Keg Beer with Weird Taste?

I bought a pony keg of Miller Lite (I know I know...I just didn't want to waste good homebrew on my friends that just wanted to get wasted) Super Bowl weekend, which was February 5th.

First off, I'm aware that this could be getting an off taste now because I've had it for 3 months. However, I was getting an off taste after about 1 month of having this keg. If it's any consolation, I have it in a kegerator and it is powered by Co2.

My issue is that it almost has a plastic or rubbery taste to it. I'm wondering if the beer was picking up flavor/smell from the beer line. I washed the beer line before I hooked up the keg with beer line cleaner, and the tap was also washed.

What do you guys think? I never had this issue with my homebrew, so maybe I should just chalk it up to being cheap beer? Could it be that my beer line and tap needs to be soaked in cleaner overnight or something just to be safe? I would greatly appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks!!

you did what?!

Twtr25 said:

I bought a pony keg of Miller Lite (I know I know...I just didn't want to waste good homebrew on my friends that just wanted to get wasted) Super Bowl weekend, which was February 5th.

Click to expand...

Good move...

It probably just tastes bad because its bad beer.

Is every glass bad, or the just the first ones that come from the beer sitting in the lines?

I've never had a commercial keg in my kegerator, but I would assume it would be the same as my homebrew kegs in any flavor issues if the vinyl/plastic lines had some flavor impact.

Try changing the beer lines. I think the recommendation is to change them every two years. You might not be able to taste the plastic/rubbery flavor with your homebrew but with an american light lager, the flavor may be more pronounced. It's worth the few bucks to change out the line and give it a try in my opinion.

I'm sensitive plastic flavors, and ended up replacing all of my vinyl beer lines with bev-lex ultra seal barrier tubing. As Yooper hinted, if the first glass of the drinking session has a worse off flavor than the ones poured right after, it's likely the beer line leaching stuff into the beer. If that's the case, new vinyl lines would most likely make the problem worse, not better.