I Made Wild Beer By Accident

Recently I experimented with making my own beer. First, I started with two kits we received as gifts. They had sat in a closet for several years before I decided to try it. The first batch was a mix of success and failure.

It seems that the first fermentation went well, but half of the bottles weren’t fully carbonated, so I suspect they were too cool in my cabinet. Of those that came out good, two were so frothy I lost half to suds. But, I was still impressed at how good they were despite the age of the kit and my inexperience.

The second batch wasn’t very good at all. The yeast was too old and the result was weak and syrupy. Still buoyed by the success in the first batch, I decided to buy more ingredients and see what I could do on my own.

I bought some milled malted barley, some hops, some dried malt extract (DME), and a yeast starter. I also bought some bottles with the reusable metal clip tops like Grolsch bottles, and some sanitizer.

I dutifully boiled the batch, starting with DME and some hops in a bag I made from cheesecloth. Then, after 45 minutes I added hops straight to the batch. I removed the bag and after another 15 minutes I let it cool while I prepared the starter. It got late, so I left everything covered until the morning. Then, I mixed in the starter and put it in my kegs for fermenting.

I had no room in my fermentation closet, so I put them next to my steam radiator. They took awhile to start bubbling, but then bubbled away for a week. I bottled them up and waited two weeks. When we sampled them, it actually tasted like beer! When people stopped by we let them try it and they were very impressed! Wow, beginner’s luck!

Then, I decided to figure out what kind of beer I made. The ingredients were flexible enough to make different types, and I didn’t use a recipe. The grains were barley, and I added hops. But what yeast was it? To the Amazon machine! “Your Orders: brewer’s yeast starter.” Okay, but what does that mean? To the comments! Question from customer: “Does this have yeast?” Answer: “No, just DME. No yeast”!!

But but. I made Beer! It fermented! It carbonated!

I made wild beer! Apparently my house has good air. Or the hops have natural yeast? Anyway, it’s GOOD!

Have you made beer? How did it go?