infected beer still contain same amount of alcohol?

[Teerum]

I am drinking through five gallons of homebrew that seems to be a little infected. Im wondering if the bacteria is changing the abv in a negative way, wich would give me no incentive to drink it.
I can't quite tell if its getting me drunk or not, because I can only have one pint between pints of more successful brews!

 

[SeraW]

Short answer is, it depends on the infection. Only thing I know that can ferment large amounts of alcohol into something that's not would be acetobacter. In which case by then you'd be drinking straight vinegar and you'd know.

 

[DevilNuts]

Once the yeast does its thing, the alcohol is just there as a byproduct. So if the beer became infected after fermentation, I would imagine the abv is still what it should be.

... I don't know of anything that consumes alcohol during infection...

 

[Rhetorik]

... I don't know of anyone that consumes alcohol during infection...

^^

 

[LostBoyScout]

I feel like we homebrew for very different reasons.

As said though, depending on the infection the bugs could be converting ethanol to other things or you could have unwanted attenuation from things like brett that bump up ethanol production, but generally your ABV won't change (up or down) very much.

 

[Teerum]

Thanks for the relpys.
I do try and brew fine craft beer, but this one seems to have some degree of infection. Tastes less than great, but not entirely terrible either. Therefore I won't be drinking this beer for taste and would feel stupid drinking through it if it was non alcoholic.
When in question I thought I'd ask here. 😉
Cheers!