Worst batch of beer you ever brewed?

My brewing buddy Dave was telling me about some of the bad batches he's had, and what he thinks went wrong with each one.

What's the worst batch you ever made? What kind of beer was it? What do you think went wrong (recipe, infection, other)?

I had some bad bacteria living in my cardboard boxes. REALLY screwed up a couple batches until I cought the problem. Dried out the beer till it had absolutely no body, and gave the strangest funky flavor, almost like nail polish remover. I sanitized all my equipment, replaced all my plastic, and eventually found the source of the problem in the bottom of 2or 3 boxes that had gotten wet, and had very tiny black/green mold spots growing in it. Barely noticed it them, but once they were gone all was well.

My very first batch was probably the worst. It was a Cooper's can of malt and 2.5 pounds of corn sugar. It was not very drinkable and I ended up pitching most of it. I found out about good all malt kits, adding hops and steeping grains and I was on my way.

I had one or two bad batches that were barely drinkable that I never really knew what happened after bottling. Now that I keg I my beers are way better to drink.

Knocking on wood...never had a bacterial problem...but I did make a beer I don't really like.

I decided to mix 3# Pilsen Malt and 2 oz Fuggles....for a 3 gallon sMasH. It sucks.

One IPA i made was so bad i wouldnt wish it on my worst enemy. Dont know what i did but it tasted horrible.

Mr. Beer bottled in mason jars. Don't even ask.

I've had some beers I haven't liked much, but the worst was a popular recipe on here. It was very sweet and pretty horrible for me. I didn't say much because other people really liked the recipe. I was concerned it would be overly sweet from looking at the recipe, but brewed it anyway. It was like cream soda with beer added. I know my tastes much better now, so I usually only brew things that I know I'll like!

Yooper beat me to it, I was going to post about "that" recipe. I recently found a 12-pack that I had forgotten about, and it was undrinkable.

My first few batches weren't that great -- once I switched to a full boil, it was a totally new experience.

before I learned about water chemistry I followed a recipe from the joy of homebrewing for a porter and added the Tbsp of gypsum the recipe called. The tap water I have here is very close to pilsen water almost no carbonates so the beer had way to low a Ph and has this nasty acrid taste. But thankfully thats the worst mistake Ive made yet.

JustDave said:

Yooper beat me to it, I was going to post about "that" recipe. I recently found a 12-pack that I had forgotten about, and it was undrinkable.

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Now you have me worried. I tend to be gullible, and have considered brewing most of the popular recipes seen here on HBT. Have to keep my eye out for something looking like it would be "overly sweet." (Or you could PM me a warning )

My worst so far was an old extract batch. Bottled half and kegged half. The kegged stuff went down well, and the bottles were fine in the beginning. As the bottles aged they got worse and worse. Even started gushing. No signs of infection, so I’m thinking it was just bad bottling practices. May be exposed to too much oxygen. I still have a six pack in the basement hoping that it may revert back to being good, but I’m not willing to try it as long as I have good beer in the house.

I made a blueberry wheat beer with 3 lbs of frozen blueberries that was decent, but I couldn't really taste the blueberries. So I decided to make another batch only this time adding about 7 lbs of blueberries after primary fermentation had finished. I heated them up in some water and basically poured in about a gallon of blueberry juice into the 5 gallon batch. The result was not what I had hoped for. Its a purple beer that tastes like a mixture of beer and wine. Its drinkable, but by far the worst batch I've made. No more fruit beers for me.

Easily the first "batch". A Brews(u)ck present.

Grossest one, was the stout that went ropey. I didn't taste it, but the Scotch Broom puked when we poured it on the slope.

My third batch. A hefe with liquid extract that was over a year old. My mistake. Dumped about half down the sink the other half dumped down my friends.

Some of my extract brews back in the day were awful, currently I have an Irish Red on tap that sucks, its really sour and thin, but I have just left it on tap to take up space I guess. Once a week or so I give it a try and it never seems to improve, unfortunately I have had people come over for bbqs and pull from that tap and I think it puts them off homebrew so I should probably dump it before I have people over again.

YooperBrew said:

I've had some beers I haven't liked much, but the worst was a popular recipe on here. It was very sweet and pretty horrible for me. I didn't say much because other people really liked the recipe. I was concerned it would be overly sweet from looking at the recipe, but brewed it anyway. It was like cream soda with beer added. I know my tastes much better now, so I usually only brew things that I know I'll like!

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I agree with this totally. Yuck; my wife liked it though so it didn't get dumped.

Redweasel said:

Mr. Beer bottled in mason jars. Don't even ask.

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Dude i can only imagine. I started laughing my arse off when i read this.

My second batch was a mostly mash and I didn't know a thing about adjusting strike temp higher than mash temp so I mashed around 143° (never corrected it).

But the worst part was that I had harvested some Oberon yeast and only grew up about a 2 cup (yes cups) starter from one bottle of Oberon. Talk about underpitching.

Beer tasted like band-aids and plastic. But I drank it anyway.

Potato Beer.

100% of the fermentables from potatos.

The only beer I dumped out.

My very first batch, an Irish Red extract kit. I boiled the steeping grains, transported the fermenter a few hundred miles, moved it all around the house, on top of heating vents, etc., to try to regulate the temp. It was awful but I drank every last bottle. Haven't had a disaster since.....

I wasn't pleased with any of my three extract batches before I went all grain. The worst was my infected pale ale which tasted like plastic.

Since I've gone all grain I haven't had a bad batch yet.

YooperBrew said:

I've had some beers I haven't liked much, but the worst was a popular recipe on here. It was very sweet and pretty horrible for me. I didn't say much because other people really liked the recipe. I was concerned it would be overly sweet from looking at the recipe, but brewed it anyway. It was like cream soda with beer added. I know my tastes much better now, so I usually only brew things that I know I'll like!

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Yep, that would be the worst beer I have ever made as well.

Edit: I'll also admit that 75% of my extract beers didn't turn out very well either. The ones that were successful were damn good.

i brewed a strange wit/hefeweizen thing with sugar and acid malt. it was terrible.

i made another hefeweizen with too much acid malt. it tasted like soda.

i also brewed a triple that we didn't let ferment out all the way, bottled too quickly and i think it became oxidized as well.

those are the only three brews i've made that were bad. everything else (even those infected) have came out wonderful

here's to hoping that trend continues!

YooperBrew said:

I've had some beers I haven't liked much, but the worst was a popular recipe on here. It was very sweet and pretty horrible for me. I didn't say much because other people really liked the recipe. I was concerned it would be overly sweet from looking at the recipe, but brewed it anyway. It was like cream soda with beer added. I know my tastes much better now, so I usually only brew things that I know I'll like!

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that's why i haven't brewed that recipe

All my batches have been the canned kits and only 1 was bad so far.
With all the things I did "wrong" on my very first batch, in retrospect, I'm amazed that it still turned out to be pretty good stuff. However, my second batch was a cherry wheat (Cooper Wheat canned kit + cherry extract flavor) and that got dumped after about 2 months in the bottle. I guess I probably had some sanitation problems or something. Everything after that, about another dozen batches or so, has been fine, fortunately...

I think about 10% of all my beers are barely drinkable but that's what you get for recipe experimentation. Another 20% are drinkable but not great. So, that's still 70% that are either good or great. I can live with that. One of the most notable horribles was an extract Marzen style beer that I fermented as an ale. I couldn't even give this beer away.

Mine would have to be my first brew - Mr. Beer Canadian Draft. I thought I would try their Mountain Raspberry version (1 Can High Country Canadian Draft, 1 Pouch Booster, 1 Can Red Raspberries in Heavy Syrup). Unbelievably terrible. Thats when I gave up on Mr Beer (yeah, I gave up quick) and went to my LHBS and bought ingredients from them. Still used the Mr. Beer fermenter for awhile until I could financially justify purchasing a full kit.

DeathBrewer said:

that's why i haven't brewed that recipe

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Me neither, sounds icky. Vanilla and Cheese? Yuck.

My worst batch was my last extract batch. So much extract twang it was nearly undrinkable. I let it sit in the basement for 6 mos or so and it still sucked. I poured about 4 of the 5 gallons out because I needed the bottles for an AG brew.

YooperBrew said:

I've had some beers I haven't liked much, but the worst was a popular recipe on here. It was very sweet and pretty horrible for me. I didn't say much because other people really liked the recipe. I was concerned it would be overly sweet from looking at the recipe, but brewed it anyway. It was like cream soda with beer added. I know my tastes much better now, so I usually only brew things that I know I'll like!

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This was the third batch I ever made. I drank one bottle and gave the rest to my sister. Her university friends all loved it, I just couldn't stand it.

My worst was my fourth batch, an ESB that fermented at almost 80º. It was paint thinner. I dumped most of it (and I think I even posted about it here).

The silver lining was that it pushed me to buy a chest freezer and RANCO controller. The world has been a better place ever since.

My first brew was my worst. It was a hefe. I tried about three bottles but it never got better. I actually dumped it yesterday. I know, never dump it, but I needed the bottles.

the Red ale in my signature. It has a rather harshness to it what is weird it wasnt there untill a few weeks ago the first 6 or 8 I had a nice flaver bottled 4-13 . I believe it was caused by too high fermentation temps. I left the bucket near a heat vent and sure enough while I was away we had some very cold days end of March .

The second or third beer I ever brewed was supposed to be an amber ale. This was before I knew of the joys of temperature control. This particular beer fermented at 85+ and probably got over 90 at times. It tasted like beer-grape juice. Very disgusting. And the carbonation didn't go well, so it was kind of half flat. I didn't dump it though. Between using it for cooking and forcing the occasional one down, I made it through.