worst beer you ever made

[avidhomebrewer]

Mine was a tommyknocker clone. It had maple syrup that was added to the boil and was just nasty.

 

[JebCkr]

Well, this is an easy one for me. The last brew I made is my worst. Granted, I've only made maybe 10 or so batches thus far, but still. I decided to get off the beaten path that was provided by my extract kits. I took a low gravity pale ale kit and added 16 oz of chocolate bars and a pot of cold brewed, chocolate flavored coffee to it. It is drinkable (I've gotten through half of it at this point), but I now realize why light beers and chocolate do not go together. Anyhow, lessone learned and at least it is still drinkable and erm...interesting.

 

[BryanJ]

My worst beers are from the kits I buy, there was only one from a kit that was good. I have a complete distrust for any kit from any store. I've had kits from multiple stores and online vendors, needless to say I won't be buying a premade kit again.

 

[JebCkr]

My worst beers are from the kits I buy, there was only one from a kit that was good. I have a complete distrust for any kit from any store. I've had kits from multiple stores and online vendors, needless to say I won't be buying a premade kit again.

Extract kits? I've had all grain and extract kits that all were great. Granted, there's ways to screw them up, but if done right they can be very good. Where did you get your kits?

 

[bakeup]

A-Z Brown ale. I don't think I pitched enough yeast, and I think if fermented too warm. It tastes terrible.

 

[CoalCracker]

Banana bread ale. Just weird flavors. Nothing like it should have been. Choked down one, let it sit for two months. Didn't change, dumped. Only a half batch so wasn't too upset.

 

[BryanJ]

Extract kits? I've had all grain and extract kits that all were great. Granted, there's ways to screw them up, but if done right they can be very good. Where did you get your kits?

I've used both extract and all grain kits with some poor results. The recipes I find on here and other sites have turned out to be some great beers. I got my kits from my lhbs and an online vendor.

 

[loapathy]

Mine... I like really smoked, peaty Scotch so I figured...

2lbs of peat smoked malt, 2 lbs of munich, and 6lbs of pale malt which I took the liberty of roasting in the oven, followed by a fuse blowing on my fermentation setup's circuit and 90+ fermentation temps with a vial of wyeast california ale that was dark green/brown in the vial and didn't even start fermenting for almost 5 days, followed by the girlfriend washing the bottle sanitizer thingamabob in the dishwasher with something that had onions in it.

Worst thing I've ever put in my mouth.

 

[dfc]

My second batch was a wheat and fermented too warm. I didn't know that wheat beer fermented hotter than most beer so I didn't keep my swamp cooler cold enough. I got some really nice off flavors (sarcasm) with that batch. I brewed it late July and still have 3 bottles left. I've been trying to drink it, but it's kind of tough.

 

[SkewedBrewing]

First post in many months.

I'm currently working on killing a keg of the worst beer I've made yet. A dunkelweiss that, unfortunately, fermented at 90+ degrees in my hot a** apartment this past summer.

Tastes alright up front, but the aftertaste is like licking a metal toilet bowl... not that I would know what thats like...

 

[MrInternet]

Mine... I like really smoked, peaty Scotch so I figured...

2lbs of peat smoked malt, 2 lbs of munich, and 6lbs of pale malt which I took the liberty of roasting in the oven, followed by a fuse blowing on my fermentation setup's circuit and 90+ fermentation temps with a vial of wyeast california ale that was dark green/brown in the vial and didn't even start fermenting for almost 5 days, followed by the girlfriend washing the bottle sanitizer thingamabob in the dishwasher with something that had onions in it.

Worst thing I've ever put in my mouth.

2 POUNDS??? Wow... even if you fermented that perfectly it would've been undrinkable.

My worst was thinking that adding 20% cranberry juice to a cider was a brilliant idea... BAD IDEA. Everything that's good about cranberry juice fermented out, and everything that's bad stayed. Like drinking apple cider vinegar...

 

[loapathy]

2 POUNDS??? Wow... even if you fermented that perfectly it would've been undrinkable.

I'd never used it before, ever--won't be making that mistake again.

For the record, it smelled delicious pre-mash!

 

[JeepDiver]

My second batch ever was a hefeweizen kit. SWMBO was rushing me to go somewhere, so I pitched the yeast at about 85 degrees, and was in a hurry to get it bottled so only let it stay in primary a week before bottling it. The taste wasn't great, but was drinkable, but the fusel alcohol was off the charts, even one would give you the worst headache ever.

 

[Coff]

A Well Made Tripel-Brooklyn Brew Shop

SWMBO got me my first kit and this was what I made. All-grain in my first go round, it was completely terrible. Tons of off flavors, hot alcohol just plain gross, and it was a gusher to boot. Needless to say it was something to do with my process, Im sure the recipe is fine.

Settled down and have been doing extract batches to get comfortable before I tackle all-grain again.

 

[ericjgreen]

the worst would have to be my first Cooper's Lager i made about 4 years ago. I totally didn't know what I was doing and did the following:

added 5lb of organic sugar (long story here), didn't rehydrate the dry yeast that came with it, didn't bring down my wort to a reasonable temperature, and finally i didn't lager the lager... all in all, it was an experiment that i failed miserably but taught me countless lessons. Since this debacle, each and every batch has been better than the previous!

did i mention the sediment of about 3/4" in each bottle i did manage to make? LOL... it was as terrible as it sounds!

 

[ericjgreen]

A Well Made Tripel-Brooklyn Brew Shop

SWMBO got me my first kit and this was what I made. All-grain in my first go round, it was completely terrible. Tons of off flavors, hot alcohol just plain gross, and it was a gusher to boot. Needless to say it was something to do with my process, Im sure the recipe is fine.

Settled down and have been doing extract batches to get comfortable before I tackle all-grain again.

was the path I took... extract brewing, then moved to partial mash with LME, then moved to the DME, and about a month ago did my first all-grain. Was a great experience and my first all-grain appears to have succeeded! Good luck!

 

[JarrodH]

My first cider. I was using some of that Trader Joes spiced cider (hey it tastes good and why wouldnt it ferment well I thought) and the clove was just incredibly overpowering. Drank one bottle and couldnt really stand to drink any more. The hot alcohol flavor was killer as well. Still have 6 bottles left (after 2 years) and am hoping it will oneday be drinkable.

 

[count_dookie]

I made a steam plisner with wyeast 2575 and it came out less than amazing, I mismeasured my priming sugar(didnt use enough) and the yeast gave a lot more fruitiness then I wanted. It will probably be good when it gets hot but until then it will sit.

 

[dantose]

I did a gluten free ale with some flaked corn that just wouldn't settle out. Never using corn again.

 

[LakewoodBrew]

I'd never used it before, ever--won't be making that mistake again.

For the record, it smelled delicious pre-mash!

HA I did a similar thing - Though I didn't use anywhere near 2 lbs. I called it Imperial Peated Bitter, everyone else just called it gross. It's a "style" of beer I shall never create again. My buddy at the HBS said it most succinctly "Smokey and bitter - those are two flavors that don't go very well together."

But it smelled awesome in the boil....

 

[reinbrew]

Taste your canned fruits before use. My peach wheat wasn't beer. It was licking the inside of a can pint after pint. Lesson learned.

 

[two_hearted]

love when old threads get resurrected. mine was an American wheat extract kit with raspberry extracted added to it. Tasted like bud light. Terrible waste.

 

[NorthRiverS]

I made a Belgian Triple that never tasted good. Glad when I finished the last bottle. I just kept thinking it would get better with age, and it never did.

NRS

 

[itzkramer]

I'm only on batch #6, but the raspberry red ale from Midwest is sickening. The ale recipie is fine, but that fake raspberry extract is just awful. I may try it again someday with real fruit.

 

[mpruett]

Earlier in the thread I mentioned the worst "successful" beer I ever made that was ridiculously overhopped with Chinook. By "successful" I mean no infections, no snafus with temperature, etc...

The worst beer I ever made was an unsuccessful one- it was an attempt at a pale lager that I made back before getting a lagering freezer & temp controller. As best I recall (it was nearly 10 years ago), it was primarily pale extract, and was fermented in a carboy left in the outside closet during the spring when the avg. temp was about 50 degrees.

I then tried to lager it in a clean new trash can filled with icewater.

It tasted like I'd fermented it in a dumpster- it must have been infected with something- it had this nasty taste that reminded me of what a stinky summer trash can smells like. Sort of a sulfury, cabbage, fart-like smell and taste.

 

[IffyG]

My worst beer (and only one I ever had to dump) was an oatmeal stout. It started off bad when I burned my grain bag on the bottom on of the put while steeping, so it had some burnt character to it. Then I put it in primary and pitched my yeast. Came back to it three weeks later with my fancy new refractometer and read 5.sometihing Brix and didn't think it was done (didn't know about the correction for post fermentation readings and was too stupid to do a hydrometer reading), so I reaerated and repitched yeast. Kegged it three weeks later and carbed it. Ended up with a beer that tasted like a burned wet dog... it was the worst thing I have ever cooked/brewed in my life.

 

[mikebowman]

my roommate and i made a blueberry ale this fall that was horrendous. we ordered the ingredients for it last march or april, planning on brewing it before i went home for the summer. never got around to it, and so they ingredients sat somewhere in my friends place for the summer. when we got back in september to brew it, the extract had partially gone all bubbly, and smelled like slightly old orange juice. figuring what the hell, we went ahead with the brew, because it was only the top part of the container that smelled like that. after the boil, we put it in the bucket, and the kit came with 2 little bottles of blueberry extract, which said on the side to use half the bottle for 5 gallons of beer or wine. but it came with two, so we compromised, and used about one and a quarter bottles. fermented for a few weeks, bottled it... awful. can't describe the taste, except that it was not worth drinking.

took a bunch to a party to give away and try and get rid of, and got extremely mixed reviews. some people loved it, most people hated it. next time i'll use real fruit

 

[Bigmoose44]

I posted my worst a few pages back but a friend of mine brewed a spruce tip beer of some kind and he said it tasted like he used his lawn mower bag for a fermenter.

Bruce

 

[Hex]

That would be my barley/date beer according to everyone who sampled it, I didn't think it was too bad, and finished the five gallons by myself. I will make it again, but with significant improvements...

 

[Bubba]

My worst was a bavarian Hefeweizen partial mash kit that tasted like vomit I dont know what if anything went wrong but I havnt brewed any wheat beer in 2 years I have since gave the remaining 12 pack to an alcoholic friend that would drink anything if there was an alcohol percentage in it.

 

[Hawaiianbrewer]

A skull splitter clone. I think it was a combination of using 50% corn sugar and fermenting it around 80 degrees (before a ferm chamber). We ended up calling it Big Foots Yeast Infection. You could barely get a pint down if your were ALREADY ****faced.

I left it in the keg for over a year (still at room temperature). It basically turned into vinegar. It was horrible....horrible.

 

[brewhusker]

Worst beer actually ended up tasty and proof of the phrase rdwhahb, but it sure wasn't pretty. I burned the lme, had black flakes floating in the beer and what was supposed to be an English brown ale was closer to black. But as my first beer it was gone almost before it fully carbed up. That was the start.

 

[heferly]

4th batch, brown ale brewed for a friend's birthday. pitched too high (ice water bath), think i had an old notty (never knew to check), fermented at the top of our stairs instead of bottom of stairs (too high ferm temps)

banana brown with a headache! had to break the bad news to him, made him wait another 2 months before i was ok with it to give it to him...

 

[Dr_Gordon_Freeman]

I've never made a completely undrinkable beer.

But I did make a cream ale where I tried to use powdered enzyme in place of barley to convert rice and corn. It didn't really work and it basically tastes really watered down, but it's kind of refreshing in a way.

 

[bigbeergeek]

Severely underattenuated barley wine. It was my 5th batch ever, and I went huge: OG of 1.123 I believe. Stalled at 1.055. Horrible sugar water that couldn't be saved, ended up getting infected after 6 months in the primary. Down the drain it went.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Severely underattenuated barley wine. It was my 5th batch ever, and I went huge: OG of 1.123 I believe. Stalled at 1.055. Horrible sugar water that couldn't be saved, ended up getting infected after 6 months in the primary. Down the drain it went.

Awww Punch-Buggy Depressing

 

[alx133]

besides the infection troubles ive had i would have to say an old ale extract kit that i picked up <second batch> then added a bunch of fuggles and chocolate malt to. ended up super thick and astringent. its been aging for over a year now and is still just a muddled intense mess of a sock bomb... to bigger and better.

 

[pwndabear]

pumpkin seed porter. the base porter recipe was actually pretty good and used pumpkin seeds in the boil. tasted good on racking.

then i made the mistake of throwing baked cracked bare pumpkin seeds in the secondary. definitely tasted like pumpkin seeds for about a second until this nasty horrible "bitter" taste assaulted your sense and made you want to poop our of your eyes. also, they were gushers to the extreme, i suspect, due to the seeds.

 

[drunkwookiee]

the funniest thing is the descriptions of the taste of nasty beer.

burnt wet dog, ass, vomit. etc etc etc....lol

 

[JonM]

Ugh, it was this horrible dry-hopped abomination (my first PM ever.) I love hoppy beers but this was freakin' awful. It's sitting in the basement in the hopes that the hoppiness will fade.