An accidental medal winner..

[Bubbles]

Here's proof that disastrous brew days can often result in great beer.

Last autumn, I remember regaling a few of the SDB lads with tales of bad luck that I'd been having with my brewing. It seemed like every brew day had some kind of disaster. Forgotten ingredients, careless monitoring of temperatures, boil overs, infected fermenters, you name it..

The one that really pissed me off was during last summer, when a tiny fruit fly got underneath the foil I had placed on top of Trappist ale yeast starter. I was planning on making a Belgian Pale Ale during the weekend. The starter had been whizzing away on the stir plate for a day or so. I fished the fly out and called emergency services, or Rossa O'Neill, as he's sometimes called. "Would you use it, knowing there had been a fly in it?", I asked him. His response was not unexpected. "No, I'd be too worried about infecting an entire batch of beer". Foolishly, I made a decision the night before brewing to use the starter.

I completed the mash and the boil and was really happy with the flavour and appearance of the wort. Time to pitch the yeasties. It was only at this point that I decided to actually taste the yeast starter. My first thought was "lambic". That's not good. Yeast starters never taste great, but this was decidedly tart. The funny thing is, it actually tasted quite nice. I stood sipping it for ten minutes while agonizing whether to pitch the starter or not. In the end, I chucked it down the sink, as I thought it was too risky.

Before I chucked the starter, I realised that I had a yeast cake from a saison available. It wouldn't be a Belgian Pale Ale after all, but an amber saison instead. Though commercial dark saisons exist, the classic examples tend to be golden-orange in colour. The only problem was that there was a golden saison still gently fermenting on top of it. So I racked the saison into a corny, praying that it had reached final gravity and if not, that there would be enough yeast in there to finish the job.

So anyway, I racked the golden saison into a corny and opened the vial of brett. This was my first time using a vial of brett and I was surprised by how little yeast there was in there compared to the vials of saccharomyces I'm used to. I pitched the brett into the corny and, like an idiot, I rinsed the brett vial with some of the beer left in the fermenter. Yep, I had dunked a brett vial into a yeast cake that I wanted to re-use. Cursing myself, I pitched the potentially "infected" yeast slurry into my amber saison wort and hoped for the best. I also sealed up the corny keg containing the brett inocculated version.

Three or four weeks later, I ended up bottling the amber saison. Once it was fully conditioned, I had a taste and thought it was a decent saison with a bit more toast and caramel character. But on subsequent tastings I could taste the beginnings of something funky in there. With each bottle I opened, the brett character had intensified slightly to a level where it was unmistakably a "brett" beer. There was a little more pineapple character, more spicy phenols and a tiny hint of barnyard poking through. But, it was absolutely delicious. Easily one of the most complex beers I had produced in over 5 years as a home brewer.

Fast forward six months. The "accidental" amber saison won a silver medal in the 2016 Nationals. I'm currently still enjoying it, but I'm wary of the fact that there was some crystal malt in the Belgian Pale Ale grist and that the critters in the bottle haven't finished snacking yet. My plan is to work my way through the remainder of the batch before the weather gets warmer and the bottles become bottle bombs.

And the moral of the story? Disastrous brew days happen, but they can produce the most delicious results. For me, it's also a reminder that I should experiment more with new ingredients and processes.

[molc]

We'll help you work through those bottles Sounds and looks yum!

[irish_goat]

Funny story. Many bottles left? 

[pob]

Ha, brilliant - once again, time being the added magical ingredient.

Well done.

[nigel_c]

Good stuff.

[Leann ull]

Or that other fella that won gold in "real" Lager Cat by in the dark of night in the shed thought he was pitching two vials into a 4L starter of platinum 860 and transpires one of them was 835, nothing is accidental its all planned by the brewing gods!

[Bubbles]

Thanks everyone, I thought it was a quirky home brewing story worth a share. 

It's also a good reminder that you don't always end up with what you set out to brew in the first place. This is important for BJCP/comps where you should enter beers in the most appropriate category based on the taste of the beer, not the recipe you followed.

The golden saison that I intentionally pitched the Brett into was tasting really good the last time I sampled. I might get that bottled before the summer. But I want to rack another beer into the Brett innoculated corny. Maybe a Belgian Enkel. I'm thinking Pilsner with plenty of Vienna, big Saaz late additions, and maybe some spices. I have some grains of paradise that I haven't used yet.

[sub82]

Great story! Really enjoyed reading that.

[molc]

Or that other fella that won gold in "real" Lager Cat by in the dark of night in the shed thought he was pitching two vials into a 4L starter of platinum 860 and transpires one of them was 835, nothing is accidental its all planned by the brewing gods!

I loved that lager. It was a real trip of the senses and had heaps of flavour!

[DCLavs]

Farmageddon Hopburst was an accident too I heard....loved that stuff.