Gross Black Thing in Bottle

Well damn. I put two of the Irish Reds in the fridge for tonight since the wife was out and I wanted to enjoy them slowly and quietly. I open the first and pour it into a glass and when I rinse the bottle out a black dot come out. Like a patch of mold. Crap. Crap. Crap. Not wanting to take a chance (I already had food poisoning this week thank you very much) I pour the glass out.

Now I only have one to enjoy. Crap.








That is all. Thanks for letting me vent.

How do you know it was mold? It could have been yeast, or a hop fleck, or a chunk of extract that burned at the bottom of the pot. I would have at least smelled and taken a tiny taste before dumping it.

Yeah, I tried to get it before it went down the drain. No such luck. It was really dark and definitely didn't look like any of the other sediment from the batch. The issue was I couldn't rule out the mold. Better safe than sorry.

If you mean the beer: It had a lot more head than the last bottles and smelled fine. I just didn't want to take a chance.

Brewsmith said:

I would have at least smelled and taken a tiny taste before dumping it.

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Or streak it on a plate and see if it grows fur.

You don't generally need to worry about food poisoning from beer. As long as it did ferment, there will be enough alcohol in there that nothing truly nasty can survive. There are plenty of things that can make your beer smell and taste seriously foul, but nothing that will make you sick. So as long as it smells good enough to make you want to drink it, you are safe to do so.

The only way I can imagine you could end up with serious health threatening nasties in a beer is if it didn't ferment at all (you forgot to pitch yeast, or they all died for some reason) so you just ended up with rotten sugars. It would be pretty obvious if that happened, though: you'd be able to smell it a mile off and would have way more gunk than just the odd black fleck

I had a brownish patch flow down the drain once. I opened an older beer and it gushed. I ran to the sink and this thing came sliding down the drain. I drank the other bottles with no problems.

How old is the beer, and did you use used bottles? It's hard for me to imagine a dark spot equals an infection like that. Usually you get those from leftover beer sitting in the bottom of the bottle for a while. I sometimes need to clean that from old bottles I get form the store.

Anyway, you will not get poisoning from beer. Mostly it will taste bad, and might give you the runs or gas if it's green. Generally it will be sour or just nasty tasting.

The mold might have been left over from not cleaning the bottle thoroughly from the first usage.