How bad was your first home brew?

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My first batch was a Porter kit that I purchased and I followed the directions to the "T." It was horrible tasting after the 5-7 days in bottles that the directions stated so i drank a few, then left it in the basement and forgot about it for a year. Tried it then, DAMN was it good. Needless to say after that year hiatus I started brewing again. LOL
 
I was able to finally try my first brew recently. It was suppose to be a black ipa but I was given wrong ingredients in the kit so turned out to be a brown ipa of sorts. Its wonderful actually, i love the freshness of the hops. My cousin has even asked for more after trying a bottle.
 
For my first batch I bought a 3.3 lb can of pre-hopped LME and made a 5 gallon batch with just that and nothing else. Obviously it tasted watered down but I wouldn't say it wasn't horrible. My second batch, however, was a recipe kit from AHS (their SNPA clone I think) and it turned out really well. I had a few bad ones here and there during my early brewing days, but over the past 10 years I'd say my beers have steadily improved, especially since going all-grain.
 
Ive made a session strength brown IPAish beer a few times now and is one of my favorite beers I've made
 
Actually, this wasn't my first brew but I have scorched my wife's stove twice with boil overs and learned that the best way to remove burnt malt is with a razor blade.

And one of my first brews was a bitter which was horribly bitter, but never figured out why. I'd try one ever month or so for the first 9 months to see if it was any better. Once, the wife got a whiff while I was drinking it (mostly to just get rid of it) and she said it smelled like 'fermented monkey piss'. Never asked her how she'd know....
 
HbgBill said:
My first HB was in 1962 or 63. It was illegal and the only thing I had was Pabst BR Hop flavored malt extract, corn sugar and cr@ppy yeast. It made beer.. it was B-A-D to the bone. but, sure had a kick.
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my grampa & granny used to make beer about the same way. he used to put everclear in each bottle.
 
My first beer wasn't very good. I did a ton of research on the subject, but still didn't research enough about water quality. Had the chlorine twang to it, plus I figured since the basement was at 68, that the beer would ferment at that temp. I learned a lot in that first brew though, it was well worth the mistakes I made. I never did serve it to anyone else, but I did drink it all.
 
My first beers tasted like beer!!!!

I made a light wheat and a dark wheat, bith were sampled last night. There young, and I assume will be better in a few weeks.
The light wheat was OK, but had a strange off taste to it. Still very drinkable though
The dark wheat was even better. It had a little bit of a dirty sock or cheese smell to it, but it was in the back/you had to look for it.
 
My first match was horrible; after two months it was barely tolerable. Much better quality ingredients, a larger knowledge base, and support forums such as this one, have greatly improved my brewing compared to when I initially started in the early '90s.
 
My first extracts where atcuallly pretty good, my first bad batch was my 4th brew, my first all grain batch

My god. that was a disaster. It is the only brew that ive ever had to drain
some things just cannot be healed with time, and after almost 6 months of ageing and still being TERRIBLE, it just had to GO

I had a bad setup, poor sparging, was completely off OG, added too much sugar, used the wrong yeast, yea, it sucked

but things got better real fast (tho I have had a few batches messed up, but not ruined, by bad yeast and over priming, hence why I only use the best yeast atm and bought an electric scale

chears
 
My first was a Dead Guy Ale kit. I thought the beer turned out horrible, turns out I just don't like Dead Guy Ale. I hadn't had one before and my friend talked me into getting that kit.

My worst was an arrogant bastard clone. Batch #4. I didn't get the right hop schedule and it turned out way too malty.
 
My first beer was a Festa Brew Oatmeal Stout that went wrong. I don't know how. I think it might have been an oxidation and sanitation issue.

My first kit beer was so bad I drank the whole batch in 10 days;)
 
Now that it has conditioned for a reasonable time, I'd say my first brew (Munton's Gold IPA no boil kit) has turned out as a decent beer. Definitely not competing with my favorite craft brews, but good enough to make me crave it (I have to hold myself back so I can age it more and see how it turns out), to continue brewing and to make the friends and family that have tried it ask for seconds.
 
My first batch was tolerable. It was definitely beer. Northern Brewer Irish Red Ale kit.

Probably the biggest problem was yeast pitch temp, and no fermentation temp control. It had a sharp fusel note (that I initially thought might be that "extract twang" people talked about) that detracted from the beer, and the high fermentation temps robbed it of the nice body that it should have had.

I had gotten through all the MAJOR process flaws by about 5-6 batches in, and it's just been tweaking and improving bit by bit since then.
 
I have brewed 3 batches so far and I am super cautious when brewing. Ppl have liked my first batch better than all the others. Huh, odd. They are water beer drinkers tho.
 
My friend is a total brewing disaster. He can't seem to follow instructions while brewing, especially if he's a little tipsy.

He complained that his first brew was watered down (NB Irish red kit), But didn't realize it was watered down because he left 2" of malt extract in the bottle "I can't get it out so I don't need it" (it never occurred to him to put hot water in the bottle and swish it around"... His fermentation lagged like crazy because he didn't aerate the wort (not following instructions ) and he kept opening the bucket. He also got a little drunk and decided to add water. Watered down beer indeed! I asked him what he got for his OG - blank stare, no hydrometer.

We've been trying the shepherd him a little by having him come to our brew sessions, this past session I asked him to grab me my sanitizer tray (I use a wallpaper tray filled with starsan to sanitize my long spoons etc) filled with sanitizer ... It came back with PBW in it. He didn't know the difference, said PBW is a sanitizer right?

He'd been sanitizing his bottles no rinse, in PBW. Lulz,
 
sloose said:
My friend is a total brewing disaster. He can't seem to follow instructions while brewing, especially if he's a little tipsy.

He complained that his first brew was watered down (NB Irish red kit), But didn't realize it was watered down because he left 2" of malt extract in the bottle "I can't get it out so I don't need it" (it never occurred to him to put hot water in the bottle and swish it around"... His fermentation lagged like crazy because he didn't aerate the wort (not following instructions ) and he kept opening the bucket. He also got a little drunk and decided to add water. Watered down beer indeed! I asked him what he got for his OG - blank stare, no hydrometer.

We've been trying the shepherd him a little by having him come to our brew sessions, this past session I asked him to grab me my sanitizer tray (I use a wallpaper tray filled with starsan to sanitize my long spoons etc) filled with sanitizer ... It came back with PBW in it. He didn't know the difference, said PBW is a sanitizer right?

He'd been sanitizing his bottles no rinse, in PBW. Lulz,
Click to expand...

LOL, sounds exactly how I imagine my best mate would be if he tried to brew:D

He refuses to get into brewing, freely admits he has no aptitude for it, but absolutely loves the beers that I chuck his way:ban:. Luckily, though, has some other endearing qualities and is quite accomplished on the bass guitar.:rockin:
 
My first was Mr. Beer! I actually went to LHBS and bought a decent kit before Mr. Beer finished his happy little dance.

The "Pale Ale" that came from the brown barrel was possibly the most atrocious thing I had ever tasted (I probably screwed it up). The Irish Stout I made with the kit I bought a week later was fantastic. Except that it blew the stopper out and oozed yeast all over the closet. I cringe when I think about my process, but I didn't manage to screw it up.

God Bless you Mr. Beer!
 
my first was a mr. beer pale ale, I am starting my second one here in a few minutes, it is a NB caribou slobber, I will let you know in about 2 months how it goes.
 

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