It really is hard to screw up beer--testimonial

[kansasbrew]

I was using the recommended first AG recipe--Ed Wort's Haus Pale Ale. How bad did I screw up! Well, first I forgot and used my tap water, which comes through a softener. Bad right! Then, (don't know how I screwed this up) but I dumped too much water in during my sparge and had to discard a bit of it and boil the whole thing a half hour longer to get it down to five gallons. So, I was worried. It tasted pretty acrid when I bottled it on Monday. I'm drinking one a bit early right now and it is really good for all that and the short conditioning time. If this is drinkable, then how bad do you have to do things to make it total crap?

 

[marubozo]

Haha. You're right. As freaked out as most people get about their beer it really is pretty hard to royally screw it up. Sure, you can make a lot of little mistakes that might change your intended outcome, but unless it's a huge error the resulting beer usually comes out quite well and is very drinkable.

 

[viking73]

Let it sit on orange peel for too long. Gets nice and bitter. I'm on month two in the bottle and it's just not aging out much more. Still drinkable though...

 

[Yooper]

I've ever only add one undrinkable beer- I got a lacto infection, probably from an infected starter. I had one I hated (caramel cream ale), but I just didn't like the beer. All of the rest have been consumed by either me or by undiscriminating friends. Even the nasty Cooper's kit I made in one of my first batches got consumed by a friend.

 

[TheGeek]

+1...

If I had any idea my first batch how HARD it really is to mess up a batch of beer, I probably would have never found this site to begin with. So at least some good came of it, right? haha.

 

[HH60gunner]

I hear ya, on my first batch I was so worried because the directions had me add the water and then cool down the wort, which ended up taking me hours to do in an ice batch. I was so worried that I screwed it up because it literally took me several hours to cool down the wort in an ice bath. However I now have an amazing tasting blood orange hefe.

 

[Cinci-Brewing]

I'm new to home brewing too, just brewed my second, 5 gallon batch which is a ale. I've had my fair share of mistakes, all the way back to when i used Mr. Beer, but i haven't had one come out that i couldn't drink.

I made a mistake tonight, i didn't monitor the temps like i should have and the temperature strip on my fermenter was reading bright on the 74 as well as 76. Now i dont know how high the temperature can go before you start imparting any unwanted effects into your beer, but anything above 75 really makes me take action. I have a fan in a open window, blowing on the fermenter and the temps are going down.

 

[Pommy]

Im drinking my worst one right now, it was my first extract batch which the recipe must have been badly worded on but basically I steeped the lb caramel malt throughout the whole boil. It tastes incredibly strongly of caramel and tannins but I can drink it and still have a bit of a soft spot for it