Kegged the Wheat Beer… A Bit Disappointed

Well, you can’t win them all.

I kegged up the summer wheat beer I brewed up a few weeks ago, and I knew I had a problem as soon as I opened the fermentor and the rich smell of ripe bananas washed over me. My first thought was some sort of infection – I had used Wyeast’s 3333 – German Wheat and expected a nice, clean flavor like an American Wheat (my first yeast choice, which the homebrew shop was out of). However, a little reseach led me to the fact that 3333 can indeed throw out banana esters when fermented a little on the high end of the temperature range. I had fermented this in the kitchen and the ambient temperature probably ranged from 65-75°F. Here is where laziness came back to haunt me – I have a fermenting refrigerator and forgot how important a cool fermentation is for a clean tasting wheat. I should’ve used the fridge and had this beer fermenting in the very low sixties.

Anyway, what’s done is done, and I now have an interesting brew on my hands. There is a definite banana flavor and aroma there – mixed with the citrus notes from the grains of paradise, the flavor reminds me of those Tropicana orange/banana fruit juice blends. The base reminds me a bit of Sam Adams’ Summer, which is sort of what I was aiming for, but the banana really throws it off. It isn’t fully carbonated yet – adding even a touch of carbonation helped the beer even out quite a bit, and I’m hoping some cold conditioning and proper carbonation might save it in the end. It is definitely drinkable at this early stage, but it is certainly not my best work, and a problem which could have been easily avoided. Maybe it will wind up drinking like a slightly weird Hefeweizen – I’m crossing my fingers.

I was hoping this would be my first competition beer – I might enter it just to see what the judges make of the flavor, but I’m not bringing home any Best of Shows with this one…