So I've had a number of Belgian made and American Belgian style dark ales and Brunes recently. I've noticed that many have a distinct olive taste. It's mild in some and quite strong in others. Has anyone else noticed this? Do you know what causes it?
I've not noticed any olive taste in any of the Belgians I've had. Are there specific beers which the flavor is more apparent than others? It could be esters or phenols your palate doesn't agree with, but who knows.
This is curious and interesting. Could you describe the flavor a bit more? Is it an aroma as well? Olives have a wide variety of flavors and aromas, depending upon ripeness, variety, and brining versus oil preservation.
I've definitely picked up olive (usually green) flavors and aromas in beers. It has been few and far between, but something I do recall. Also in line with this, would be brine/caper flavor and/or aroma. Depending on the beer, it wasn't automatically off-putting.
A Google search for "olive taste in beer" returns numerous articles referring to the flavor. Probably weird esters from the particular yeast strains, I'd guess. https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/1tt2pv/olive_taste_whha/
Most recently it was at Corridor Brewery in Chicago with a beer they called a Brune. I'll have to go back and look up the others. It was a bitter, earthy, somewhat vegetal flavor that came through in the aftertaste. Closest taste I can think of is kalamata olives. Not necessarily bad just a little odd. It might be an odd ester in some small batch beers. I have also picked out weird flavors in other beers so it just might be my palate. I was curious if anyone else had tasted anything similar.
I'm very sensitive to olives, as it's one of my least favorite foods. I've never tasted olive flavor in any beer and nothing close to it in any Belgian-style ale.
I did get an "almost green olive-ish" sort of flavor from a bottle of Goose Island's Matilda that I had maybe a month ago. Pretty noticeable amounts of it, too. Was a 2015 bottle that had aged unrefrigerated for... I want to say somewhere in the 6-8 months range? before I drank it. I didn't pick up any trace of that flavor in the first (much fresher) bottle I had last year. Not a dark Belgian-style ale, but it is a Belgian-style ale, so...
