drink your mistakes

i heard someone say that they punish themselves by drinking all their bad beer... I am not saying that. But I learn from every bad beer.

today, i got 3/4 of a growler back from a party a month ago. it was a session IPA.... not good. it was darker than i remember. it was a bit flat... so I carb'd it up in a 2L bottle, shaking it at 40 psi....

anyway, this post is to say (and ask)... what is there to discover in a bad beer.

I had a totally sour beer in a single bottle one time.... I drank 1/2 the bottle getting to know what infection it was... my buddy dumped it immediately. But then I went to Russian River and had a sour that had the exact same character.

learn from your mistakes, right?

ok, i can't BS you... I have dumped beer. Or at least dumped it "down the Matt".... my nephew.

good to have a less discerning plate around to finish a keg for you.

although, he did say that the one or two beers gave him nightmares... not sure what was in those batches.

Lol I like this, punishing yourself with your own bad beer. I like drinking it if it was just a poorly done recipe, learning by taste and it's an evil man who wastes a beer that could get you one step closer to jolly. Remember, there's sober children in africa.

drunkEnough4U said:

Lol I like this, punishing yourself with your own bad beer. I like drinking it if it was just a poorly done recipe, learning by taste and it's an evil man who wastes a beer that could get you one step closer to jolly. Remember, there's sober children in africa.

Click to expand...

I have a good neighbor that will drink any beer (no snob him). My last brew was my first real flop so he is drinking it for me.

I cook with sub-par beer all the time. Michelob in my awesome beer 'n molasses BBQ sauce, I use PBR to boil bratwurst in before heading to the grill, even warm/stale/flat stuff goes into the water pan of my BBQ smoker. Heck, I used to buy a 12-pack of Southpaw Light for like, $6 years back, I'd dump 7-8 of them in the water pan of my smoker and drink the rest while cooking.

I will have to build up the pipeline before I can do much cooking with my homebrews. My weird first batch, I keep tasting one a week to see if it's getting better. It is... but very slowly.

I had a stout where I had some... serious brew day issues to say the least. I've been sitting on it and trying it every now and again to see if it is getting better (kinda) but it does make for some great dark irish bread. The bread yeast has a hell of a time rehydrating in a 50/50 mix of the beer and hot water(foam everywhere).

slym2none said:

I cook with sub-par beer all the time. Michelob in my awesome beer 'n molasses BBQ sauce, I use PBR to boil bratwurst in before heading to the grill, even warm/stale/flat stuff goes into the water pan of my BBQ smoker.

Click to expand...

My buddy made brats with our Session IPA in a crock pot... I said that's too hoppy to cook with. But it seemed to go over well.

I dumped about a gallon of a brown ale last week. I just didn't want to deal with it anymore and needed the keg for a good beer. Not sure what went wrong there; it just had a green apple taste that I didn't care for one bit. Some others liked it but not me.

I guess that's what I get for trying to clone commercial beers.

m1k3 said:

I have dumped beer. Or at least dumped it "down the Matt"....he did say that the one or two beers gave him nightmares...

Click to expand...

I try to add baby tears and nightmares to all my dark beers usually at flame out....mmmm. Hahaha I need a willing nephew like that.

bigdaddybrew said:

Hahaha I need a willing nephew like that.

Click to expand...

He is in his 30s.... not like I'm corrupting minors. At least not relatives.

My dog Charlie loves beer and I had one that even he turned is nose up to. I mean the dog licks his butt and turned down my beer. I dumped that brew lol. I'm not drinking something that tastes bad.

lol @ drinking your mistakes. if you know what went wrong then why drink it to punish yourself?

i brewed an IPA and the mistake i made was using US05 yeast.... its been a while and i forgot how much i dislike that chico strain. prob gonna dump it just cause i cant stand the taste of chico, and ive used it at low mid and high 60s and still hate it.

If you know someone with a still, you could give it to them and have them turn it into brandy. Assuming ABV of 5%, you would get just shy of a 1/2 gallon from a 5 gallon batch. A wine making buddy of mine does it on the occasion that he has a bad batch of wine. He says, "Bad wine makes good shine!"

I will "sample" beers that turn out poorly in an attempt to identify what went wrong with them. Drink? No. Down the drain and next keg up.

m1k3 said:

My buddy made brats with our Session IPA in a crock pot... I said that's too hoppy to cook with. But it seemed to go over well.

Click to expand...

I've used Habenero Sculpin to make beer brats before. Delicious.

It's hard to improve on techniques/recipes unless you know what went wrong. If you immediately dump the beer before determining the issue, then mistakes will more than likely happen again. Once you know what is wrong, and no one wants it, then by all means dump it.

I stand by a lesson I learned (I think from Alton Brown), regarding cooking with wine (applies to beer too I would assume). If it's not good enough to drink, it's not good enough to cook with. It doesn't have to be great beer, but if it tastes so bad that you are willing to dump it, it's not really worth cooking with imparting flavors.

I haven't had a batch yet that was totally undrinkable - I have had a couple that didn't come out very good, various problems with the recipes and processes before I got my system down, but no infections, etc. that made them undrinkable. So for now I will remain up on my high horse and say that I drink all of my bad beers "to learn" and have never dumped a batch.

I am also still bottling and always have extra bottles, so it is a lot easier to finish off a bad batch slowly than someone with a keg that needs room to keg the next batch.

Vamptrump said:

I stand by a lesson I learned (I think from Alton Brown), regarding cooking with wine (applies to beer too I would assume). If it's not good enough to drink, it's not good enough to cook with. It doesn't have to be great beer, but if it tastes so bad that you are willing to dump it, it's not really worth cooking with imparting flavors.

Click to expand...

I've used bad batches of beer to fill the water reservoir on my smoker. It probably doesn't have any impact on the flavor of the meat, but I feel a little better about the "wasted" batch at that point. I don't force myself to drink batches that didn't turn out well. It's a hobby and it's supposed to be enjoyable. Life's too short to drink bad beer, even if you brewed it yourself.

My very first batch was a mr beer diablo ipa that I made the first week of this year. Dryhopped it with an once of citra for about a week.
it was bad...real bad.
didnt really control fermentation temperature or rehydrate the yeast.
It had a very pronounced bubblegum taste.
figured id leave it in the fridge til later in the year and try it again. Im sure I can find a use for it though.

My first batch back in 2004 was fermented, aged and served all in one step out of a round plastic Roto-Keg. Also, there was no room in the fridge for it, so I left it on the back porch. It froze and thawed every night in February until I finished it. It was pretty terrible, but it got me hooked. I've been turning out some decent extract/specialty grain batches since then.

Right now, I'm drinking a rye pale from a kit that I left in primary for some 14 months. I just never had time to rack it. Goofy rotating shift work, new girlfriend (still have her) and then new job with 55 hours a week, and I just never made time to work on the beer. I finally got to drink it this past January and I'm still working on it. It's not bad, but has a slight skunk. I

Life is too short to drink crappy beer -- whether made by me or a pro. Down the drain and onto the next! Loosing the time, money, hopes and dreams invested is "punishment" enough.

How do those of you with a pipeline choose a crummy beer to "punish yourself" when you have good/great brews on tap or on the shelf? When I reach for a bottle my hand automatically grabs a tasty brew. Bad bottles or kegs would sit indefinitely in my house if I didn't dump them.

If I make a mistake, I'll probably drink it. I'm knocking this chit out of the park tho.

I start my night off with 2 or 4 beers I really enjoy. Then start swapping in the bad beers. I only really have one keg at the moment that I don't enjoy so it's not that hard. I find bad beers are half decent when I'm half in the bag...

Good points... sample awful beers (to learn) and dump the undrinkable.

Jamil was saying once that you give homebrew a bad name when you share your mistakes.

Some bad beers improve with age. I say box 'em up and wait...I mean that's what my friend does with his bad batches.

Submit them to contests. I know I love nothing more than tasting someone's classic baby-poop porter. I may have had that one last time I judged...

I believe drinking your own bad beer to punish yourself is a form of "self-flocculation".

Orgy-porgy! Praise Ford!!!

I still have bottles from my first ever extract batch (LME was 7 years past "good by" date), fermented HOT, added DME midway through ferment, stuck at 1.020 "Irish Stout."

Tastes like watery apples soaked in pure alcohol.

Thinking about sending some to a competition. God, that would be funny.

I've only dumped 3 batches but have suffered through a few less than stellar efforts. Most of the problem came with additions (peppers, fruit, herbs, etc) that were over powering. I drank them, but did it slowly!

psylocide said:

i still have bottles from my first ever extract batch (lme was 7 years past "good by" date), fermented hot, added dme midway through ferment, stuck at 1.020 "irish stout."

tastes like watery apples soaked in pure alcohol.

Thinking about sending some to a competition. God, that would be funny.

Click to expand...

lmfao!!!

I've never punished myself with my bad batches of brew, but I can think of a few people in my life that I should give some funky beer to. :cross:

The Most Interesting Man In The World weighs on the topic of bad brews.....

Psylocide said:

Thinking about sending some to a competition. God, that would be funny.

Click to expand...

Do this! Then post the comments. For science of course.