Brett Descriptors

Gross, disgusting, not something I would drink, piles of something you would find in a barnyard, smells like a barnyard... Not sure if those would help, but it is what I get in every brett beer I have had the displeasure of sampling.

 

The below Brett-aroma-wheel is pretty comprehensive:



http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/File:Brett-aroma-wheel.jpeg

Cheers!

 

Leather
Cracker
Cheese-Nips
Cheerios
Mousy
Urine
Goat
Cheese

 

Decaying hay/grass
Ear wax
Dirty finger nails

 

Horse stall floor, wet old wool blanket, damp crawlspace, rat/mouse urine (but in a good way ), freshly turned humus (not hummus).
I've not picked up on the plasticized smells that are often mentioned, like burnt or melted plastic, or bandaid; nor the strong fruit notes.

FWIW, also from Milk The Funk are four charts with descriptors for esters, phenols, acids and other compounds; some listing precursors and some listing the strain responsible.

Do you think the tasters are of the farm-folk type who have been exposed to equine or other farm associated aromas....other than driving past a dairy farm in August?

 

Would you categorize that as a flavor or an aroma?

 

I find it's more of an astringency.

 

Unfortunately when you can smell earwax it is so pungent that it hits the back of your throat and it becomes a taste.

 

Did you have an unpleasant experience with Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans!?!

Cheers!

 

In no particular order:
Hay
Silage
Fresh plowed field
seaweed, marshy, swampy
toasted sesame
wet wool
horsey
goaty
mousy
leather
cherry
pineapple
fecal
fresh cut wood
overripe/decaying apple
musty

That's it for now

 

They sometimes remind me old fashion after shave, like old spice. Or maybe some sort of polish used on leather? The one I made last year had those elements plus cherry. Not quite pie cherry but more like cherry lifesavers.

 

Unsweetened juicy fruit gum
Unsweetened pineapple juice
Peach pits
Cherry pits
Fingernail polish remover
Toasted sesame seeds

 

Seeing that wheel, and hearing what others get, I still don't understand how someone would do this to beer....

 

Parmesan cheese. An off flavor that is hard to ignore once you make the connection

 

Yup. I call it "Cheese Nips". The cracker. More of a cheddar thing to me. But yeah.

 

Blue cheese
Vomit
Manure
Tilled earth

 

Any advice on how to make it lean towards manure and tilled earth? I'm started to get jaded by the blue cheesy vomit flavors.


My next batch is looking like an Orval-inspired beer, and some posts in this thread have me second guessing it.

 

Oh that's easily fixed. Just add some buckwheat honey. Meadmakers just LOVE the taste of shit, too.

 

No kidding about the buckwheat honey! I made a Buckwheat honey banana braggot in the style of a dubbel in 2017. Probably the craziest beer I ever made. It really did have a fermented hay like smell, which when you get down to it, is exactly what some manures are composed of. After tasting the honey straight, I was really afraid to use it, but I powered on. My fears were well-founded. But I think some buckwheat honey must be better than what I used, because I sampled some at Homebrewcon the same year and thought it was all right.