Lemonade taste

My son and I have been brewing beer and making wine for five years about a year ago we made a braggot from some grains that we had used in a Scottish ale about 2lbs of fresh grains 3lbs of amber lme and honey with no hops. It had a very strong citrus taste almost lemonade. We had made this before without the citrus flavor and couldn’t figure out where this came from and did all kinds of web searches and came up with nothing.
About two months ago we brewed a bourbon barrel porter, a tall grass buffalo sweat, and a graf. The buffalo sweat had the lemonade taste trough not as bad but tasted nothing like tall grasses beer. Can anyone help me with this problem? The other 2 beers came out great.

[quote=“jwtleav”]My son and I have been brewing beer and making wine for five years about a year ago we made a braggot from some grains that we had used in a Scottish ale about 2lbs of fresh grains 3lbs of amber lme and honey with no hops. It had a very strong citrus taste almost lemonade. We had made this before without the citrus flavor and couldn’t figure out where this came from and did all kinds of web searches and came up with nothing.
About two months ago we brewed a bourbon barrel porter, a tall grass buffalo sweat, and a graf. The buffalo sweat had the lemonade taste trough not as bad but tasted nothing like tall grasses beer. Can anyone help me with this problem? The other 2 beers came out great.[/quote]

I have something similar. Mine is a grapefruit type tartness. I only made seven different beers so far, and each one had it to some degree. I am putting my money on fermentation temperatures. I am fermenting in the ambient air temperatures of low to mid 70’s. I think it is bringing out the esters in the yeast. I’m looking into a small chest freezer with an external temperature controller to control my fermenting temps. :cheers:

The “no hops” thing has me suspicious that you may have a lactic acid infection, which can give a lemonade type tartness. Hops have antibacterial properties that inhibit lactic acid bacteria.

the tall grass was a kit had hops and lactose in it both sat in fermentor 2-2 1/2 wks