Success from my un-carbed beer

I'm posting this for any newbies who may find themselves in the same situation I did. Back in June I bottled a basic "lager" style beer (though it wasn't really a lager) made from an LBS ingredients kit. After three weeks I tried a bottle and it tasted OK, but was flat. I tried another bottle after another few weeks, and then again the next month, and it was still flat. Not completely flat, but way, way undercarbed. I had used those carbing tabs and I guess I should have added one or two more tabs. I figured I would just dump it down the drain at some point when I needed the bottles.

Fast forward to December, the day before my big annual Christmas party. The beer had been in the bottle for six months. I decided to try one...and it was perfect! It was a long and slow process, but finally worked. I put out almost a case (I make half recipes) for the party, and it was a big hit. One of my guests asked where the homebrews were, and I said they were sitting out on the back steps. He said, "They don't need to be on the back steps, they need to be in ma' belly!"

Lesson: if your beer isn't right, you might as well set it aside and see what happens if you forget about it for a while.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Woot! Lessons all us newbies should read!

I've had the same experience. Back in the spring, I made a wheat beer, I batch primed, and bottled, and let them condition for almost a month. When I popped the first one, it had absolutely no carbonation. I figured it was a little cool where they conditioned in my basement, so I let them sit for another 2 weeks, but still after almost 6 weeks of conditioning, it was flat as could be. So, I forgot about them, they got set on a shelf in the basement and finally last week my well pump went so I was working in the basement and happened to look over and saw 5 six packs of dusty beer bottles under a tarp. I put a few in the fridge, popped one open last night, and the beer was amazing. Nice carbonation, excellent flavor. I was impressed. I wrote that batch off as my worst ever, but after giving it some time, it's turned out to be one of my best.

It is always better to finish the beer, package it and forget about it than to dump it. The way I see it worst case a year from now it is truly horrible and I end up dumping it but most likely, at the very least, it will end up drinkable and if nothing else I learned something in the process.

Besides all the stories about brewing gone bad but ending up with good product should be enough to convince anyone that beer is pretty hard to mess up.

awesome! yes let them sit and mature.... I find that the last few of each batch, the few that have been sitting around for a few months are always the best of the bunch. Probably a combo of aging and coming to maturity and sadness that the batch has been officially K.I.A lol

Great! And here I always thought the last to go were just trying to impress me so I would'nt knock them off too.Cheers

Yup, beer is just not listening to us, as much as we want it to. My 4.5% bitter took almost 2 months to carb up to 1.5 volumes, but my 9% Belgian Strong ale carbed up fully to 2.5 volumes in 2 weeks. Once again- it's done when it's done, and it doesn't care when you need it to be ready. Frustrating, but the truth. Our beer doesn't love us back, guys.

Gee, I think I've said a thing or two about this at one time or another (daily)

Revvy said:

Gee, I think I've said a thing or two about this at one time or another (daily)

Click to expand...

I don't remember that.