NateBrews wrote:Well, that Kolsch I made is terrible. It has some flavor in it that I can't identify but it is bad. I had the same thing happen (same flavor) on a oktoberfest I made a year or two ago. I brought it to my homebrew shop and they were no help identifying it. I don't know if something got into it or what, I did all the same crap as usual.
I would also think if it was infection that the gravity would be wrong, but it ended where I expected it to. It hasn't cold conditioned yet, but if the oktoberfest is any indicator, it won't matter.
Lame...
Is it a phenolic off-note or sour? If phenolic, then most likely wild yeast. And that would take some time for them to consume extra sugars dropping the FG, so you probably wouldn't observe that in a normal 2 wk conditioning. If sour, then bacteria is your culprit.
Did you pick up any off-flavors in your kolsch yeast starter prior to pitching?