I've been brewing at home under the assumption that, having done about 20 successful brews, the 21st, 2nd and third would all go swimmingly. I rushed through the last couple, all proud of myself, only to discover, upon opening a much-anticipated Irish Red Ale that I had some sort of yeast infection. It's not something you want to find you've got, but to find one in your beer is just awful.
When your uncle catches you smoking, and thinks that the best lesson would be to make you smoke a full packet, or worse, a cigar*, then the best lesson learnt in the homebrew situation is to pour away over 5 gallons of booze. It makes you very careful.
So, now I'm drinking either nettle ale (with a lager yeast, so I suppose it's nettle lager), some dodgy Irish Red Ale (the infection seemed to have 'cleared up', and after more than a month in the bottle the DMS cabbagy smell is much diminished), and in about 4 days a fantastic golden ale. How do I know it's fantastic if it's not ready for another four days? Well, I can never really wait. It's good.
Actually, I'm being quite calm and philosophical about the down-the-pan thing. After all, I didn't know what a bad batch of beer was. It's all about learning. I definitely didn't cry.
That's it for now, nettle ale recipe coming up soon.
* of course that never happened to me, but I heard tell of ones to whom it did. I was never caught.
