Different charachteristics?

Hey all, new to brewing, and on my second batch (coopers wheat beer from a kit) it's super cloudy and has a more sour smell to it. It smells like that last 1/4 in of beer sitting in the bottom of a can on a hot day outside?? My first batch, a dark brew, smells and tastes good, but this is only my second try so I have nothing to compare it to. I can't really say that anything smells funny or anything, but again, nothing for comparrison. So my question, is that do all beers have their own unique charachteristics, smells, appearance? How do you know when something has gone bad? Are wheat beers usually cloudy? It looks like apple juice with some flour mixed in I guess is a good description of the wheat beer. I just put it into secondary.

Stape;

Wheat beers are usually cloudy unless they are a "crystal" wheat which requires filtering. The cloudiness is from both the wheat malt used to make the beer as well as the yeast which tends to not flocculate well (fall out to the bottom) as well as the practice of actually swirling the bottle to get that yeast into your poured beer. (This is referred to in german as "mit hefe" or "with yeast")

As for the sour smell wheat beers can have strange odors depending on the yeast and fermentation conditions. If it truly smells/tastes like beer left in the sun that can happen if your beer has been exposed to too much light during fermentation/conditioning. Have you tried tasting it?

Agreed. If its wheat, don't bother worring about haze or cloudiness. Expect it.

If you're just putting it in the secondary, some of the cloudiness will improve during the secondary. The flavor should mellow with a couple weeks in the secondary and a couple more in the bottle or keg.

Of course, hefe's are beers that you don't want to age too much.

I tasted it, and it tasted like a flat, stale beer, of course, it's room temp and not carbonated, so I guess I could expect that. Right now, the top 1in is getting really clear, just a golden amber color, and later, it cleared to 2in.....so it looks like everything is settling down to the bottom. I have a basement, but its pretty cool down there, so I store my beer in primary secondary in my bedroom, which is usally dark, and never gets any sunlight, only what lights are on, which even then, is seldom.