What's Wrong With My Beer?

 What’s Wrong With My Beer? 



Sometimes bad things happen to good brews. Seemingly everything can go correctly on your brewday, but in the end, an element fouls up, or a mistake was made, and your beer has to go down the drain.

The list below, organized into types of mistakes, identifies and solves some of the most common fouling of beers. Sometimes the fix is simple, like aging, or adding an element during secondary fermentation.

Other times, it's more tragic and you have to pitch your entire batch due to infection.

So if you have issues with your beer, use this as a resource to help you identify and fix the issue.


Group 1

-Acetaldehyde (Green Apples): Not enough oxygenation when before pitching yeast, yeast needs more time to work. 

Solution: Agitate beer in fermenter, repitch yeast, let beer age longer.

-Diacetyl (Buttery, Movie Popcorn, Butterscotch): Potentially infected batch. Caused by temperature fluctuation, improper sanitation, lack of nutrients and oxygenation for yeast to perform properly. 

Solution: Let beer age in secondary fermentation for longer. If infected, discard batch.

-Dimethyl Sulfide (Cooked Corn): Potentially infected. Caused by improper sanitation, weak yeast starter, old Pilsner malt, too short boil time. 

Solution: If found in boil, continue boiling for as long as necessary to reduce characteristic. If found after fermentation, discard the batch. 

-Estery (berry, apple, citrus): Caused by Belgian yeast strains or specific varieties of hops. In certain beers this is a desired characteristic.

Solution: Longer fermentation time, lower fermentation temperature, longer bottle condition. 

-Phenolic (Pepper, Clove, Vanilla): Improper fermentation temperature or yeast strain.

Solution: Repitch with different yeast strain, adjust fermentation temperature. 

-Vegetal (Canned vegetables, rotten vegetables): Stale ingredients, weak fermentation, old yeast, over sparging

Solution: Nothing. 

-Yeasty (Bread, sulfur): Beer is improperly filtered, too much yeast

Solution: Let beer sit longer, add clarifying agent.


Group 2

-Alcoholic/Hot (spicy, Ethanol, alcohol): Unhealthy yeast, possible infection

Solution: Age longer before drinking, discard

-Medicinal (Chloroseptic): Chlorine, bleach based sanitizer, possible infection

Solution: Use cleaner water, non-bleach sanitizer, discard if infected. 

-Solvent (Hot on palate): High fermentation temperature, poor yeast.

Solution: Repitch with a different yeast strain, lower fermentation temperature.





Group 3

-Grassy (leaves, fresh cut grass): Over dry hopping, using fresh hops rather than pellets, stale malt, over oxygenation

Solution: Use less dry hops, different hop varieties.

-Metallic (Iron, copper, blood, coins): Metallic water, rusty equipment, improper sanitization, old equipment

Solution: Proper sanitization, filter water, use stainless steel equipment

-Oxidized (paper, stale): Over oxidization when racking, caps with out o2 seal, old beer.

Solution: Drink fresh, ensure proper seal on kegs and bottles, don’t splash as much when transferring/bottling

-Plastic (Band-Aids, electrical tape): Infected

Solution: Discard beer.

-Smoky (burnt, charcoal): Scorched Mash, too many black malts

Solution: Adjust recipe, use proper technique when adding liquid malt extract.


Group 4

-Astringent (harsh, mouth-puckering sour): Too much dark malt, improper sparging, boiling grains, overcrushed grain, water has high pH (over 6) too much sulfate in water

Solution: Use proper sparge technique, adjust recipe, adjust water chemistry, don’t boil grains.

-Sour (Citric acid, lactic acid, sharp lemon): Infected, mash left for too long, bad yeast

Solution: If infected,discard beer, make sure proper mash technique is used, fresh yeast.

-Sulfur (rotten eggs, burning matches): Infected, beer left too long on yeast bed

Solution: Discard beer

-Vinegar (Acetic Acid, vinegar-like sour): Infected, over oxidization

Solution: Discard beer.


Group 5

-Light Struck (Skunky): Beer exposed to UV light after hops have been added, clear or green glass bottles

Solution: Only use brown bottles or kegs, avoid late hops additions with Cluster specifically

-Musty (Cellar, stale, mold): Oxidized, too much smoked malt, stale ingredients, improper sanitization.

Solution: Fresh ingredients, proper sanitation techniques, make sure water is clean and fresh.





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