How Did Your First Brew Taste?

[Shed101]

I got some horrific bag thing for my 17th or 18th birthday, back in Blighty. There were instructions on the side ... add some water, leave in a shed for a week, or something.

Strangely enough I more or less followed the instructions, tried it and it did resemble real ale... kind of. I don't think I drank it all.

But in those days, drinking at home was for alcoholics and people with no mates, and I had a good half dozen pubs within walking distance full of heart cheer and superb beer, so homebrewing stayed off the agenda for another 15 years.

 

[stef]

good to see a load of responses and lots of help/encouragement!

I'll definitely be going to extract or at least doing a bit of seeping & dry hopping with my next batch. Sounds like that is a big quality improver.

 

[michael_aussie]

My first was a Newcastle Brown from Brewcraft.
I pitched the yeast in the kitchen, and then walked it out to the shed, and must have washed all the yeast onto the air=space above the beer because nothing happened for 2 days, so I sent SHMBO to the LHBS to buy some more yeast.
Pitched a second time, and it came out fantastic.
I wasn't expecting anything special after hearing stories about HB tasting like crap.
I was then hooked.

 

[dago001]

My first beer was a coopers draught and a kilo of sugar in the mid 80's. Cant remember much about it but we drank it and many more. I can say that it was bloody cold where we live so most beers were fermented at around 21 degrees.
I started again last year after a 23 year hiatus. Brewed a Munich Lager with 50% dex, 25% lmde, 25%ddme, w34/70 saflager yeast at 14 degrees. did a lot of reading here first. Was a good beer after 1 month, better after 3. Found the last bottle the other day, just over 12 months old. Compared it against a Samuel Adams Dark Lager (one of my favourite beers) and preferred mine. Now brewing all grain, but am thinking of putting a few kits down and keeping for a year to see what happens.
Cheers
LagerBomb

 

[ekul]

My first home brew i made was when i was 15, needless to say every single one of those 30C fermented 'lagers' went down with gusto! Sadly mum realised that i was drinking it all after 15 tallies exploded in the wall of my room (got really hot in there) so she hid the kit. Probably some of the worst 'beer' i've ever tasted.

Later at uni i started brewing again. Me and my mates were too lazy to clean bottles so we used to drink it straight out of the fermenter. Didn't taste real good but it sure did the trick. Again these 'beers' (i'm not sure you could actually even call it that, fermented wort) tasted horrible.

Over the years i'd put down a brew but none of them were really that special.

A few months ago i decided to give it another crack after stumbling upon this site, the first beer i made actually tasted like beer, albeit not a great one. Now my beers are tasting great (in my opinion anyway )

Keep at it, the natural progression is "uuurrg, what is this?" --> "i spose i can drink this"---> "Mmmm, i made beer" ---> "$40 a carton? I think not my dear man"

 

[breadenhound]

My first ever brew was a Woodstock clone... I was 18 at the time and preferred bourbon & cola over beer *sigh*. To this day I can still taste the vegemite and cola - I was too impatient and bottled the lot before it had finished primary fermentation. Big swelling bottles = big swelling tummies!

I have switched to promite.

 

[RobH]

My first homebrew was in 1994 - the year I got married & the year that we where the brokest we have ever been. So I decided to give homebrewing a try - the only thing that gave me the idea (apart from being broke and wanting to get my beer cheaper) was seeing the Wander starter pack in k-Mart (I think it was K-Mart)... used whatever came in the starter pack, followed the instructions & of course kept it at over 26 degrees ... used the "whack-it-with-a-hammer" capper & busted two bottles while bottling... it tasted like crap, but I don't remember tipping any of it out.

Didn't try HB again until about 3 years ago.... again yuck. Wasn't until I started again afresh last July with brand new fermenters & this website as a guide that I started making decent brews ... & have continued doing ever since ... some still turn out iffy, but I just put them aside & brew another batch. Mot recent iffy brew just tasted strange ... that was 4.5 months ago & not it is halfway decent ... certainly can drink a bottle and enjoy it now.

As someone else said in these forums somwhere, never tip it out, just brew another batch & every couple of weeks or so try a bottle to see how it is.

 

[philw]

My first Homebrew was Coopers Pale with brewers enhancer 2 April this year


was nice I thought for a first time just wish it was more carbonated

 

[MaltyHops]

...
Later at uni i started brewing again. Me and my mates were too lazy to clean bottles so we used to drink it straight out of the fermenter.
...

:lol: x10

 

[Ade42]

was the lager kit that i got in the coopers box. made it to spec, brewed at 29-30c, tasted pretty great at the time, the old brain telling me that it was good when it was quite the reverse, ive still got one 2 years later, a few months ago i had one of the 2 Id found from my first batch. horrible, pure brown vomit-water. Its only since ive got a fridge for brewing that im now making very respectable brews.

 

[j1gsaw]

my first brew was the can of lager goo that came with the brewcellar kit... fermented with packet yeast and kg of dex, at about 30 degrees in the garage. oh delicious... :icon_vomit:

 

[flano]

1989
my mate and I decided to make beer for our surfing trip up to Byron.
We got a kit form the LHBS, coopers ...probably the only one they had back then.

We ( in our wisdom ) decided to add a couple of extra tablespoons of sugar to each bottle,
just to make sure the alcohol level was good and strong.
Of course we did it at my house . My mum was not overy impressed with the concept of 17 year olds making beer.

There is still to this day tiny little shards of glass to be found in her garage.

no beer went north that year.

 

[argon]

My first was the coopers lager ( I think) that came in the box with the kit I got for my birthday a few years back.

Took me about 9 months after getting it before I put it on. Did exactly s the I instruction read... Horrible stuff apples galore truly terrible. I feel as though the kits and instructions within are purposefully horrible. Never had a decent or good kit beer AFAIK.

2nd batch was kits and bits, 5th batch was a partial, 6 batch was AG... Up to about 30+ batches last 15 or so are doubles.

Now doing some fantastic beers imho

 

[Bongchitis]

Ahhh the good ol days of blissfull ignorance. My 1st was a Coopers lager + BE2 + Lager yeast 34/70 (mistakenly purchased after bad advice from Manfred), fermented in the high 20's. My missus hated the bloop bloop in the middle of the night and the beer was well......... a little fruity <_< :icon_vomit:

My brother and I drank it anyway!

 

[petesbrew]

Ahhh the good ol days of blissfull ignorance.

+1.
Learn the moves off Merc with the Coopers video. Brewed up the oopers draught or lager supplied with the box.
It looked like beer and tasted like beer. I was pretty happy.
I've brewed lots better since, and yes I've also made more than a few that were worse!
Honestly, even the bad ones are worth it for the experience. They train your tongue for bad flavours, and how are you going to learn if you have no bad experiences?

 

[JunkzOr]

Well.. I too am a new brewer (I just pitched my 3rd batch last night actually!) and my first brew was the k&k that came with my brewcraft brewery. It was a munich lager and being my first brew and being a little paranoid and possibly a little overzealous I a: put too much water in (over 24l total lol) and I had'nt screwed my tap in properly and after the first night I had lost some of the goodness to leakage.

It sat in the fermenter for 3 weeks and temps were between 15 and 20c before bottling the standard PET, drops method. After 2 weeks in the bottle it tasted overly yeasty and undercarbed and not very pleasant at all. A month in the bottles improved it significantly though into a rather plain but very drinkable beer.. I only have 1 bottle of it left hehehe.

2nd batch is bottled and is a CPA k&b and yesterdays batch was a Muntons highland heavy. Having a ball making some different recipes and trying subtle additions to improve on the kits.

 

[RdeVjun]

Actually, I'd challenge the manufacturers of said kits, suppliers too for that matter (who should know their product), to actually use their own stuff, follow their own instructions and make a drinkable beer, and one which won't put off most of the people who actually try it. Honestly, they're doing such a disservice, some more R&D into recommended process wouldn't be too hard, would it? I mean I think we know what's got to happen, just change the temperatures in the instructions FFS! Their feedback must be blistering, probably much like the beer...

My brother took off overseas for a bit and while he was gone he gave me his fermenters and a Morgan's Bishop's English Bitter with BE2, I followed the instructions but kept it around 20C- was superb, I really enjoyed it and have a soft spot for that can. That was two and a bit years ago now, but it sat unopened for a few months.

 

[JestersDarts]

aah foggy memories of my uni days, but thats when I started homebrewing..
kits only, maybe added some magical "brew enhancer" fairy dust.. but who knows what that did..
fermented out in the darts shed in a dead fridge with a light on, pretty steady 26 degrees for a nice fast ferment. Did about 8 batches, and bottled every single one of em - no mean feat without a proper set up - moving sharehouses and the like.

Made a Coopers Mex Cervesa and bottled them in 1L litre green San Pellengino bottles.
.. Called em "San PellenGringos"...once you got through one bottle, the rest were fine because you could no longer taste anything..

Had the exploding bottles and all that... I remember being out the back of one place that I used to live at, on a warm summers evening, and a cool change rolling in, and you could feel the temperature drop in minutes. behind the garage door, I heard one loud BANG!! a few seconds then BANKGBANGBANGPOPBANGZINGBANGPOPPAW!!

I opened the garage door to an obliterated batch of homebrew, in a puddle of cidery beer, smashed pellengringo bottles everywhere with TWO surviving bottles in the middle.

I felt like a bomb disposal technitian picking them up and taking them to the bin..

 

[pcmfisher]

Scenario-
Your first brew was a coopers lager + white sugar @ 28deg.
You taste it and think it tastes pretty good.
It must be good because it comes from coopers and you follow the instructions to a tee.
You continue making it the same way for the next 20 years because it tastes just great.
Is you beer actually good??

 

[warra48]

I have a sneaking suspicion the kit instructions aren't actually meant to provide decent beer. After all, they surely must know that fermentation at up to 28C will never make good beer, so why continue to print those instructions?
Surely it wouldn't be too hard to provide some basic ideas on temperature control, such as wrapping the fermenter in an old towel, block of ice on top etc., or even a dead fridge with frozen pet bottles of ice.
Or, horror of horrors, they might even give some links to homebrew sites such as ours.

Maybe they want you to go back to store bought beer, as no doubt they make more on it than they do from home brewers?