nothing in beer can hurt you?

I have heard in the past nothing in beer can hurt you, how true is that?

Lol

The conventional wisdom is that nothing can grow or survive in beer that can make you sick. Alcohol, however, can hurt you.

ok, so how about wort? Is "spontaneous" fermentation always safe?

Better than spontaneous combustion.

There are risks involved with spontaneous fermentation but most if them are with bad beer, not health issues. The basic brewing radio from I believe 10/20/11 actually deals with spontaneous brewing, though it didn't talk much about making you sick. Generally speaking the pH and alcohol content make most bad bugs wary though the alcohol wouldn't be there at the beginning of spontaneous fermentation.

Thousands of years ago, when people first started brewing, they had no concept of sanitation and all of their fermenting was done "spontaneously." If they had any issues, it wasn't enough to make them stop brewing.

If anything other than yeast gets in and takes hold, you're going to notice by sight and smell, and probably won't take more than a sip.

It was common practice in British pubs to have the drip pan beneath the pumps connected through a hose back to the keg. This is now definitely illegal but some establishments still do it - under the counter, so to speak. A colleague of mine used to notice that he felt sick for a couple of days every time he went to a particular pub in Harrogate. He eventually found out that they still had such a system in place and stopped patronizing the joint. Not proof positive but it does suggest that things that can make you sick can grow in beer.

We've covered everything even with some citations in this thread. Dangers of Homebrewing

And some more info here as well.

It covers all the bugaboos that new brewers wanna fear, mycotoxins, e-coli, zombies....

You have to realize the mere ACT of fermentation is what is toxic to most microorganisms that could harm us.

What about a no boil berliner weisse? It just seems like such a bad idea.

no boil, no hops or yeast = beer?

killian said:

no boil, no hops or yeast = beer?

Click to expand...

Did you read the info I provided?

The whole history of beer, wine, mead and cider/Fermentation is general is that nothing pathogenic can exist in them They were consumed in places where the water could kill you, or make you sick.

Even slightly fermented beverages were consumed, even by children. Hard ciders were drunk like we drink bottled water.

Why do you think the Catholic Church chose wine as the basis of their sacrament? Because wine was more important to the culture of the desert where Christianity came from than water. Water safe, drinkable water was rare. So wine was the safer, common beverage of the day.

The mere act of fermentation creates an inhospital environments to pathogens...people have been drinking gruits and berliner weisses for centuries, right?

Have you heard of any illnesses from drinking them? Have you seen any warnings on lables, or on websites or on the no boil kits warning about the dangers of this? Don't you think maybe no-boil kits have to go through the same safety things that any foods go through? If there were problems with that, do you think there'd still be no-boil kits in the market place?

I did read it and thanks for the reply. I was thinking most fermentation had some form of yeast, sac, brett, wild, etc. 100% bacterial fermentation just seems so wrong.