Ever decide to give up?

[Ironman]

The May-June issue of BYO had an article on the last page entitled "Faith Renewed" in which the author details how he gave up on homebrewing and planned to quit his club due to his brewing failures only to learn his club mates had all had horrible failures of their own. I identified with this article in that I have brewed a few batches in the past which completely negated my faith in my own brewing prowess. I'd love to hear all your stories. Anyone else brew a batch so awful they think "Homebrew is shit. I can't brew". The year I started brewing again after a 10 year hiatus I had 2 bad batches due to bad yeast. One batch had so much acetaldehyde my wife drank three and puked. Luckily I had a few good batches in there to restore my confidence. It turned out that the local brew store mistreated the White Labs yeast and many of my brew buddies told me they had bad batches that year. Anyone else take a bad batch a little too hard and lose faith?

[alkohall]

So far, in my opinion, all of my batches have been sub-par. I am on batch 10 and I am still working out the kinks. Thanks to the BN I am much further along than I would ever be.
Anyway, I read the same article and I loved it. If I were that guy, I would stick with that club forever. That is what brewing is all about. They took it as a failure on their part that he was quitting. In their eyes, they didn't step up and give him the guidance he needed in order to get better as a brewer.
That is what this hobby is all about. Helping each other out and sharing knowledge!
I would just say that any homebrewer having a rough time and getting disheartened should seek out another homebrewer and lay their woes on them. Once you start talking about brewing, you'll want to give it another shot!

[alanzo]

Give up? It's not like I have an end-goal here, I'm just making beer. I'm on batch 50 or something like that and would still say that everything I make is sub par. I'm my own worst critic, though... But every time I brew up a batch I learn something new, even if I did everything exactly the same.

[Guido]

I homebrewed in a vacuum for almost five years. It wasn't until I entered a contest and got my ass handed to me that I realized my beers sucked. I quit for about two years and slowly re-tooled, both in the brewery and in my mind. Joining a club where other brewers could help me was immense. You're not alone in making bad homebrew, but it's really not that difficult to make great homebrew. Break the process into little pieces and analyze each of them to see where you went wrong. Write off your failures as a learning experience and move on. I did.

[mtyquinn]

When I tried to brew a batch in a college dormitory back in the day, it came out completely awful. Took almost eight years to try the hobby again. Now I'm about 40plus batches in and I can honestly say that I doubt I will ever give it up. I may take a break, but I'm gonna brew. The beer, the culture it's all good.

[spiderwrangler]

I had a disappointing batch of cider, drove 2 hours to the place that makes it, got five gallons of unpasteurized cider and took it home, pitched my yeast and very little happened. I let it sit for 6 months in the carboy, at no point did it really take off, added additional yeast and all that. Eventually bottled it, but ended up dumping them later, had a really tart bite. Didn't really affect my beer making, but I've never made a cider from real cider since. I just use apple juice from the grocery store. My thought at the time was that they sold me stuff that was chemically pasteurized, or that I had a wild yeast or some sort. Still don't know what the deal was, but might have to give cider a go again.

[Guido]

I had a disappointing batch of cider, drove 2 hours to the place that makes it, got five gallons of unpasteurized cider and took it home, pitched my yeast and very little happened. I let it sit for 6 months in the carboy, at no point did it really take off, added additional yeast and all that. Eventually bottled it, but ended up dumping them later, had a really tart bite. Didn't really affect my beer making, but I've never made a cider from real cider since. I just use apple juice from the grocery store. My thought at the time was that they sold me stuff that was chemically pasteurized, or that I had a wild yeast or some sort. Still don't know what the deal was, but might have to give cider a go again.

The cider could have been sorbated. I use cider that's been UV pasteurized. As far as yeast, I think some of the wine yeasts are a little tart and have a funky aroma that takes forever to go away. Wyeast makes an excellent cider yeast (3766, I think) that retains a lot of apple flavor and aroma. You should give cider another try in the fall.

[snowcapt]

i've had batches that haven't worked out as I would have liked. But, hey, we all have.
Ive never gotten to the "give up' stage. I have said to myself, it cant get worse than this, right?
That was early on and I tend to learn from my mistakes. I think the smartest thing I did was to simplify my recipes.
I think culinary school has helped me a ton in the way of brewing.
Creativity is good, but you need to know what things are capable of and what they do. People have a need to be creative and alot of bad things happen. Chef school taught me the basic fundamentals and classical techniques needed to be a chef.
It also helped me trust in the old, proven techniques, and that they are still valid to this day.
At first I would throw all kinds of stuff in my beers and hope they turned out decent.
Now, i sit and make a recipe, do a bit of math, and bingo! I hit my targets. Usually.
44 hours of Safety and Sanitation class didn't hurt, either.
Don't give up. Step back, assess what went wrong, fix what you can, and then execute it. Rinse and repeat.
Dig