Possible to scrub excess ethly acetate from finished beer?

[ListerH]

Yesterday, I was sat in a tap room chatting to the brewer and he mentioned that they had been barrel aging various beers but had made the mistake of just aging them in the warmer area of the on site restaurant.

So he said they had developed some acetone (I interpret as ethyl acetate) off flavors.

He said next week they are going to dump it all as it's no good for their taps.
He said he was happy for me to bring down a corny keg and he'd fill it up for free.

I haven't sampled the beer yet and am kinda hoping that he's being super critical of his beer and that this is going to be perfectly fine. But I guess there is the possibility that it genuinely isn't going to be good.

So the question is... if indeed I do get the dreaded nail polish hot flavors, will there be anything I can do so scrub (if that's the right word) the ethyl acetate? I have done a bit of reading around and I don't see anything that can really be done post fermentation.
I was hoping that there might be something that I could add to the beer to break it down, but I've come up blank.

I'm pretty sure this wont condition out naturally.... worst case scenario is I just dump it... nothing ventured nothing gained and at best I get a half decent free keg of beer!

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

I think the consensus is no it cannot be removed or scrubbed from the beer. "Metabolic dead-end" is the term MTF uses, which means it can't be broken down any further.

 

[RPh_Guy]

if indeed I do get the dreaded nail polish hot flavors, will there be anything I can do so scrub (if that's the right word) the ethyl acetate?

Nope, sorry.

 

[Bubbles2]

Can you distill it?

 

[bracconiere]

+1 to distilling it...and the only way i know to break esters, is in basic conditions with heat....you'd get ethanol and acetic acid that way.....you know actually esters in water is a equilibrium reaction...so maybe give it some time....but you'd still end up with acetic acid, and ethanol... just my two cents

 

[ListerH]

Thanks! Yeah I thought about making some moonshine! I pick the keg up on Friday so I’ll see what I’m dealing with!

Thanks all!