When Good Beer Goes Bad: The Paso Pioneer Ale Mystery

Sometimes the best lessons in home brewing come from the batches that don’t go according to plan.

I’m not sure exactly what happened on brew day.

It’s been eight days since I bottled the Paso Pioneer Ale, and I was excited to finally have this batch in bottles. After all the work that goes into brewing, fermentation and bottling, there is always that final stretch of waiting before you can crack one open and see how it turned out.

Well, I cracked open two.

And honestly, they were among the worst beers I’ve made.

Something went seriously wrong.

The Band-Aid Beer

The first thing that hit me was the flavor. It was medicinal — a strong Band-Aid-like character that was impossible to miss.

One possible culprit is chlorophenols, which can produce medicinal, plastic-like or Band-Aid flavors in beer. They can form when chlorine or chloramine from brewing water interacts with phenolic compounds during the brewing process.

And that’s when I started thinking about what happened on brew day.

I used reverse osmosis water for the entire brewing process, just as I had planned.

Until the end.

The Water Mistake

After the boil, I transferred the wort into the fermenter and discovered I was short.

And not just a little short.

I was nearly two gallons short.

Without really thinking about the potential consequences, I grabbed water from the tap and started adding it to the fermenter.

At the time, it seemed like the obvious solution. And technically, adding water to bring the batch up to volume wasn’t the problem.

The problem was the water I used.

After tasting the finished beer, I’m now wondering if that last-minute addition of untreated tap water introduced chlorine or chloramine that contributed to the medicinal character I’m tasting.

I can’t say that’s definitely what happened. But considering that the rest of my brewing water was reverse osmosis, it’s certainly something I need to investigate.

What Else Could Have Gone Wrong?

I started going down the checklist.

My brewing water was RO, except for that final addition.

I cleaned my equipment with PBW and sanitized it with Star San, just as I normally do. I’ve followed that cleaning and sanitation routine on previous batches without problems.

Fermentation temperature was also where I wanted it, generally 66°F to 68°F, controlled with cool water.

So what else could explain the flavor?

An infection is still a possibility. It could have happened somewhere between the fermenter and the bottles. It’s also possible that something wasn’t cleaned as thoroughly as I thought it was.

The frustrating part is that the wort tasted good before fermentation.

Somewhere between that point and opening those first two bottles, something changed.

And right now, I don’t have a definitive answer.

Will It Get Better?

I’ve read discussions from other home brewers suggesting that some off-flavors can diminish with time in the bottle.

I’m skeptical in this case.

I’m going to give the Paso Pioneer Ale a few more weeks and open a few more bottles. Maybe the flavor will change as the beer continues to condition.

But I’m not exactly optimistic.

There’s a difference between a beer that needs more time and a beer that has developed a flavor you immediately know shouldn’t be there.

This one falls into the second category.

A Hard Lesson in Home Brewing

As frustrating as this batch has been, there’s still something to learn from it.

The biggest lesson?

Don’t take shortcuts at the end of brew day.

When you’re tired, you’ve been brewing for hours, and you realize you’re nearly two gallons short, it’s easy to make a quick decision just to get the beer into the fermenter.

That’s exactly what I did.

The next time I need to make up volume, I’ll know exactly what water I’m using and why.

And I’m going to keep repeating one of the most important rules of home brewing:

Everything that touches your wort or beer needs to be properly cleaned and sanitized.

It’s a simple rule, but it’s one of those things that becomes even more important when a batch goes sideways.

What’s Next for Contributing Factor Brewing?

I’m looking at this batch as a hard lesson rather than a reason to stop brewing.

If anything, it’s making me want to improve the process.

The new BrewZilla should help eliminate some of the brew-day variables I’ve been dealing with. And now that I’m moving toward kegging instead of bottling, I’ll also have better control over the packaging process.

That doesn’t mean kegging will magically solve every brewing problem. It won’t.

But every improvement in the process is another opportunity to eliminate a variable.

And that’s really what home brewing is about for me: brew, taste, learn, adjust and brew again.

I Need a Second Opinion

There is one person I’m especially interested in hearing from: Blake at Cal Coast Beer Co.

I’d like to get his take on what could have caused such a strong medicinal character. Maybe he’ll identify something I’ve overlooked. Maybe the tap-water addition is the obvious answer. Or maybe there’s another explanation entirely.

That’s one of the things I enjoy about brewing — there’s always something else to learn.

The Paso Pioneer Ale may not have turned out the way I wanted, but I’ll take the lesson and move on to the next batch.

Bad beer happens. The important thing is figuring out why.

Contributing Factor Brewing
Brew. Learn. Share.