What does an infected beer taste like?

There's your problem.

I kid. I don't know why so many people dislike it. I kinda dig it.

 

I was just thinking vomit. Especially the bile vomit you put out after you've emptied most of the contents of your stomach (but before the dry heaves).

 

Sounds like a bad beer or a bad bottle. Just because it is bad, doesn't mean it is infected

 

bitter acidic vinegar

 

That sounds like many of the self-proclaimed sours I tasted (in fact, the more complex ones are kinda rare).

Flat/vinegar sounds like it got popped in the process, not just infected. But the taste should be close to some infections. Sometimes you can find a fungal flavor--like mold, only milder. With a lot of Belgian-style beers, you sometimes get strong bitterness--that's not infection. That means the bottle was shaken recently or stored on the side--the bitter part is dead yeast/lees. If you get the same flavor from a pasteurized/filtered beer that would mean it's gone bad. Not sure if "metallic" flavor is dispositive--often it's just an indication of poor quality. The bottom line is if two bottles of the same beer taste radically different, it's either a significant difference in age or one is infected.

 

Human bile... now there's something I haven't gotten around to tasting, so I couldn't make any kind of comparison to that one.

 

Ever tasted chicken or fish bile? Not that common today with overprocessed carcasses, but if you ever bought a freshly-slaughtered Kosher or Chinese chicken, you'd have to worry about not crushing the bile while cleaning it. Sometimes you get a small piece still attached to chicken or turkey livers even in processed poultry.

 

Can't say I have... nothing I'd really want to encounter though. All I know is that bile is just about as much poison concentrated in one place in the human body. I don't know the taste, but I do know it STINKS.

 

Here's my review of an infected beer:

If you're the sort of person who thinks BAs shouldn't review infected beers, then stop reading. I normally wouldn't, but two consecutive bottles of this EXPENSIVE beer ($20.99) went down the drain so I felt I should record my experience.

Each bottle had been aged at between 40 and 50 degrees F for a period of about 6 months.

When bottles' flip tops were opened, beer GUSHED in a fountain all over (the kitchen first time, requiring a good counter cleaning and a floor mopping). I opened the second one in the shower so it was easier to clean the brown spray up.

Once beer stopped welling up out of bottle, there was about a quarter-liter left to put into my Bruery tulip glass.

Beer is a nearly opaque dark brown with deep garnet highlights. COPIOUS light tan head disappears dishearteningly fast, leaving only a thin skin of foam that provides excellent, uniform sheeting.

Smell is amazing! Well, at first. As the beer exploded everywhere, a sweet cocoa, chocolate and oatmeal aroma was noted. Delicious! Once the beer got settled into the glass, however, these notes retreated in favor of band-aids and a sour funk. Honestly, it smells like a chocolate lambic.

The first bottle was almost drinkable, with a sweet mix of cocoa, oatmeal and vanilla competing and losing to the acidic, sour citrus. I could only get through three or four sips before I poured the rest down the drain. The second bottle didn't fare even that well, as I spit the contents of the first sip back into the glass FAST. Sharp and sour.

Mouthfeel? Who knows?

Overall, I will never buy anything from this brewery again due to their rampant quality control issues.

 

?Fantome?

No longer available in NC. Guess I'm not missing out.

Not sure I have ever really had an infected beer.

 

It could've been the brett taking over, especially if it had a few years on it.

 

No--it's just Shipyard.

 

Yes, I agree with you. Take for instance, Deschutes The Dissident..meant to be sour vs Deschutes The Abyss. Though it too has its fans.

 

Sour, funky, cheesy, barfy, etc.

 

Sour and funky may be by design, but even they can become cheesy--and we're talking about old blue-cheese cheese or limburger cheesy, or even smelling like old buttermilk. "Barfy" means it's not just infected, but rotten

 

It tastes like Miller Lite, Bud Lite, Coors Lite, Bud, MGD, PBR