Worst Beer You've Ever Had?

Discussion in 'Beer Talk' started by radshoesbro, Mar 25, 2026.

  1. NYR-Zuuuuc

    NYR-Zuuuuc Maven (1,351) Jan 1, 2013 Connecticut

    My Lowest Rated was a beer called "Hoppy Ending" from Better Half Brewing (Long since out of business)

    1.24/5 rDev 0%
    look: 1 | smell: 2 | taste: 1 | feel: 1 | overall: 1
    On-Tap in tasting room. Brownish-Grey in color, have never seen a beer this color. Smell is odd but not offensive, Taste is medicinal, almost undrinkable. Thin mouthfeel. Doesn't look or taste like any IPA I have ever had. Maybe a bad batch?
     
  2. John_M

    John_M Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,849) Oct 25, 2003 Washington
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    That's true, which I'll grant you is impressive. The fact remains that a bottle of platinum has nearly the same amount of calories as a bottle/can of regular bud.

    My feeling is that it's misleading to call this a light beer, regardless of the abv. to calorie ratio.

    I think BL platinum came out around 15 or 16 years ago. It was actually a pretty big seller for AB at the time, and was packaged in an iconic blue bottle. The relatively high abv. was an added attraction for a certain segment of the beer consuming public.
     
    #102 John_M, Mar 27, 2026
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2026
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  3. wmeckley44

    wmeckley44 Savant (1,114) Nov 1, 2023 Tennessee
    Trader

    Victory Juicy Monkey for sure. It's my all time lowest score and I'm sure it's supposed to taste like that. It's probably the sweetest ethanol you can taste, just straight booze sugar and fruit snacks in the worst way. Cough syrup is more enjoyable.

    It's not even that impossible a task to brew a 9.5% hazy IPA with no bitterness or alcohol burn any more. I can go through my recent ratings and find a few that fulfill that task while even being complex and interesting.
     
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  4. Mitchster

    Mitchster Pooh-Bah (2,466) Dec 25, 2002 Michigan
    Pooh-Bah

    I’ve been a member of several homebrew clubs for many years so I have tasted plenty of vile infected beer. I’ve also brewed a few myself in my younger days including a massively over spiced Christmas sale that tasted like downing a tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice and an oatmeal stout that was heavily oxidized and tasted like a newspaper that was puréed with water in a blender.
    On a commercial level, I remember Cave Creek chili beer as being absolutely revolting. Considering all the flack that Sam Adams triple bock has gotten in this thread, I really enjoyed it. Prunes, soy sauce, maple syrup. Yum.

    I love a good sour beer like Rodenbach, Duchesse, Goudenband…but I’ve had jolly pumpkin in bottles and tap and find them absolutely disgusting drain pours. They taste like I drank a quart of vinegar and citric acid coffee cleaner and then did handstands and drank my own spit up.
    I’m very sensitive to fusel alcohols, acetone and oxidation/cardboard, so if I get those in a beer, they are going down the sink, the most recent was brain Boozled ipa from right brain which tasted like I kegged a west coast ipa and then I let it sit in the sun in my backyard for two years.

    Looking at my lowest score, that goes to a tie between dogfish head Immort Ale and Anchor 2003 our special ale.

    Immort ale=Pours out to a slightly hazy dark copper, forming a small dark beige head with poor retention and minimal lacing. Carbonation is mild to moderate. The aroma is repulsive and repugnant with massive diacetyl, frank incense and fusels. Sickening. Mouthfeel is cloying and syrupy with a fusel sting and dense body. Taste begins harshly with nasty fusel alcohols which make me sickly, rank diacetyl, followed by rotten apple cider, herbal hops and metals. The middle is thoroughly oxidized and tastes like wet cardboard, and the finish has this nauseating sting of lavender oil. I would go on if I could folks, but I simply can't stomach drinking any more of this. Down the sink it goes.

    This tastes like Ringwood fermented at 85 degrees F.

    This takes the cake as one of the most repulsive beers I've ever had...next to Ommegang and Cave Creek Chili, this is utterly revolting. Absolutely disgusting.

    Anchor 2003=Pours out to a semi-opaque dark brown, forming a sticky khaki-colored head with average retention and no lacing. Aroma is striking (but unsettling) with a bouquet of nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, musk, vanilla, and floral notes. It smells horrible. Swirling produces an aroma of rancid caramel and wet cardboard. Carbonation is mild-moderate. Mouthfeel is firm and full of flavor, but actually lighter in body than expected. Taste begins with fizz, a very brief glimpse of "beer taste" (that would be hops and malt), followed thereafter by a pervasive and nauseating menagerie of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. There is a suggestion of hops towards the finish, but again the spices are echoed in the finish, which is dry, rancid, and tastes like leather, soap, and tobacco. The drinkability is horrible. Two sips and it went down the sink. This has got to be one of the worst beers I've had next to Cave Creek Chili Beer.

    Simply awful, this year's offering is a big black mark on the report card of an otherwise good brewery.
     
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  5. bret27

    bret27 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,064) Mar 10, 2009 California
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    3 Floyd’s Gumballhead
     
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  6. bambiere

    bambiere Savant (1,055) Aug 25, 2025 Pennsylvania

    Why no love for Ommegang?

    Care to explain? Can't imagine not liking this beer, but maybe that's just me.
     
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  7. jasonmason

    jasonmason Zealot (742) Oct 6, 2004 California
    Society Trader

    Absolutely this. That and Crime were just abominations.
     
  8. blueshawk69

    blueshawk69 Pooh-Bah (1,711) Jul 16, 2022 Kansas
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    Buckhorn.

    End of discussion.

    Way back in the late 1970s when we were poor, broke college students.

    99 cents for a six pack which was 98 cents too much.

    But it was, "beer"......as far as poor, broke college students could stomach.

    When we could afford 'Old Pile', 'Old Swillwaukie' or Miller Lite, we were living....."the high life".

    And when we could buy Bud? It was a special occasion.

    For the holidays? An extra special occasion....Heiney.

    But nothing, NOTH-THING will ever surpass Buckhorn as my worst, "beer" ever.

    Now for the most, pisswater, "tastes like fuck-king waaahaaterrr...waahaaterrrr"...Hamms.
    Or Olympia.

    We now return you to your, "worst swill...I mean 'beer'..." ever discussion...
     
  9. Immortale25

    Immortale25 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,775) May 13, 2011 North Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Alcoholics
    I was in the exact same boat as you. My fellow DFH coworkers at the time loved it, but sour beer was a new concept to me, so I didn't get it at first
    I have so much to say about this because, yeah just look at my username

    I worked for DFH before I was even 21 as a bus boy at the OG Brewpub and the first beer I ever put in my mouth that made me go "Oh my god, what is this complex, sweet, strong Elixir I've just consumed?" was Immort Ale from the bottle. But this was in like 2005. It immediately became my favorite beer, hence my moniker that stays to this day. Fast forward to 2012 (?) when I had moved away from home to Florida, but I came back to Delaware for Christmas or something. Visited the Brewpub and what did they have on tap? A new batch of Immort Ale! Very pleasantly surprising since it's availability was spotty at best for the past several years. I ordered one and it was... Not good. This was still so early in my beer geek tenure that I didnt know what infection was, but I'm pretty sure looking back it was infected.

    So my question to you is: what was the vintage?
    Huh?
     
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  10. jvgoor3786

    jvgoor3786 Grand Pooh-Bah (4,222) May 28, 2015 Arkansas
    Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Stone Brewing
    Hop Revolver Series - Herkules

    Why anyone thought it was ok to sell this is beyond me. I brought my last two from the mix pack back to the store and made the beer manager drink them as punishment for selling it to me.
     
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  11. ttoadee

    ttoadee Pooh-Bah (2,152) Dec 26, 2024 Texas
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    I will finish most beers, looking for the positive or unknown magic. Not this one.
     
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  12. deleted_user_1379257

    deleted_user_1379257 Pundit (865) Feb 17, 2026
    Society

    The magic is the flames shooting out your @$$ once it exits.
     
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  13. BeardedWalrus

    BeardedWalrus Pooh-Bah (1,666) Jun 5, 2018 North Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Cubano Walker, a beer from my hometown brewery of all things. It was a nitro barleywine aged in cedar, already a questionable concept. It tasted disgusting, like Guinness that's been expired for 10 years with some 2X4s thrown in. The only beer I've straight up refused to pay for, I actually got into an argument with the bartender over it.
     
  14. Giantspace

    Giantspace Grand Pooh-Bah (3,043) Dec 22, 2011 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah

    Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin,2012………drain pour that might have etched my pipes…….insane amounts of spices no body and nothing else.

    Sixpoint Apollo 2013 version……big glass of pop corn butter.

    Sweet baby Jesus, chemical and natal all wrapped up in one

    Victory Skipper, taste like a fruit soda……

    I’m sure there are other I can’t think of right now. Also a bunch of Infected ones I won’t include

    Enjoy
     
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  15. Immortale25

    Immortale25 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,775) May 13, 2011 North Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Dying to know, at the very least, where your hometown is
     
  16. BeardedWalrus

    BeardedWalrus Pooh-Bah (1,666) Jun 5, 2018 North Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Hickory NC, and that abomination of a beer was from Olde Hickory Brewery.
     
  17. bubseymour

    bubseymour Grand Pooh-Bah (4,800) Oct 30, 2010 Maryland
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    New Planet (Gluten Free) Blonde Ale. Smelled like rubbing alcohol, tasted like rubbing alcohol.
     
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  18. jesskidden

    jesskidden Grand Pooh-Bah (3,145) Aug 10, 2005 New Jersey
    Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Well, no - next question: "Which one?"
    [​IMG]

    Both Theo. Hamm and Lone Star brewed a cheap beer called Buckhorn in the 1960s-1970s - Hamm's Buckhorn seems to have been more prevalent in California where they had 2 breweries - LA and SF- although they also owned the California-based cheap beer Burgermeister at the time (later bought by Pabst).

    Things got complicated after Olympia bought Hamm in 1975 and then Lone Star two years later...
     
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  19. Immortale25

    Immortale25 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,775) May 13, 2011 North Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Trader

  20. blueshawk69

    blueshawk69 Pooh-Bah (1,711) Jul 16, 2022 Kansas
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    Not sure at all.

    Just know that it was the Buckhorn distributed/available in northeast Sasnak in the late 1970's/early 1980's.

    No matter where it came from (& if it was a pisswater Hamms offshoot that explains a lot) it was vile. Horrible, metallic, etc. swill.