Brown Ale question

[KingPaul]

Just brewed Palmer's Oak Butt Brown ale
7lbs pale ale
2lbs amber malt
.5 lb caramunich III
.25 lb chocolate malt

14g nugget at 60
14g fuggles at 15
Calculated IBU = 29
OG=1,054

Tasted my wort now, and tastes quite bitter. I mashed at the recommended 152F
I noticed beforehand that the amber malt has quite a bitter taste to it. The amber malt was milled about 3 months ago, all other malts where milled yesterday. Could the amber malt have gone bad? Will this bitterness mellow out during the course of fermentation? I was really looking forward to this brown ale.

 

[Hogarthe]

3 months isn't too long as long as they were kept dry. I'm betting the bitterness mellows with time though.

 

[TheZel66]

Are you sure it's bitterness, and not astringency? What yeast did you use? Did your mash temp ever get too high?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

the chocolate can seem bitter, could just be the water, those brown ales need a softer water than most tap water for the city, Add potassium metabisulphite or use 50/50 distilled to city water or both

 

[KingPaul]

I hope it's not astringency. But I never exceeded 68C during my mash. I used S-O4. I actually was contemplating using potassium in this brew, but I forgot about that this morning It's not that bitter, but a bit more bitter than I thought. And it's the same bitterness that I taste when comparing it to the amber malt.

 

[KingPaul]

Just got this after some researching:
Amber malt
Amber malt is a more toasted form of pale malt, kilned at temperatures of 150–160 °C, and is used in brown porter; older formulations of brown porter use amber malt as a base malt (though this was diastatic and produced in different conditions from a modern amber malt). Amber malt has a bitter flavor which mellows on aging, and can be quite intensely flavored; in addition to its use in porter, it also appears in a diverse range of British beer recipes. ASBC 50-70/EBC 100–140; amber malt has no diastatic power.

 

[Nosybear]

I almost always taste my wort and it almost always tastes bitter. Maltose and maltotriose aren't very sweet on the tongue so there's no balance to the bitterness at this stage. Bitter and astringent are different things: Bitterness is a taste, astringency is a feel. If your wort tastes bitter, you may have over-hopped but if it feels "puckery" it's astringency. You're likely all right. Let the beer ferment before making any determinations and let us remember the words of the Great Papazian: Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew.

 

[Arbe0]

I have a nut brown ale I like to brew. It is pretty good but tastes better after aging a month or so.