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Further to the 60 minutes in the Dark thread, I thought it would be a nice idea to start a thread about bad beers that we made (couldn't find a previous one). First of all it's funny and second it makes us newer brewers feel better that even the experienced guys/girls have made some bad beers.

My first all grain. It was a blonde ale and it was before I got a propane burner and before I made a wort chiller. Took forever to get the wort to a boil and it was barely bubbling so it was a shitty boil. Couldn't get it cooled down so I left it cool over night and it was still super warm in the morning. Pitched the yeast anyway. Surprise surprise I got a banana-bomb when I was done. I told everybody that it was a Belgian blonde and people actually liked it.

Some kind of scottish ale from Clone Brews - peat moss is gross.

Oh man where do I start....

Wee heavy .. Tried to do a carmilization in the kettle. Loved the aromas and taste of burnt sugar :p

Tried to to my garrison hefe on stove top this year cause it was cold out... Put so much color in to it, it looks like a dunkle wizen. Haven't tasted it yet.

When I was trying to develop my standard bitter I made two batches that tasted like bitter bathwater due to no malt backbone (was just MO and little bit of Carastan), low ABV beers are tricky!

I also made a cream ale with birch sap instead of water, and birch twigs and syrup added late in the boil, the flavour was pretty nice, and it had nice wooden aroma, but it was so dry that it is hard to take more than 3 sips or so (ended around 1.004).

Too many to count. Back in the can and kilo days good beer was drinkable most was not.

Sandy

I recently did a cream ale that came out tasting salty, i'm still not sure what the hell went wrong with it but even a month later I can't drink it. It's headed for the sink tonight.

I tried in vain to make a pepper corn porter last winter which turned out like shit on all three tries, I also tried to make a früli clone for a friends wife... It wasn't drinkable at all.

The first recipe I made over and above doing can kits was "Toad Spit Stout" from Charlie P's book. First time with hops, dry malt extract and liquid yeast. I popped the Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale yeast when I started brewing. the brew went OK but the yeast didn't activate. I ended up dumping it in anyway. After two days I was panicking as there was no fermentation. I ended up dumping one or two packs of various dry yeast in it to get it going. It got contaminated somewhere along the line so it tasted aweful and then the bottles started exploding! This was my first contaminated batch so I had no clue what was going on. I finally figured it out and with a heavy heart dumped it all down the drain.

I had an Irish red ale about two or three years ago that was infected, but not so much that it needed to be dumped. Me and my brother would drink one when we drinking three or more total.

I also tried making a brown porter about six or seven years ago with cocoa powder in it. The cocoa butter solids in the powder clumped, and I couldn't get them out. I even tried lagering it to get it to float so I could skim it off, but I couldn't get it all. It tasted fine, but it was gross to look at.

I've been lucky and right now I have a heavily hopped slightly watered down Dark LME on tap. Letting it sit a few months and hopes it becomes drinkable. I was able to slam back 1 glass so it's not Coors light Ice Tea aweful.

Stout with an infection that produced hefe phenolics. Let`s just say stout and clove/banana don't go well together, in case anyone is ever thinking of trying a new hybrid.

We made a Steinbeir in the summer...did a partial recipe incase it didn't turn out...very light on the hops...we wanted to see if we could highlight the smokey, earthy flavor from the stones.
Turned out way too sweet....process of boiling wort with hot rocks was cool as hell...but next time we will just use a normal recipe with enough hops to balance it

we used it as "give away" beer...2 guys drank every bit of it...they loved it

All my extract beer as I did small 12 L boils on the stove with water top up to 23L and got the home brew twang from the caramelization from a small boil and all the concentrated sugar. Most recent is my Garrison Brew off Wizen. Dumped the whole fucking thing as it was shit. I did a step mash and used a WLP300 and fermented too cool so banana and clove flavour was not present. I did a 1 L starter with 48 hours on the stir plate. It was also a D-Bomb and my worst beer ever. If I won't drink it I would never have it judged. As many have said on the site you need to brew it a few times before entering into competition which I didn't do. Lesson learned. Home brewing is a very humbling hobby but still so much fun.

I don't think you need to brew anything a few times before entering, just sounds like you got burned on the yeast.

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mr x wrote:I don't think you need to brew anything a few times before entering, just sounds like you got burned on the yeast.

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Definitely got burned on the yeast. I read pitching at 15C and allowing fermentation to rise to 18C over 3 days was a good idea for a Hefe and maintain. With the lack of flavour I was way way off. I'd prefer to enter something I enjoy brewing but do like that it got me to try something different.

My 2 wiezens have to be the biggest series of nerve racking screw ups ever. There was nothing big enough that I could say that's it, I can dump it. Instead I have to keep looking at the second fermenting pot nervously wondering which of the many screw ups is going to turn around and bite me. The first tastes good now, apart from being over hopped. I wasn't happy with the method, which is why I brewed a second, but using new equipment/setup was not a smart idea for the second.

lol.. all good stories

I once made a lager kit and kilo that a buddy had gotten for Christmas two years before.. It came out a red color (although I am color blind) and tasted very funky



so good you could only drink one

Have made lots of bad beer, from extract to kits and all grain; sometimes it doesn't take much wrong to make it go to hell!!!LOL!

Just decided to pull the plug on my American Amber Ale marking my very first dumper. Not sure what happened. I hopped it to 33 IBU and it tasted like watery mess, no mouthfeel and no hop bitterness or aroma. Chalmers had a glass while he was here and it was decent (not great) and I thought it had potential, but over the last few weeks it's degraded severely to the point where I made the call earlier this evening.

Was going to call this my Fail Pale... but a you can see that isn't getting in the way of me drinking the damn stuff.

I'm getting ready to bottle a banana beer I suspect will belong in this thread. Stay tuned.

I made an AIPA but the malt bill was too low and the way too many ozs. of C hops @ flameout made it taste like Bud Lime. No, I haven't had a Bud Lime but guessed it would taste like this shit. Down the drain it went.