As much as I hate to admit it, there actually are a few good justifications for giving up homebrewing. Sometimes, life conspires to leave you no free time at all, and family commitments trump hobbies. Or maybe you’ve moved to a tiny apartment and there’s just no space that works for brewing. Health problems are also a sensible excuse.
Unfortunately, though, the most common reason we lose brewers is that they’re disappointed over the results from their efforts, which is understandable—it is incredibly frustrating if hours of labor are rewarded with five gallons of crappy beer. Many of us have persevered through that rite of passage and gone on to produce superb beer, but not everyone sticks with it long enough to make it to that point.
If you’re on the edge of giving up, read on. If you’re an experienced brewer who knows somebody like that, step up and be his/her brew guru and mentor him/her through to the other side.
Finding Your Resources
Most brewers who quit the hobby either don’t belong to a homebrew club, or they don’t really take advantage of the one they belong to. When you’re part of a community, you have a lot of resources you can draw on. Some members will likely be BJCP judges who can identify off-flavors in your beer and suggest how to fix them. You can also connect with more experienced brewers and observe their brew days to compare their process with your own.
There are plenty of other options aside from brew clubs: your local homebrew shop can offer support and advice and there are online resources, too (you can find so much information on the Craft Beer & Brewing website!). Connect with other brewers and your path will be much easier.
Fixing the Flavor
Once you have the resources, take them your bad beer and your questions so they can help you track down the cause. Many off-flavors come from sanitation issues. So, if your beer is sour, medicinal, rancid, or plasticky, it’s likely you have a problem with bacteria or wild yeast. Gushing bottles can also be a symptom of contamination. Read up on sanitation and mentally walk through your process to find the culprit.
For other flavors, sanitation isn’t the direct problem. Oxidation from splashing your beer during racking or bottling can lead to beer that tastes stale, with a cardboard or damp paper character. If your yeast isn’t healthy, you may end up with buttery/butterscotch diacetyl. Fermentation temperature can also have a big effect. If it’s too hot, you’ll end up with an explosion of fruity esters such as banana or bubblegum at the very least, but it can also lead to harsh alcoholic or solvent-like qualities.
On the other hand, maybe your beer doesn’t taste bad, necessarily, but has recipe problems. Brewing is like cooking—it’s best to start with tried and true recipes before winging it. It can take some time to learn how to measure hops and malt to get the balance you’re looking for. When you start out, it’s easy to overdo it with strong ingredients such as high alpha hops, roasted grain, or peat-smoked malt. The flip side is that a bare-bones extract batch may have a fairly bland, watery character that doesn’t satisfy.
It’s also worthwhile to figure out whether all your off-batches have had the same basic problem or whether each one has a unique flaw. You may have different specific off-flavors, but if they’re all associated with sanitation, that’s a big clue for what you need to fix.
Attitude is Everything
You may get the best advice in the world, but your own attitude will determine how useful it is. Many beginners are sabotaged by their impatience. Some people expect magic from the beginning, as if they should cook like a gourmet French chef right out of the gate. Becoming a great brewer takes practice, experience, and time. You have to start out simple and develop your chops.
Rather than being overwhelmed by failure and frustration, treat each batch as a lesson. Even if your first extract brews turn out fine, they won’t likely be as good as your favorite commercial beers. So don’t judge yourself or your beer too harshly. Focus on improving one thing each time, and your beer will get better.
Have the patience and the fortitude to stay with the hobby. You’ve probably tasted some superb homebrew by this point. Let that be your incentive to keep trying because every great brewer was a beginner once.