A Skunk Walks into a Bar…

A friend at work forwarded me this really interesting article on the chemistry of bad beer taste.
Our second batch of beer was an experiment to begin with and the results are a little mixed. It’s a wintry sort of ale though for the most part and I’ve decided I like it well enough. One friend’s tried it and at least said it was good. The above mentioned friend now has two bottles and I should be getting two more taste test responses from him soon…
There was definitely some contamination in a few bottles which I popped and poured out. A few of them were definitely skunky. We maybe aerated the beer a bit much in some of other the bottles as we were bottling?
And it’s not super carbonated…probably didn’t cool the sugar water enough before adding it at bottling time and killed some yeast? But I think the lack of carbonation goes with the spicy quality that the coriander imparted. It really feels like a winter ale. I just wish the consistency was higher bottle to bottle.
Oh and while the hefeweizen definitely wanted the sediment transferred to the glass and consumed, this ale seems better with a careful pour leaving the sediment behind.
Now that it’s really cold we might have to see about starting a batch of lager.