Aftertaste Question?

So, I have finally joined the all-grain family and my first brew is finally carbonated. I go to take my first and long awaited taste and it is…okay. The initial taste is pretty good but then across the back of my tongue there is an overpowering bitter coffee taste. It looks good and has a pleasant nose but damn that aftertaste. Any help on what I did wrong?

Brown Ale - 1.040 down to 1.004. maris otter, biscuit, and 1 oz of dark. 3 oz of Goldings at different intervals. I used dry ale yeast s-04. 155 conversion and it held for 60 min. sparge 168. 1 hour boil. Anything would help and btw great website…glad to be a part of it!

Thanks.

Since you’re not getting any responses, I’ll take a crack at it. The bitter coffee flavor could be astringency from oversparging. Did you monitor the gravity during sparge and stop when it got to 1.008?

Also, given your 155 rest and the yeast you used, 1.004 is on the low side, and I’m wondering whether you may have some bugs in there that could be giving you a flavor issue.

Some things to think about.

At 1.040, an oz of any “dark” malt wouldn’t make a brown. My calc says 12L which is barely amber (using 6# MO, 1# biscuit and 1oz. black patent). Given the description you gave of the flavor, I’d guess that it is that ‘dark’ malt. Did you really only use 1 oz? Which malt?