representing something else - obviously some taste is triggering the "that reminds me of olives" response, but maybe it's not exactly olives? Lactic or acetic acid, maybe? Just a thought.

 

I've heard this one before with coffee stouts -- some folks get green peppers, especially as the coffee ages.

Green olives? I dunno. I do think stouts can offer up some weird aromas/flavors, particularly at different temperatures, that defy what our eyes assume out of a stout (dark, roasty, chocolatey, coffee-like flavors). So, wouldn't surprise me if you're getting some interesting notes, OP. Probably even moreso if you add a variable like coffee or barrel-aging.

 

For me, olives (but green and black) are on the same taste plane as licorice. Perhaps any hint of anise is being picked up as olive-like. I can see that.