I have brewed a handful of lagers with only a couple turning out great. So I'm working on a Czech Pilsener (from an all-grain kit, no less).

I just transferred to secondary to begin lagering, and snagged a little taste. It tasted crisp and clean, but after I swallowed I picked up a wine-like taste. I'm really not familiar with that taste in beer. Anyone know what causes it? I looked it up on the BJCP troubleshooting page with no luck.

I did ferment a wine in this carboy, but that was two beers ago, and there's been now flavor like that in the other batches. And yes, it was very, very, clean and sanitized. I just thought it was worth mentioning.

OK, let me first say that I don't brew lagers. So, take anything I say with a grain of salt.
When I first started brewing, I got a lot of wine like flavors from fermenting too high. It wasn't subtle at all, and overwhelmed the beer. I'm guessing that's not your problem at all, since the taste is faint and you're presumably fermenting your lager cold.
Now, lately I've been using a Kolsch yeast to brew pseudo lagers. Its a very clean yeast and has a lot of those soft, crisp flavors that I get when I drink lagers. The caveat is, when the beer is uncarbonated there is a distinct something there. Not quite a wine flavor, but wine-ish, if you get my meaning. That taste goes away completely after the beer is carbonated. Now, I know we're comparing apples (ale) to oranges (lager) here, but I just want to give you a little hope that maybe that taste won't linger after you carbonate.
After your beer is carbonated, please post whether or not the flavor remains. I'd like to make a couple lagers after I get some proper refrigeration going, so any problems you have might help me down the road.

Hope everything works out for ya!

I have only made one or two lagers so I don't have a whole lot of experience in this regard.

I was waiting to see if anybody with more lager experience than came up with a definitive answer to your problem. Unfortunately, that does not seem to have been the case.

I've done quite a bit of looking online and in my various beer-related publications. I did not find a whole lot of information. Winey or wine-like just do not come up all that much as a beer descriptor unless you dealing with barelywines, old ales, meads, or ciders.

Wine-like some times comes up with respect to oxidation along the descriptors of sherry or sherry-like. However, your beer is quite young so I don't really believe the character you are describing is the product of oxidation.

It is funny that Dave (a.k.a. GuitarLord) should mention his use Kolsch yeast in this regard. I came across several instances in which is was noted that some strains of Kolsch yeast produce a wine-like character.

The closest thing I found to your problem was a series of posting in another homebrew forum, the BrewBoard, by the user kenlenard. These postings may be found at: http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=89878.

In his case, his lagers developed a wine-like character ONLY when he had previously stored the yeast from previous batches. Of the explanations given the one that seemed to be the most plausible was that the stored yeast were a bit depleted in glycogen due to improper oxygenation.

I'm not saying this is necessarily related to your problem only that it is the only closest match I could find to your lager problem. However, it is something to keep in mind.

Of course, your beer has just started the lagering phase. Yeast absorb and convert various substances as fermentation progresses. I believe there is a good chance the wine-like character will diminish or disappear completely as secondary fermentation and lagering progresses. Also as Dave notes, carbonation can really change the character of a beer.

I hope this helps and please keep us posted about this beer.


- Scott

My plan is to let it sit and lager for 6 weeks, so we'll see what results. It was just an unusual thing I noticed, and I only took a small sample, so I couldn't really try again to analyze it more.

Since it's subtle, I really think it'll fade away especially after carbonation and a cooler serving temp.

It just frustrates me with my ability to control temperature precisely, and I still have issues with almost every lager. Thanks for all the input guys!

Have you read much about putting the beer through a "diacetyl rest"? Bassically/sort of/maybe it involves completing the lager fermentation with a brief period at a higher temp. I know next to nothing about it myself, but one of my friends and I have made half hearted attempts at it with our lagers, though keeping the temps low was enough grief to begin with. This might resolve some flavour issues I guess, but I'm no scientist

J.

Well, now all I taste is diacetyl. I did the stupid rest for 3 days at 60f when fermentation was >almost< complete. I hate lagers, I hate lagers, I hate lagers, I hate lagers...

Now I'm just motivated to keep trying so maybe I can get it right!

when do you raise temp to 62 for rest. I have heard once ferment is done and when ferment is half way done. Does it matter which one?