Sick from homebrew?

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Higa20

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Ever had a case of anyone getting sick or having a reaction from a bad batch of homebrew?

A friend of a friend said he had a reaction to a batch of homebrew that tasted and looked fine. He and his other friend had little bumps on their stomachs and arms. Any experiences like this?
 
The only "reactions" that I'm familiar with are gas and diarrhea. :cross:

Although, it's funny you bring this up. While I was brewing today, I was thinking about the random bits of tree and grass that probably end up in the brew while it's outside.

Then I wondered if I could have a problem brewing outside during the spring, when the tree pollen (which I'm allergic to) is at its peak. I wonder if it could survive the entire brewing, fermenting, and carbing process to still cause an allergic reaction if I drank it. If it could, that might be what caused a problem for your friends.

Of course, this is all pure speculation. It's also possible they're allergic to gluten, although I believe that's pretty rare. I guess they've never had that happen with commercial beers. Or maybe they drank too much and passed out in a giant ant hill. :D
 
I seriously doubt if the homebrew had anything to do with their affliction. The hops and alcohol in the finished beer both have antiseptic properties that make for a very inhospitable environment for a majority of bacteria and the ones that can survive in beer will, at worst, only result in a spoiled batch and aren't really harmful when consumed. If the batch had such an infection, it would be very noticeable in both smell and appearance of the brew so I doubt it had anything to do with their rash. The prolonged boil of the wort kills off any organisms and effectively results in a sanitary (if not sterile) product entering the fermenter. Assuming proper sanitization techniques, the sanitary nature of the product should be maintained throughout fermentation and bottling so the risk of a harmful infection is really quite small. The occurrence of the rash while drinking homebrew was coincidental.
 
Higa20 said:
Ever had a case of anyone getting sick or having a reaction from a bad batch of homebrew?

A friend of a friend said he had a reaction to a batch of homebrew that tasted and looked fine. He and his other friend had little bumps on their stomachs and arms. Any experiences like this?
Click to expand...


Yes, my friend had a really nasty allergic reaction, almost ended in hospital. Seriously.
 
Piotr said:
Yes, my friend had a really nasty allergic reaction, almost ended in hospital. Seriously.
Click to expand...

Does your friend have Celiac disease? Did anyone else get sick? If the answer to both of these is no, then it wasn't the beer.
 
I was making a wheat beer with extract once, and when I poured the Wheat DME into the pot I accidentally breathed some of the dust from the bag. My face and mouth broke out with hives and I had to get some benadryl, for a while there I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital. I was able to drink the beer when it was finished without any problems though.
 
It does have live yeast in it. Some people don't do well with yeast, I wonder if it being live has a more serious effect to them?
 
Man, sorry about the unpleasant experience sharing your beer. I know a couple of folks who can't drink beer, either due to the gluten, alcohol, or yeast. My guess is that it was the latter if your friends drink commercial brews, since homebrews have a bunch more active yeast in suspension.
 
No infection that is toxic to humans can grow in beer. But having said that there are alergies that can be triggured by ingredients in beer...

Like already mentioned;

Iodine/shellfish alergies from homebrew that Iodophor style sanitizers are used (switching to starsan will end that one.)

Gluten/wheat alergies...especially obviously in wheat beers, but even with barley based beers as well (there are some gluten free recipes on here.)

Yeast Allergies...It is possible to be allergic to yeast, but evidenlty, according to what I just read, if you are allergic to brewers yeast you also would be allergic to bread yeasts, snce the body can't determine the difference between the two....(There's probably nothing really that you can do with this one...it is doubtful that filtering gets rid of all the yeast, but I could be wrong...if someone is sick from homebrew but not from BMC and is allergic to bread, then maybe filtering does work.)

Lactose intolerance...Drinking any beers containing Lactose, such as a sweet stouts, will cause the same syptoms as drinking milk, or eating dairy...stomach cramps, gas, etc. The solution is to use splenda or another non fermentable sugar that isn't made from milk.

There's probably allergies to hops as well, though I can't find anything other than conjecture online about it.

But if someones getting "sick" from drinking homebrew it is most likely an allergy to one of those substances.
 
Higa20 said:
He and his other friend had little bumps on their stomachs and arms. Any experiences like this?
Click to expand...
I have these from the neighbors dog - fleas :mad: Were they drinking at a place that could have had fleas, mosquitoes or chiggers? I've also had allergic reactions to sawdust (cargo ship being loaded with it) - could it have been something environmental? It would be odd to see two people having the same allergy, but I suppose its possible.

I had a friend with a latex allergy, and she couldn't drink one of the BMC's (cant remember which), she would get a reaction. I figured it was something used in the filtering process. I suppose if someone used tubing with latex in it for the racking/bottling/kegging it could cause a reaction in someone with a latex allergy.
 
My 2 cents is to stop drinking beer in the poison oak/ivy.

Then again, blue-blind-paralytic-drunk is no way to go through life.

Red bumps sound like allergy hives to me. Strange question: Did you label? If you did, did you use milk? Some people are allergic to milk, and it seems to me that using milk for adhesive might cause an allergic reaction.
 
It could very well be the live yeast. Many food sensitivities that happen with raw food doesn't show up in the same food when cooked. Breads and such have the yeast baked (killed) and this could have been his first time eating live yeast.
 
I really doubt it was the beer. Unless some unusual type of material was used for brewing/fermenting, etc,... or, I don't know, a huge amount of atypical fermentation byproducts like fusel alcohols or something, there isn't much in beer (homebrew or commercial) that would cause an allergic response in 2 people at the same time. Statistically, it's just not likely. I think it was something else they were both exposed to.
 
Yeah one time i drank about 30 and i dont remember sleeping with this supermodel i woke up beside. But other then that i seem to be more charming after about 8
 
:( Sorry to revive an old thread, but this was the #1 hit on google when I searched "getting sick from homebrew" and I had to bring some logic into this thread for the sake of people's safety.

People can absolutely get sick from homebrew!

People have died from drinking bad homebrew! Look it up! (mostly attributable to botulinim infection) I can't believe so many people on here said that it's impossible for homebrew to get people sick, some of whom are longtime respected members. :ban:

There are literally hundreds of different reasons why fermenting things can turn bad and become dangerous to consume, especially some guy in his kitchen...just sayin...

Yeast is capable of producing a LOT of things, depending on pitch rate, temperature, components of wort, etc and any one of these can cause allergic reactions in certain individuals. As yeast continues fermenting for longer and longer, the spectrum of chemicals produced increases, which is why smart brewers don't reuse or wash yeast indefinitely (commercial breweries I know say 5 or 6 primaries max and then they make a fresh starter.

Simple brewers yeast, when active, can cause symptoms in people such as farting which we've all experienced I assume, people handle it differently. And that's just yeast!

Talk about foreign bacteria or fungi and we can basically just say that there's a million ways to get sick from a bad batch of homebrew. IMPORTANT NOTE: it doesn't have to taste bad or be green and fuzzy to cause sickness in the drinker.

Moral of the story :rockin: Sanitation is important. If you think homebrew is getting people sick, stop serving it to people and make a new batch.

peace :fro:
 
Its foodish... anything can get you sick if conditions are right.
 
dgrabstein said:
:( Sorry to revive an old thread, but this was the #1 hit on google when I searched "getting sick from homebrew" and I had to bring some logic into this thread for the sake of people's safety.

People can absolutely get sick from homebrew!

People have died from drinking bad homebrew! Look it up! (mostly attributable to botulinim infection) I can't believe so many people on here said that it's impossible for homebrew to get people sick, some of whom are longtime respected members. :ban:

There are literally hundreds of different reasons why fermenting things can turn bad and become dangerous to consume, especially some guy in his kitchen...just sayin...

Yeast is capable of producing a LOT of things, depending on pitch rate, temperature, components of wort, etc and any one of these can cause allergic reactions in certain individuals. As yeast continues fermenting for longer and longer, the spectrum of chemicals produced increases, which is why smart brewers don't reuse or wash yeast indefinitely (commercial breweries I know say 5 or 6 primaries max and then they make a fresh starter.

Simple brewers yeast, when active, can cause symptoms in people such as farting which we've all experienced I assume, people handle it differently. And that's just yeast!

Talk about foreign bacteria or fungi and we can basically just say that there's a million ways to get sick from a bad batch of homebrew. IMPORTANT NOTE: it doesn't have to taste bad or be green and fuzzy to cause sickness in the drinker.

Moral of the story :rockin: Sanitation is important. If you think homebrew is getting people sick, stop serving it to people and make a new batch.

peace :fro:
Click to expand...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?p=5674295#post5674295
All credibility lost.
 
Luckily, no harmful pathogens (like botulism or e. coli) can survive in beer (or any fermented beverage).

That's why wine was served, instead of water, in the middle ages when water was iffy. Beer was brewed too, to avoid drinking contaminated water.

The relatively low pH of beer, combined with the presence of alcohol, means that beer is not a very easy medium for harmful bacteria to grow. Still, it can get contaminated with spoilage bacteria. So, it might get sour, or even vinegar, in character. It may taste icky, but will not hurt you. At all. It will just taste bad.

If someone got sick from homebrew, it wasn't the homebrew. It was something else, like too much of it. I got sick more than once on Tequila. While I could blame that blasted worm, it was the quantity and not the contents.

If someone got botulism while drinking homebrew, they got it from the canned pickled green beans and not the homebrew. Botulism can NOT grow in beer. It cannot grow in a pH below 4.6%, for one thing. It could grow in wort, before the yeast is pitched- but someone would have to be an idiot to not add yeast to the wort. There is not ONE, not ONE, case of botulism from homebrew.

To quote you, LOOK IT UP!!!!!!
 

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