I had a $50 pint of homebrew yesterday

[StunnedMonkey]

It was mine, it was tapped yesterday, and it was the best beer I've ever brewed. It wasn't my recipe, but rather it was the Green Flash IPA clone from Can You Brew It. It had a buttload of hops, and man it was really good. SWMBO even commented that it was the beast beer I'd ever brewed.

It was so good that today I decided to bottle a few from the keg to send to competitions. I didn't have a specific comp in mind but I wanted to make sure I got a half dozen bottles off the keg before we drank it all. So I got my bottling stuff all hooked up and had my sanitized bottles there and went to fill one and...nothing but spit. WTH? I look inside to make sure I'd hooked up the correct keg and there in the bottom of the keezer was FIVE GALLONS OF THE BEST BEER I'D EVER BREWED. I'd removed the disconnects for cleaning before swapping this keg and didn't tighten the line back down completely (threaded) and all FIVE GALLONS OF THE BEST BEER I'D EVER BREWED had slowly pumped out into the bottom of the keezer. Except of course for the one pint I had yesterday. The $50 pint.

And if that didn't make me sick enough, then I had to pull out all 5 kegs and bail out 5 gallons of IPA, which smelled so good I damn near drank it from the bailing bucket.

I'm the stupidest person on the planet.

 

[arturo7]

.


















(this post is actually a moment of silence)

 

[Edcculus]

Wow, that absolutely blows. Even sucks more than dropping a full fermenter since you know what you are missing.

 

[user 22118]

That hurts me and I am not even there. I would say to post a picture if you had one, but I don't want to see that kind of carnage

 

[eschatz]

Brutal......

 

[scinerd3000]

stick your face down in the liquid and drink up.......


unless your freezer bottom looks like mine in which case i will shed tears for you

 

[snazzy]

Yea, I think I would have drank some of it.

Sorry about your luck.

 

[StunnedMonkey]

That hurts me and I am not even there. I would say to post a picture if you had one, but I don't want to see that kind of carnage

Yeah, I was actually sort of mad that I hadn't taken a picture, but at the time I was pretty pissed. (I'm still pretty pissed.) I was literally screaming the bad word (yes, THE bad word) over and over with my mother-in-law upstairs visiting. And she's not a beer drinker so I'm guessing she didn't understand.

stick your face down in the liquid and drink up.......


unless your freezer bottom looks like mine in which case i will shed tears for you

I'm sure it looked like whatever hideous mess yours looks like. I'd never cleaned it out and there was an awful lot of black crud floating around in it. The beer was really good, but not that good.

 

[woollybugger2]

hate it for you man!

 

[Bopper]

Wow that really sucks. Sorry for your loss!

 

[StoutFan]

Is Taps appropriate for beer? If so, play on little trumpet man, play on.......

 

[Evan]

Wow, I feel for you. Look on the bright side you'll always check your fittings closer from now on and it probably won't happen again.

 

[jds]

Ouch.


In other words, Ouch.

 

[Evan!]

I do believe the only thing you can really say is...

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

 

[StunnedMonkey]

I do believe the only thing you can really say is...

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Trust me. It was said. Loudly. With emphasis. Both of my daughters and my wife came downstairs to see what the hell had happened. I didn't even get chastised for the language or the mess as SWMBO fully grasped the scope of the tragedy and cut me the necessary slack...and then grabbed a Sierra Nevada Torpedo from the fridge and disappeared.

 

[double_e5]

I was literally screaming the bad word (yes, THE bad word) over and over with my mother-in-law upstairs visiting. And she's not a beer drinker so I'm guessing she didn't understand.

You called it a c#nt? Man, you were pissed. If you called it that, I'm sure your MIL realized the severity of the situation.

 

[beerjunky828]

A moment of silence directed toward you.

My condolences

 

[david_42]

Tragic. I've been lucky in the leaky keg department, couple of pints but never a whole keg.

 

[deepsouth]

oh dude, i'm so sorry. the same thing happened to my buddy, but he only lost a couple or three gallons.

 

[chumprock]

I would have gotten a really long straw and gone to work on that!

 

[bull8042]

I am at...... at a loss.....**sniff**.....**sniff** I am so sorry...... Such a young tender IPA. Taken away in its prime.... BWAAAAAA!!!!

I have nightmares about stuff like that. I check, then re-check but figure Murphy will cornhole me one of these days in a big way anyway.

 

[davesrose]

Oh well....live and learn, you'll be able to replicate the recipe again to get that pint cheaper! Though with the intitial title of the thread, I thought that you were spending hundreds of dollars on special ingredients for a true "$50 A Pint Beer" . Most I've spent so far on a 5 gallon recipe is $135....it had SSOOO much hops. It might have been too much hops for even the biggest hop head. But hey, with this case, you obviously love this particular beer enough to keep on brewing it!

 

[McKBrew]

I've been there and done that with a less expensive beer. The one thing you will learn from this is to check and re-check all lines. It sucks that it took a $50 lesson to learn this.


I'd say F--- as well.

 

[SmugMug]

All that hard work....all the time and money....the torture of having tasted it....

There's something in my eye.

 

[Whut]

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

In a word . . .

 

[Bobby_M]

If you keg your beer, it's not a question of IF but WHEN this will happen to you. It happened to me already. It was the top cap of the disconnect for me, the gasket was nicked a little. It was a slow leak but overnight was enough to empty 4 gallons. Murphy says it's ALWAYS going to be the beer you liked the most or put the most effort into like a lager that's been in the cold for 6 months.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

My condolences. That happened to me last December. I check my kegs VERY carefully now.

 

[khiddy]

Ooof. Sorry, man. That suxxxors.

 

[IrregularPulse]

Happened to a Mild for me, My 2nd keg. I was using converted cornies with sanke taps. That damn ring. I never put another drop in those kegs, they were sold and ball locks were purchased. Luckily I only lost the last gallon or so, but still I wasn't prepared for it to be empty!
My condolences for you and your loved ones.

 

[StunnedMonkey]

It sucks that it took a $50 lesson to learn this.

Yeah, but it's not the $50 that pains me. I'm not sure it was actually $50 anyway. I just estimated the number. It did have a full half-pound of hops, 16 pounds of grain, bottled spring water, and liquid yeast so I think $50 is probably a good guess. May have even been more.

But it's not the money. It's the beer, brother. The beer.