hey, tasting a friend's beer. amber in colour. may be a sour. it has a really malty flavour to it, almost like cheerios. and no residual sweetness. without knowing what grist he used, any thoughts as to what would cause this? it just tastes off. and there's a caramel nose. should add that. my friend says it's been getting progressively worse with age.
"may be a sour" as if you think that your friend was intentionally trying to sour the beer, or is it happening unintentionally? You really haven't provided enough information here for any good guesses about this problem. Was this an all-grain batch? Do you know the beginning and ending gravity readings? Is your friend well experienced at homebrewing? What you describe so far is that you have grain-flavored water, so I wonder if the mash produced very much sugar for fermentation (if this was an all-grain brewing process). The full recipe details along with mash procedures were used, etc. would help get some discussion going.
y i know i'm vague, but i won't be able to get the full details. it was all grain. he's been brewing for a # of years. he says it was supposed to be a sour. he also thinks he has a pedio infection somewhere in his keg/draught system. says beer gets an oily texture, but there's a hell of a lot of butterscotch/toffee, so i don't think that's pedio
Pedio produces diacetyl which can be perceived as butterscotch or butter. As far as the grain bill goes, I have no idea what it is and wonder why you can't just ask your friend what he used.
I soured a pils oat wheat grist and it has a distinct breadiness to it as well, but in a good way. Maybe diacetyl tho.
