What do I have here?

A: Error on page.

Fixed.
http://m.flickr.com/photos/maxwellshea/9491782600/

 

Whatever you did wrong pales in comparison to what's going on in your carboy

Some kinda pellicle action.
Seen it myself on occasion over the years.
Unless it's something you're trying to do...might could be related to sanitation.

 

You're rolling dice.
Are you committed to 6-9 months of babysitting this accident?

 

could be the dreaded drainpouricus aleicus

 

You have wild yeast playing with your domesticated yeast. The likely suspects are Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, and/or Pediococcus. Here's a discussion on what's happening:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Brettanomyces

I have had the same thing happen to a brew and after a few days it cleared up completely, finished at predicted FG, and taste was normal. So it's possible you can recover from this. With the glass carboy this will be obvious and it can happen quickly. In my case, I kept 1 gallon in a jug and plan on giving it some time . . . just to see what will happen taste-wise.

 

I see Orion the Hunter, the Seven Sisters, and Scorpio.

 

What can I say? I got up last night hoping to see the Perseid meteor showers - it was a clear night, I saw some stars but was too sleepy and went back to bed before I saw anything streaking across the sky. So stars were on my brain when I woke up and surfed BA with my first cup of coffee.

As for the beer, it looks interesting, and might be worth letting go for a while on the basis of visual entertainment.

 

It looks like something was dripping into that pellicle from the lid? Is that was made that sweet pattern?

 

Looks like wild yeast. Also looks like you are at the end of fermentation, so I would let it ride. Had this been at the beginning I would not be so optimistic.

 

Now the key piece of info surfaces: rock from the garden. Must be your bug source.

 

You might want to invest in a few stainless steel nuts or weights or something for next time. This really isn't good practice.

You're being very hopeful here in thinking this will just turn into a different but perfectly acceptable style and will be great. Either this completely unplanned sanitation-caused accident will turn into a beautiful sour and will launch you into a career of making these regularly, or it will become completely undrinkable and render most of the equipment that has touched it questionable. Spontaneous fermentations can happen beneficially sometimes, but I'm not betting on it myself.

Those are separate colonies, not drips.

 

There's really no way to sanitize a garden rock. It's been sitting out there coated in microbe filled soil, probably got some manure fertilizer plus dog/cat/raccoon crap on it. Rocks have way too many pores that hold onto nasties. I supposed if you baked it at 500C for an hour or 3 it would be sterile, but a "quick starsan bath" ain't gonna do it. This beer probably has a 20% chance of being good so don't throw it out. But have a neighbor you don't like taste it when you think it's ready.