....
One of the most popular bits of brewing advice is "never give up on a batch of beer". New brewers often ask "is my beer ruined?", to which almost any experienced brewer will answer "no!", almost automatically. It seems that it takes a picture of beer covered in white fur and crawling out of the fermenter devouring small woodland creatures until the Internet peanut gallery will finally write it off.
I'm not quite that dedicated. I needed another keg for the beers I currently have on deck, and grabbed the keg of Munich Dunkel I had written off early this year, due to a stuck fermentation that I couldn't get going again. I prepared to dump it, pulled the pressure release valve on the keg, and got a surprisingly loud hiss, followed by foam spraying everywhere. I hooked up a tap to empty it more neatly, and got pure foam out. On a lark, I de-pressurised it some more and got what liquid I could into a glass. It was clean, smooth, and rich. It tasted great. Part of me, no, most of me wanted to put it on tap, but....
I had already written it off about 9 months ago. It was a very light beer, and wouldn't normally keep that long. I needed the keg free, and had it about half-empty when I decided this was good beer I was dumping down the drain. Grr... I know how maddening it would be to have a great beer on tap, knowing I had dumped half of it.
So I told myself "it tastes oxidized... yep, definitely 'wet cardboard'" and kept emptying the keg. Maybe I'll take another stab at the style this year.
I still have a Dopplebock attempt from the same brew session, that's probably in the same state (lower gravity, tasty, massively overcarbonated). I've also written it off, but if anyone's interested I could be persuaded to rescue it, or at least a few "samples" for the curious. Otherwise, it's most likely going down the drain like the Dunkel, whenever I need the keg (which, with 20 gallons of cider and my normal brewing could be quite soon).