Anyone distill a botched batch of beer?

[Shiny Coke]

So I've been distilling 5 or 6 years now mainly sugar washes but have moved to all grain bourbons and rye. I started making home brew a year and a half ago. This winter I went out of town for month and before I left, I made 2ea 5 gal batches of beer which I've never made before (German Rye beer and a bitter). Not sure went sideways, I think it was the fermentation temp, but they're just horrible tasting. They both have a dry cidery taste but with a bit of a tang too. Not good. Rather than dump'em, was wondering if I should put both into the still and ran them as a neutral.

Any thoughts? How will the hops affect the taste? Will they taint the column requiring a major clean?

[nerdybrewer]

I had a stout that went sour, it was 10% so I wanted to save the ethanol at least.
Ran it then ran water then ran vinegar and water and then rinsed and all was good.
Maybe it was vinegar first... Don't remember.
Made a good bit of shine.

[rad14701]

It's been discussed many times over the years... Some have had success... Others have had dismal failures... YMMV...

[InvertedSpin]

Yes, and I would be one to fall into the dismal failure category. It was my first attempt at distilling about 10 years ago, so I'm sure there were other factors that lead to it being a terrible, disgusting mess.

[still_stirrin]

I've run an Oktoberfest that had a long lag (the liquid yeast was old and lethargic). The lag caused a big sulfur (DMS, I think) aroma and was unpleasant to drink. Alcohol %ABV was about 6%. I tried to lager it to see if it would improve...never did. So I ran it.

It made a fine whiskey. I put it on wood and let it set for 6 months and it was great. It can be done. But bear in mind, it was a malty lager brewed with German tradition (Continental hops for bittering & very little flavor or aroma add'ns)...not an IPA. So it fit the bill as a salvageable beer.
ss

[Shiny Coke]

Sort of the results I expected. Don't want to spend the time and effort to run it and end up with something worse with a required cleaning job to because of it. That said, I guess the beer ain't going anywhere and the column could use a cleaning
Just need a free weekend now.

[mealstrom]

I've done it plenty of times, with good results all around. I've done a few nut brown ales that turned out great. I even did 60 cans of PBR that came out surprisingly good, with a slight pear flavor to it. I brought it to a BBQ that weekend and it was not only gone almost instantly, I still get asked about it years later.

[smoCha]

Did you just say 60 cans of PBR? My head just exploded.....
Seriously, I ran an IPA that a friend let go too long, and then oaked it, it was not to my liking. Tasted hoppy, like an IPA.
Just my experience

[Wolfairious]

We had an IPA that did not turn out the way we hoped so we ran it through the still. Since it was an IPA there was a lot of hop oils to clean up after. But mine is a simple pot still so that was easy enough. We ran it through a carbon filter to help it out and then aged it on charred oak chips. Turned out fine.

[aircarbonarc]

The hop pills can get into everywhere in your still and be a jerk. You'll want to clean it well, a good friend of mine is a distiller at a good sized brewery/distillery and made IPA EU de vie. It is great! He was able to get some great flavor but said the hop oils start coming out in the tails and very strong. He had to scrub his still a couple times after but overall it was worth it. Keep in mind that the tails can get a bit oily and bitter.

[Wolfairious]

You are not kidding. I couldn't believe the oil film that was on the tails. I shut it down as soon as I saw it. I swear it even had a green tinge but that might have been from the mason jar as some have that.

[aircarbonarc]

A nice herbal mild hoppy type of digestiff or bitter would be great. I guess hops help stimulate the stomachs digestion abilities.

[thecroweater]

Yes most of the hops flavour comes over in tails, most of the oils you seeing will not be hops oil though, it will be from the grain. Any of you brewers know how much actual hops is there, not so much eh. Then be realistic about what percentage of that is oil, we are talking about ppm here so greater than 90% of the oil you could see will be from the grain. I've never run beer into deep tails for the same reason I don't run rum tails, it's gross and will leave gross residue
If I run a charge like rum or beer or even plums then intend to change to something different I flush my still and in the case of consistent runs of say rum I may pull the still down and fully clean it before changing washes even though its realistically only likely to taint fore shots and earlier heads

[MtRainier]

Dogfish head makes a great gin infused with cascade hops. It is a beautiful one. Goes very well with the juniper. Probably wouldn’t be great on oak, though.

[thecroweater]

Nothing wrong with oaked gin , had one down in Greenbrier county WV by a craft mob called Smooth Ambler and it was something out of the ordinary.

[masonsjax]

I've run lots of beers. Since going low-carb, I don't drink much beer anymore, but I had so much stockpiled I ended up turning a lot of it into whiskey. It all came out good, except for a very sour saison, which didn't have much ethanol left in it. I basically got a bunch of lactic acid.

Hop oils never caused me a problem, even in the IPAs. Perhaps I didn't run deep enough to get there, but it's certainly nothing the fores/heads from the next run can't make quick work of. I wouldn't hesitate to run more beer in the future, but now that I'm out, brewing specifically for distillation makes much more sense.

[fizzix]

I think you hit on something there with distilling what is just a bad batch of beer, masonsjax.

My first 3 beers were just lousy due to what turned out to be incompatible tap water.
They tasted of vinegar and citric acid and they did not distill well at all. Very horrendous.

Bad in, bad out.