Beer smells like bananas

[creamgetthemoney]

So I am on my second try at making a beer which is supposed to be an oktoberfest. The first one actually smelled like beer when I put it in the bottles, but doesn't taste right at all. We thought it might of gotten infected. I am letting it sit for much longer just to see what happens. This beer, as i was putting it in the bottling bucket from secondary smelled exactly like bananas. Is it worth even keeping in the bottles? I figure I should see what happens, but I hear if your beer smells like fruit, its a gone'er.

 

[rsmith179]

You should be fine. Don't throw it away yet at least. The banana smell you are talking about is probably coming from esters produced by the yeast during fermentation. Depending on the style of beer, this may not be a bad thing at all and will probably mellow out some during secondary and also bottle conditioning.

In the future, try to keep your fermentation temps as steady as possible and on the lower side of the healthy temperature spectrum to cut down on those esters being produced. Again, this isn't a killer for the beer and you should still go through all the next steps with the beer. Give it some time and you should be fine.

By the way, some beers like my Saison I actually ferment at higher temps 80-85F to get some of those esters to be produced by the yeast.

 

[creamgetthemoney]

I first came across this smell as i opened up the secondary tank to bottle it.

 

[oswiu]

It's almost certainly that the second batch fermented too warm. High fermentation temperatures produce various highly pungent esters, most notably ethyl and isoamyl acetate, which produce strong banana-like flavours.

Your beer isn't ruined, though I'm pretty sure I've read that these ester flavours don't drop out over time, so I'm afraid you're probably stuck with a banana-y beer.