worst beer you ever made

[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.

 

[bknifefight]

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.

What happened? Did it get grassy?

 

[PhelanKA7]

I'd say either an oaked ESB or a scotch ale I made. But neither was undrinkable. The ESB was too hoppy for my tastes. I brewed it for a friend of mine who was moving and requested I try my hand at the style. He enjoyed it so I guess that was all that mattered.

As for the scotch ale, I had made it after a short hiatus from brewing so I was impatient and a little overeager. I pulled it out of the fermenter quicker than I probably should have. The beer was overly sweet but it was still drinkable. It probably could have used a more pungent aroma hop too. I know, that makes no sense after saying that i'm not a hop head, but I really think the beer could have benefitted from some extra bitterness.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Not counting the two brews that got killed during a heat wave (tasted like garden hose, fermenters were exposed to 100F+ weather).

I would have to say a Dark Belgian that got a stuck fermentation. It was coming along great, fermentation got stuck. I had a Saison going as well, so racked the Dark onto the saison yeast cake. Now it is a Dark Belgian with the spicy sharp Saison flavor, and it really just doesn't work. It is going down the drain to free up bottles.

 

[JonM]

What happened? Did it get grassy?

Grassy, soapy, all sorts of off-flavors. I don't know why - I used Cascade which usually is good but for some reason, this is just awful.

Oh well, I've done 15+ AG batches since then and they've all been great, including some properly hoppy IPAs. Whatever mistake I made in that PM, I've never done it again.

 

[badhabit]

I made a roggen that was so tanic it was like eating a lemmon, guess that is why they say not to wring ou the wort from the malt

 

[Madtown1]

Four words... Too much peated malt. It was a scotch ale and it was like drinking a campfire. It ended up down the drain to free up the bottles.

 

[SnallygasterBrewery]

A S'morter (Porter + S'more = basically a smoky porter, but the concept was like, campfire... marshmallows/earthy/etc.). I'd like to have another go at it at some point BUT MY GOD WAS IT AWFUL.

 

[theschick]

I made an oaked porter in Sept, and I brought it to my beer club's meeting last month. The comments it received was it was like taking a bite out of wood. Maybe it'll age out in another year.

 

[cyclonite]

Just crowned my champion here. My "Project X" Spiced Mocktoberfest Ale. Just too much darned spice. I used 1.5 oz of mulling spices coarsely ground in a mortar and pestle at 5 minutes before flameout. The spices consisted of cinnamon stick, allspice, clove, star anise, and bitter orange peel. Thought it would taste nice (it smelled AMAZING when I dropped the spices in), but something (I think it is a combination of the star anise and allspice) gives it a really harsh off aroma and taste - almost "plasticky" . The taste lingers too after you drink it, which is not pleasant. It's actually not bad if you mix it 50/50 with a stout, but it's not very good either (and seems like a waste of a perfectly good stout). On top of that, I pitched it on T-58, which can give some Belgian style funk which probably didn't help. I still have it in a secondary right now, think I'll leave it there a few months and see what happens with it.

Other thoughts I had on how to potentially save it, or at least go all experimental R&D on it :
1) Add some pumpkin. However, pumpkin doesn't give a strong taste, so I don't think it can counterbalance the spice.
2) Dump or bottle about 1-1.5 gallons, and then put about 1-1.5 gallons of stout wort in there and let it re-ferment. The roastiness and bite of the stout seem to help when mixing it with a sample, maybe it would help in the fermenter even more???
3) Dry hop it to get some hop aroma to counter the spice. This may make it even more nasty though with clashing aroma and taste.

I have never dumped a batch, but this one is making me consider it!!! However, I definitely won't dump it until I let it age at least 3 months and see what happens. Dumping just seems so... wrong!

Oh well, it was an experiment to begin with - live and learn I guess!!!

 

[Eric]

I was brewing with a friend years ago splitting a Belgian Dubbel. It was a recipe from Zymurgy and had alot of specialty malts in it. Somehow there was confusion during grinding and instead of a very small amount of roasted barley, we ended up with a whole pound going in. I tried to call it a Belgian Stout but it was just wrong. Hoped it would get better with age but actually got worse.

 

[bigbeergeek]

Just crowned my champion here. My "Project X" Spiced Mocktoberfest Ale. Just too much darned spice. I used 1.5 oz of mulling spices coarsely ground in a mortar and pestle at 5 minutes before flameout. The spices consisted of cinnamon stick, allspice, clove, star anise, and bitter orange peel. Thought it would taste nice (it smelled AMAZING when I dropped the spices in), but something (I think it is a combination of the star anise and allspice) gives it a really harsh off aroma and taste - almost "plasticky" . The taste lingers too after you drink it, which is not pleasant. It's actually not bad if you mix it 50/50 with a stout, but it's not very good either (and seems like a waste of a perfectly good stout). On top of that, I pitched it on T-58, which can give some Belgian style funk which probably didn't help. I still have it in a secondary right now, think I'll leave it there a few months and see what happens with it.

Other thoughts I had on how to potentially save it, or at least go all experimental R&D on it :
1) Add some pumpkin. However, pumpkin doesn't give a strong taste, so I don't think it can counterbalance the spice.
2) Dump or bottle about 1-1.5 gallons, and then put about 1-1.5 gallons of stout wort in there and let it re-ferment. The roastiness and bite of the stout seem to help when mixing it with a sample, maybe it would help in the fermenter even more???
3) Dry hop it to get some hop aroma to counter the spice. This may make it even more nasty though with clashing aroma and taste.

I have never dumped a batch, but this one is making me consider it!!! However, I definitely won't dump it until I let it age at least 3 months and see what happens. Dumping just seems so... wrong!

Oh well, it was an experiment to begin with - live and learn I guess!!!

I overspiced two christmas ales two years in a row. I cracked open a bottle of the 1.5 year old stuff last month -- still terribly overspiced. I wouldn't wast my hops (or time) on it if it is truly overpowered with spices.
My .02.

 

[overflow]

I wanted to experiment with Yerba Mate and thought a Witbier would be a perfect compliment (thinking tea + lemon, etc.) Added enough Yerba Mate to make each 12oz serving contain a full cup of tea. WAY too much Yerba Mate.. you could drink about one and your heart would be racing. The tea flavor was also way too strong. I let it sit for 6 months or so to see if it would mellow; it never did. Dumped it about two weeks ago. Gonna attempt it again with half the Yerba Mate. I call it "Witty Mate."

 

[Mustangfreak]

I had a brewers best ( I think) ipa kit, and when it was in secondary I had moved and the water in the airlock got sucked back in and the batch I think it was infected. I left it to age for 4 months while I was deployed and it never got better so I chocked it up to being infected.

 

[drkaeppel]

Ive brewed 7 or 8 batches thus far. All of them have been very drinkable, but I was least impressed with my most recent hefeweizen. I wanted something light (OG was 1.048). The batch seemed to dry out too much, though. FG was something like 1.007. Had a nice banana flavor, but was lacking malt flavor. Too thin.

 

[freebeertomorrow]

My only dumper was also the only beer I brewed in Fl. It was intended to be an English Mild. Not sure what went wrong, but it was thin, sour and overcarbonated. Might have been high fermentation temps, it was Fl after all.

Other hits were mostly attempts at using too much simple sugar, but those mellowed enough to at least drink.

Sadly, I'm now drinking a 6 year old mead that I brewed to be a buddy's 1-5th anniversary present. It's starting to go to vinegar, but hell it's the last bottle. Inspired to crack one open, as they're celebrating their 5th anniversary tonight.

So my first post here is:

Go Josh and Steph! Happy Anniversary!

 

[Haputanlas]

My only dumper was a red that I fermented too high. In addition, the hop bags weren't sanitary enough and created post fermentation infection.

Tasted terrible, however, I added some oak to help detract from the off flavors. It worked, but still barely tolerable. After drinking half of the batch, I dumped the rest. I was forcing myself to drink it and got tired of it.

Damn shame

 

[solavirtus]

I thought a SMaSH was a great idea when I heard about it, so i decided to do a pale ale with a little crystal 10 and a lot of Magnum hops early and late in the boil. Lets just say I really learned an appreciation for balance and drinkability in my beers.

 

[1ratdog]

a WAY to smokey amber. called it campfire ale. dumped 40 out of 47 bottles after 6 months.

 

[gtwarren1966]

Worst beer was a smoked porter I made up. I added way too much of the Briess Cherry smoked malt, somewhere around 45% and that beer tasted like a campfire. Nasty stuff, we poured it out. I made some pretty bad Cherry Wheat before I got temp control and it fermented too hot and tasted a bit banana like, uggh.

 

[beerloaf]

The 1st Belgian I ever brewed was a Belgian Abbey Blond. It tasted so bad that it got the name Belgian Dog Butt Ale which stuck. Very astringent aftertaste which did not mellow with age. I have no idea what a dogs butt taste like, but I assume it's very similar to this brew. I brewed other Belgians since and they all came out fantastic.

beerloaf