Lost yeast Character

[Dr Brown Ale]

I raised this in the WhatsApp group, but it got a bit lost.

I brewed a batch of basic amber ale (extract) and split it over 3 yeasts (Safale 05, WLP004 and Safale T58). I'm unsure of the exact recipe at the moment, but there was early and late hop additions, 3kg of Amber Extract and maybe one or two specialty malts steeped for an hour beforehand.

The T58 is a Belgian style yeast, and when I opened the bottles on the 8th August (3 weeks after bottling, which was 3 weeks after brewing, so it was brewed on 27th June 2015) there was a definite "homebrewed Leffe" taste from the beer, most enjoyable and I was pretty happy with the outcome of the expirement. It was also my first time using the White Labs liquid yeast (that beer is actually pretty good at the moment, a nice sessionable ale, very very clear compared to the Safale05, and a cleaner taste too, but anyway that's an aside).

I opened another bottle on Saturday and was surprised to find that the "belgian-ness" had completely disappeared from the beer.

What could have caused this? the beer is stored in brown 330ml bottles, in a shed (this is after conditioning).

[pob]

When you opened the bottles after 3 weeks they were carbonated rather than fully conditioned. The yeast will have continued to eat through the remaining sugar you used to prime the bottles and the flavours began settling down as it finishes conditioning.

The 'belgian-ness' was just 'green' (young) beer that was still developing and settling down.

Some yeasts take longer to condition especially when you use smaller size bottles (beer conditions quicker in bulk, one of the reasons commercial breweries are able to ship beer quicker than a homebrewer after brewing).

Big alcohol beers generally take longer, a starting rule of thumb for conditioning is 1 week per 1% of ABV, eg 4 weeks for a 4% beer.

Retaining hop freshness with a longer conditioning time is the skill of a good brewer (I'm still learning on this one)