I can’t remember the last time I had to dump a beer…maybe 2-3 years ago. Anyway, I did a partigyle brew about 2 weeks ago. I used the first runnings for an American Barleywine and for the second runnings I added some more grain (Two-row and Crystal) so the beer wouldn’t taste too thin. Well, I tasted it today and it tastes thin and has diacetyl. It also has a weird mineral aftertaste. I’ve done partigyle a few times before with better results, but I think this might be the last time. I haven’t tasted the Barleywine yet, so I hope I at least get one good brew from that long brew day.
That sucks, man. I dumped a batch earlier this year. You brew enough beer it’s gonna happen, but it doesn’t make it feel any better.
Not me. I have had a few close, but they were passable for my needs. I brew mostly sub 5%, so it doesn’t take long to kick a keg.
I stopped doing double batches like that a long time ago. Simply because one batch would ALWAYS suffer. I would be so busy that I would forget something or not pay close attention to detail for my liking which many times resulted in an inferior product. Not worth the extra time or money IMO, unless more beer is needed for a specific event (i.e. party, holiday, etc). Now I just focus on one batch at a time and make sure that batch is made as well as I can make beer on that given day.
I have one in a keg right now that is questionable. I think it picked up something in secondary which is very unusual but I say that because the next beer that was made with that same yeast (1028) is fine. It has a sort of clovey off-taste and I smelled it on the way to the keg but hoped it was my imagination. The key here is that bad beer cannot take up valuable space in your kegs, no way. Just dump it and move on to better beer. Sorry for the loss.
Good point. Like Denny says, you only get one liver, so destroy it wisely. Unless, of course, you get a transplant, in which case you aren’t allowed to drink alcohol anyway.
I dumped a whole keg of oatmeal stout earlier this year. Man, that was painful. Seeing a full, carbonated keg go down the drain damn near brought tears to my eyes. But, like you said, it’s valuable keg space being taken up. Gotta dump it and move on.
Right. But that is not to say that all beer you taste should be thrown out, clearly. Some beer needs more time to develop, sometimes an off-flavor is temporary and sometimes even our tastebuds are tricking us or maybe we have a cold or we’re taking medicine that impacts our tastebuds. But when all those reasons are out the window… I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying which beers are just not going to make it to my liver. :D Cheers.
Yeah, this beer is kegged and carbed. I don’t have a problem with dumping a beer if it’s not good, just a bit bummed because it would be the only session level beer on tap. I just hope the Barleywine made with the first runnings is fine because I take a lot of pride with this beer every year and it does very well in competitions. I’m going to have a six year vertical Barleywine tasting this year with my club and I wanted to have this fresh example ready for comparisons.
I recently dumped my most expensive beer yet. It was a Barleywine clocking in at ~1.100. It smelled awesome and even tasted great on the first sample I took from Primary. Fast forward a few months, and the beer tastes awful. Not sure what happened, and your guess is as good as mine, but something nasty took hold and ruined the whole batch.
The kicker… This beer was meant to be bottled and handed out as a gift to guests at my wedding. Instead the drain got to enjoy the fruits of my labor.
I actually find dumping beer to be somewhat therapeutic as it somewhat verifies that I am neither an alcoholic or a hoarder. Those, of course, are my self-determinations. 
A dumper always sucks, but I’m always for if it’s not any good I don’t worry about it. Too much good beer to brew and drink to waste time on something that didn’t make the mark. I share a lot of my beer, I actually don’t drink much so if it’s not something I’m happy with or wouldn’t want to drink I wont pass it on to anyone else either.
Okay, so slightly off-topic: We agree that if you have a dumper, you dump it. What if you have a beer that did not come out as you envisioned and you could honestly say, “this is not very good” but it’s not really a dumper? Maybe it’s finishing slightly sweet or it has some slight ester or phenols or something along the edges and it’s drinkable but it’s not your best beer. Do you “choke it down” or do you adjust it post-fermentation or do you dump it?
I choke it down. I blend it if I can. I only have 2 taps, so a lot of times the blend is not a good taste or I don’t want to mess up the good beer by blending it with bad.
I have fixed beer a few times post fermentation. All were diacetyl bombs. I warmed the keg up and krausened (add a high krausen starter to the beer). Works great for that case.
Usually I sip on them till I have something better and start to realize the less than great beer is just taking up space. Then I dump it.
I either fill up growlers and take it over to my friends house for Monday Night Football or like Jim, if I still have 3+ gallons of a keg that nobody’s drinking it gets dumped.
Good question. When I started brewing, I was so excited to be brewing my own beer that I drank (in hindsight) a lot of mediocre beer that I didn’t hate but didn’t love either, just on principle. Now, I’ve brewed enough beer over the years that I sometimes dump partial or full kegs of perfectly good beer (with no flaws) because I just feel lukewarm about the beer. Maybe it needed more/less bitterness for balance, a different combo of malts, etc. I give a lot away to friends and family and then dump to make room for a beer in the pipeline that I might like better. But I totally get the argument that somebody spent the time and $ brewing it, so they want to drink it. Just me.
I agree, Jon. For example, I made a decent Milk Stout a couple of years ago. There were no problems with it that I could detect; a good drinkable Stout. I had a few pints over a few weeks, and then my interest waned. Friends would try a sample, then say “Nice beer; can I have a pint of the IPA?”. It got shifted in and out of the kegerator a few times as I put newer brews on tap. Eventually, I just dumped it - an okay beer that ended up just taking up room.
Yeah, funny how I’m nodding at every post here. I too have had the situation where I have a less-than-stellar beer on tap (I have 4 faucets) and of course someone will say, “Can have a pint of that BAD EXAMPLE pale ale?” and I cringe and tap them a pint and they don’t drink any more of it. I really don’t want people leaving my house with the thought, “This guy has been making beer for 16 years?!?!?” so that’s a disappointment. But like Jim, I will give a beer a chance (for my own purposes) until my gut says ENOUGH and then I’ll just dump the rest out. Life’s too short, Beerheads.
“I haven’t had a dumper in awhile…”
When I first saw that, I figured you guys would take this thread waaaaay off the tracks. ;D
The percentage of beers that are less pleasant to drink is increasing as I dig deeper into various culture collections. I am working with so little data that I am often a taking a complete shot in the dark. Luckily, I no longer brew 5-gallon or larger batches. I am thinking about reducing my batch size to one gallon or even sub-gallon when working with an unknown yeast strain for the first time.