My IPA has a tea flavor

I guess I added too much dry hops to my IPA. The beer didn’t have this flavor before dry hopping. Then I added 5 oz of leaf hops since I got a decent harvest from my garden this summer. I literally crammed them in the carboy and gently tilted the carboy several times to wet them down. At bottling, the beer now has a tea flavor but not astringent in any way. It’s actually pleasant, and I got a really nice aroma in there, but it’s not what I was going for… Maybe this is what is considered a grassy flavor? I always figured these problems would be due to fresh hops, but I guess 5 oz was a bit too much. I’ll see what happens when it bottle conditions. Maybe it’ll fade.

I don’t know. I got that from my homegrown hops also could be maybe not dry enough. The good news is after about 3 weeks it mellowed into a beautiful beer. I have another keg “lagering” in my garage that will be rotated in

What was the variety of the hops you used? How long did you dry hop?

It could be that they weren’t dry enough. I estimate harvest moisture based on appearance and feel and use UVM’s calculator to dry them down to a weight that would correlate with an 8% dry matter. When I pulled them out of the freezer, there were no ice crystals inside the vacuum sealed bags, but I could be off a bit. Thanks for the reply.

I used 1oz of Chinook, 2oz of Cascade and 2oz of Amalia which is a New Mexican variety. It could be coming from the Amalia I suppose. I have used them for 3 years now, and this would be the first time dry hopping with them. I have used them at every point from bittering to steeping a 0 min and haven’t gotten that tea taste. They add an herbal citrus flavor and aroma. I figured it would complement the Cascade. I have to say this is the most and best aroma I’ve been able to get in an IPA.

I would suspect the “tea” came from dry hopping part. Could be that all that green in the carboy melded along with the hop oil… 5 oz is quite a bit, especially not knowing the AA content… Makbe it was a low AA so then the green out preformed the acid… Just a thought. Sneezles61

Here’s an update on the IPA. It’s been 11 days since bottling. It’s about 50% carbonated at this point. I chilled a bottle and cracked it open tonight. The tea flavor is already mostly gone. I wonder if the carbonic acid from the CO2 might be enhancing the bitterness just enough to push that tea flavor more into the background. The aroma is amazing. The bitterness is just right. I was hoping for just a bit more citrus flavor, but that’s ok. It’s quite fruity though. As always, thanks for the helpful replies.

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