I know people's palates can be sensitive to different things. I see people decribe smells and flavors in certain beers that I don't find in them. (Onions in some OB beers for example). I had some Heavy Seas Black Cannon last night and it smelled like what I can only describe as dirty socks, and I picked up tastes that I can only describe as brie and dirty pennies. Has anyone experienced any of these and can it be narrowed down to a certain ingredient? The bottles were well within it's freshness date. I drank two just to make sure it was as bad as I thought. Maybe just a bad batch? Maybe it's just me. Any relevant stories about off flavors/scents are also welcome.
My hb partner calls it metallic, but I never taste the dirty penny taste others do. Some describe flavors in gueuze as like sweat or dirty socks, and a BA chemist once chimed in with info that the base chemical responsible was indeed the same one responsible for the smell in some hormonal aromas. I taste green apples in many saisons, and definitely smell straw and onions in some beers.
Not an “off” scent/taste, but I get overwhelmed by BBAing pretty easily. That’s one reason I like Parabola so much – despite being a very noticeably BBAed-beer, it doesn’t have too much bourbon booziness associated with it. It’s as if they took all the BBA characteristics but only half the booziness to go. I’m also very sensitive to metallic flavors. As much as I’d like to support them, I find that Anchor and Green Flash have too much metallic flavors in almost all of their standard beers. I don’t homebrew, so I’m not quite sure where that flavor comes from, but I find it very bothersome. I will note that I haven’t tasted it in Green Flash’s Silva Stout and Linchpin.
A penny taste to me is somewhat common. Its an oxidation issue I believe? I taste it quite a bit. Moldy tastes (dirty socks) are not necessarily a thing brewers were trying to accomplish. It may be infected. But I think that weird tastes are all over beers. Yesterday I was drinking a Anderson Valley Summer Solstice and it tasted like graham cracker with butter on it (something I used to eat a lot as a kid) to me.
Sensitive to diacetyl? I find a lot of BAs are sensitive to that flavor, but I’m not. Or at least if I taste it I don’t mind it.
