Do you drink your failures?

[moreb33rplz]

I started brewing again after a long hiatus. My first two batches fermented too hot, and I'm sitting on 10 gallons of banana-clove beer. It does not taste good, but I will drink every last drop.

I assume this is the attitude of most people here?

 

[sputnam]

depends on how bad it is. if it's an off flavor - i drink. if it's a possible infection - i dump. which is why i like the smaller batches (3 gallons). I had 3 back-to-back dumpers, then i decided it was my mr beer kegs. threw them out and got better bottles, everything's been good to great since.

btw - that banana clove thing will simmer down if you can let it sit a few months

 

[JohnSand]

I'm with Sput. If it tastes bad, I dump it. If it's not quite right, I wait, hoping for improvement.
I also suffered infections in my MrBeer kegs. I threw out all of my plastic and started over.

 

[socratesbrewing]

If I don't like it and/or if I need bottles or mini-kegs for the another batch, then I'll dump.

 

[passedpawn]

No. Your assumption is wrong. Bad beers hit the grass. Even mediocre ones do occasionally.

I guess you have to ask yourself: Why do I brew?

 

[Yooper]

I will not drink beer I don't care for.

Life is too short to drink bad (or even mediocre) beer.

If I won't drink it and enjoy it, I would dump it.

 

[Absolut_Ninja]

I've only had 1 dumper. Obvious infection that I kinda predicted. That was due to my neglect. Had a bunch of off flavor brews that I drink every last drop of. Makes me think long and hard about making mistakes! I've still got a couple bottles of coriander laden soup stock left that I brewed over a year ago. They are not getting any better with age. Learn from mistakes!

 

[thisisbeer]

Same here. I won't let mediocre beer take up valuable keg or bottle space when I know I won't drink it. Especially in my kegorator. If I have 3 good beers, or even one good beer on tap, I'm pouring it rather than the one I won't enjoy. I always have good beer on hand. So why would I drink a bad one?

 

[M4car223]

My last 3 batches have all had issues. Stringy looking infection that hit during bottling. I just pulled the last batch from my mother-in-laws cellar. 6+ months ago I had the infection visible though light in my 12 oz brown bottles. Same as the batch before. Both batches tasted the same....and off taste. Bitter, dry, sour.....very hard to explain, but not what it should be.

I have asked for ideas suggestions.....blah blah bllaahhhhh. Easter I went into their cellar. No stringy infection, appears to be a stringy yeast settlement possibly?!

Regardless, it is not a tasty beer. It is substandard from what I think I could potentially make.

That being said, I will drink my mistakes. Mostly. I want to know what a mistake tastes like. I want to know what an infection tastes like. I want to be able to diagnose a problem with a beer by looking at it and tasting it, with the hopes that I can eliminate issues and identify problem areas with my process, and with others.

I learn though mistakes, and I make plenty of them...so I am working toward becoming an expert correct?!

Edit: thisisbeer, I don't produce good beer every time as I have not nailed down my process, but on a side note we just moved to where we are from Friendswood, TX. Miss that area and fishing the salt marshes like crazy.

Not trying to hijack but just miss the area when I saw Pearland since 35 to the school was my bypass route to work to avoid the interstate.

 

[MaxStout]

If the beer is a little off but drinkable, I keep it. But if it crosses that threshold of bad taste, out it goes. I've had 2 dumpers--an Irish red with a really bad diacetyl problem, and a brown ale that fermented way too warm and had all kinds of nasty off-flavors. Yet both of those drain-pours were good learning experiences for me. In the first, I learned to not let my yeast get stressed (began making starters, better aeration, etc.) In the second, I concentrated on fermentation temp control.

I will not drink crappy homebrew to punish myself for screwing up. I learn from the mistake and move on.

 

[reeberom]

I always go by the mantra time heals all beer. Unless there's an infection. Then kill it before it makes more beer babies.


Primary: House stout
Secondary: zombie dust clone
Bottled: moose drool clone

 

[Braufessor]

The funny thing is, the better I have gotten at brewing, the more likely I am to dump a beer. I brew a lot - so it is very rare that I don't have 4-6 kegs on tap and 2-6 more fermenting/lagering...... If one of them is "bad" it gets dumped for sure. But, often, even mediocre beers just kind of end up not getting drank...... and, eventually, I want the keg for another beer and whatever is left..... 1-2-3 gallons - gets dumped. As others have said - no point in drinking bad or mediocre beer, when there is good and great beer to be drank.

That said - I have a lot of beer on hand and always some in the pipeline to fill kegs. I buy everything in bulk, reuse yeast, etc.... so the "cost" of a batch just is not that much. It is a lot harder to dump a batch that cost you $40, and it is the only thing you have in the pipeline.

 

[Tarks]

Life is too short to drink ****ty beer. Needless to say, I'll dump it and chalk it up to a learning experience.

 

[beersk]

No. Your assumption is wrong. Bad beers hit the grass. Even mediocre ones do occasionally.

I guess you have to ask yourself: Why do I brew?

I concur. Ya only get one liver (that you can abuse with alcohol, that is), so destroy it wisely.
I brew to brew and drink the best possible beer. Mediocrity is not tolerated.

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

The funny thing is, the better I have gotten at brewing, the more likely I am to dump a beer. I brew a lot - so it is very rare that I don't have 4-6 kegs on tap and 2-6 more fermenting/lagering...... If one of them is "bad" it gets dumped for sure. But, often, even mediocre beers just kind of end up not getting drank...... and, eventually, I want the keg for another beer and whatever is left..... 1-2-3 gallons - gets dumped. As others have said - no point in drinking bad or mediocre beer, when there is good and great beer to be drank.

That said - I have a lot of beer on hand and always some in the pipeline to fill kegs. I buy everything in bulk, reuse yeast, etc.... so the "cost" of a batch just is not that much. It is a lot harder to dump a batch that cost you $40, and it is the only thing you have in the pipeline.

That's pretty much what I do.

 

[wmcc75]

It depends, if its just an off flavor I will drink one every so often to see if it ages out. I haven't dumped one yet (knock on wood).

Sent from my LG-P870 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[skw]

I'm at brew #11 and haven't felt like dumping any yet. There were one or two that I didn't hand out to family as I would feel embarrassed about them, but it's still beer so I drink it.

In fact, I think the one my dad liked the most was the extremely cloudy one that never got to a full boil.

 

[Darwin18]

No point in drinking ****ty beer. Dump, learn from it, and brew better beer.

 

[Agate]

I learned archery from someone that only let me have one arrow. After every shot, I had to retrieve the arrow and think about what I did right and what I did wrong. It worked well, but sucked at the time.

My second batch after my brewing hiatus is like that. Not bad enough to dump, but I'm intentionally drinking every one, to reinforce that I will never make that mistake again.

Yes, I will never underpitch again...

 

[passedpawn]

I learned archery from someone that only let me have one arrow. After every shot, I had to retrieve the arrow and think about what I did right and what I did wrong. It worked well, but sucked at the time.

My second batch after my brewing hiatus is like that. Not bad enough to dump, but I'm intentionally drinking every one, to reinforce that I will never make that mistake again.

Yes, I will never underpitch again...

Well done.

 

[stevedasleeve]

100+ no dumpers here! Actually I've brewed beer I don't care for but I have never failed to find someone who likes it... I'm a scot so too cheap to dump anything anyway...

 

[Aonghus]

I have only ever dumped one batch. If I mess one up and do not like it, I would not hesitate to dump another one.

 

[tally350z]

I have only dumped one batch before, however I just made an IPA and I used too many salts(attempt to get Burton Water profile) and I do not care too much for it. I may wait and give it some more time though.

 

[mtnagel]

I've dumped the remaining handful of bottles, but never the majority of a batch. These were styles that I just didn't really care for, not necessarily that they were terrible.

 

[kcmobrewer]

Depends on how bad it is to me. If it's horrible, I'd dump it. If it's just ok I bottle it off to save keg space. See how it is after a while. If I find myself still not drinking it then I'll dump it. Making AG beer is cheap anyway.

 

[broadbill]

I always go by the mantra time heals all beer.

I have found this is rarely the case, and this refers more to new/impatient people who try their beer too early.

If a beer has completed the process of becoming beer and the result is mediocre/bad...its not going to improve.

If it does come back, see my comment about new/impatient people.

 

[thisisbeer]

I learned archery from someone that only let me have one arrow. After every shot, I had to retrieve the arrow and think about what I did right and what I did wrong. It worked well, but sucked at the time.

My second batch after my brewing hiatus is like that. Not bad enough to dump, but I'm intentionally drinking every one, to reinforce that I will never make that mistake again.

Yes, I will never underpitch again...

No way I could do this. If brewing were anything like archery I couldn't tell you how many times I would have shot myself in the foot....

 

[Transamguy77]

Ya know what's funny about your failures? That if you brew good beer that your "failures" are only "failures" to YOU, I've been brewing for almost 4 years now and the beers I don't like other people do! I think part of it is in your head (unless its truly infected, which I've had) you expect a certain beer and when it doesn't meet your expectations you think it's a bad "bad" beer.

I was at a beer fest last year and pouring a pumpkin ale that I was not fond of but I brought it anyway, when I was in another tent tasting someone else's beer I overheard a conversation and they were talking about MY pumpkin beer and how THEY felt it was the best pumpkin beer there!

I think "bad" beers are subjective and most of the time they are based on what you were expecting and didn't turn out to be.

 

[m1k3]

I once heard Jamil say that you don't want your friends or neighbors to think that homebrew is lousy, so don't give away your bad beer... dump it.

But it is nice to have at least one "less discerning" friend that will help kill off the aging keg or experimental recipe.

That being said I would dump a beer if I brewed an infected one.

 

[jtratcliff]

I drink my failures.... So far nothing horrible. Buy every time I take a sip, it reminds me not to do that again. Sometimes by the end of 5gal it doesn't seem quite as bad as the first taste.

 

[sundaypapers]

I also drink my failures. In a strange way I find it comforting. I realize what I did and make the necessary changes. I also make notes of how that beer changes as it ages, I have some that I just can't really get through, like almost a year old. I don't brew very often anymore, since the new kid came, so I usually drink them as beer number three or four, when I don't mind it so much. I have dumped a batch of vinegar, but other than that, I drink them up.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Agate]

No way I could do this. If brewing were anything like archery I couldn't tell you how many times I would have shot myself in the foot....

I hear ya brotha... I said it was my second batch, but I can't say I'm much beyond that one. My stance on this will probably change once I've had to deal with a couple more mediocre batches!

 

[bondra76]

I have a batch of that Gnomes Ginger Beer that tastes like dirty dish water.

Being that it's just ginger beer and the sunk cost is mostly just sugar, I'm thinking of trashing it.

 

[bondra76]

I think "bad" beers are subjective and most of the time they are based on what you were expecting and didn't turn out to be.

SO true.

I made a Smithwicks clone that fermented hot and had fruity esters in it. Just by the description I think most people would think it sounded gross but my friends tapped the keg in less than 2 hours and they now all proclaim I'm a great brewer. I thought it was my worst batch yet?....

 

[MindenMan]

I have been brewing about 2-1/2 years, and have made some less than stellar batches of beer, okay, I have made what I consider to just be drinkable many times. One of them, I didn't figure out the proper priming amount. I did not get bombs, but I did get a whole batch of gushers, and then another batch where I didn't pull the spigot apart and something was in there, no nasty flavor or anything, but an embarrassment of more gushers only known to my wife and I. We drank it anyway. I now double, triple check everything that my fermenting wort gets close to. I also had a butterscotch flavored beer too. In my experience, two things are paramount: sanitation and controlling fermentation temperatures. If it isn't nasty tasting or smelling it will be beer either way. There are no pathogens that can grow in beer that are harmful to humans, so do like the Cheryl Crow song says, "...scrape off the mold for French toast again..."

 

[mjdonnelly68]

I used to finish less than great beers - out of respect for the time involved. Foolishness.

Now I dump anything I'm not proud to serve.

Dump it. Re-brew and fix it.

I get to brew and I get to drink good beer - Win/Win.

 

[cjgenever]

I've dumped two in the years I've been brewing. One was an experiment when I first started brewing. It wad absolute garbage. The other was a temp control accident that led to a fusal bomb. That one was instant headache juice. All other poor brews have been drank. I usually save them for long nights. once I've got a good buzz I'll to a few back. The flavor doesn't matter as much then. I never drink a crap beer with dinner. That would just be too self punishing. Bad beer can also be good for cooking.

Sent from my SCH-R970 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[JonM]

I have a real stinker in a keg downstairs right now (first ever attempt at a lager, and it is an aceteldehyde bomb) I'll age it to see if it goes away, but if it doesn't it's undrinkable.

Won't be a total loss, though. If it stays undrinkable, I will use it as a way to practice using my newly acquired counterpressure filler.