Expert: Matt Dick - 7/12/2008

Question
I'm a kit brewer and an interesting thing is happening to my beer as it conditions and matures in the bottle. As soon as fermentation is complete I begin the bottling process and I like to taste the beer to see how good it turned out before I bottle it. The beer tastes beautiful and has lovely esters and  a very beery flavor. However, I've noticed that as the beer matures it becomes very bitter (not sour) It seems that the longer it is bottled the more bitter it becomes and loses the lovely 'beery' ester after flavor. There is no evidence either in taste or smell that the beer has infection. The beer is clear and nicely gassed. All is well except for the increasing bitterness and loss of fruity esters. Can you help me with a reason please.

Answer
I'm sorry it's been some time since I was able to get to your question.

I don't know why your beer would get more *bitter* after bottling.  If it's not well-filtered a beer can "condition" in the bottle, but I'd normally expect that to mellow the flavor if anything.  

If you add hops very late into the wort (after it has cooled some from the boil), it might pick up some properties over time in the bottle.

I would suggest filtering your beer more completely prior to bottling.  One mechanism a friend of mine got good use from is adding clear, flavorless gelatin in the final fermentation stage.  The gelatin falls through the beer and binds to a lot of the floating sediment and settles it out.

Give the gelatin a shot and see if that stabilizes the taste in the bottle.