Band Aid Off Flavor in Beer: What’s Causing It?

From too sour to baby vomit to skunk, off flavors happen in beer much more often than many people realize, and more often than brewers would like, of course. To make matters more complicated, not all unexpected flavors are bad. Indeed, some unexpected turns in the brewing process can be cause for celebration.

But band aid off flavor in beer? What causes it? The trick in tracing an unexpected flavor in beer is to trace the brewing process in its entirety.

The Brewing Process

When brewing, beer begins with the simplest of ingredients.

A grain, usually barley or wheat, is malted.

The grain is then cracked to expose its insides and maximize the chances for extracting those sugars.

Then the grain is added to water, the water is boiled and steeped, which releases all those sugars into the water. Think of it as beer tea. This “tea” is now referred to as wort.

To the wort, yeast is added. The yeast is what takes the beer from malted barley water, wort, or, if you like, tea, to beer.

Brewers can choose from among dozens of strains of brewer’s yeast and even get crazy allowing for wild yeast, but at its most basic, any yeast added or allowed in will get right to work consuming all the sugar in the wort. The sugar is converted in that consumption process to alcohol, carbon dioxide, and a number of other micronutrients that lead to the alluring flavors and aromas we have come to love in beer.

Once the beer is made, most brewers then add hops, and some even continue the fermentation process with other additives like fruit and other herbs to make an interesting blend.

Where It All Goes Wrong

Beer off flavors can occur at any step along the way.

The most common off flavor in beer traditionally comes from the yeast pitched, and indeed, in the case of band aid off flavors, this can be one of the reasons.

Off Flavors Caused by Wild Yeast

Wild yeast, known as Brettanomyces, and lovingly nicknamed Brett by brewers who use it, can create a number of unpredictable flavors and aromas in beer.

Test Your Yeast

The band aid off flavor is a result of chlorophenols, and wild yeast can cause phenolic flavors.

On the Home Brew Off Flavors Chart, other off flavors caused by wild yeast include:

Barnyard or horsey flavors
Clove
Green apple
Mud, soy sauce, umami
Rancid butter
Goaty, sweaty socks
Buttery or butterscotch
Estery, solvent aroma
Wine-like aroma
Rotten eggs, sewer gas, burned match

These off flavors can vary from super strong to very mild, and in small amounts can actually be quite pleasant, especially when blended with other flavors and aromas.

Yeast is, after all, the king of beers, and when mixed and matched and experimented with has created a number of award winning beers that began as too “horsey.”

There is much you can do to work around off flavors, from re-pitching yeast to blending in a mild batch with a strong off flavor batch.

This is, unfortunately, not the case for band aid off flavor.

Off Flavors Caused by Water

While yeast can be a contributing culprit to the band aid off flavor in beer, the primary reason for this experience is the water you used to brew.

Those chlorophenols usually come from chlorine, and if the water you used to brew your beer has chlorine in it, especially if there is a lot of chlorine, you are likely to end up with a band aid off flavor in your beer.

This does not have to be a bad thing. Again, if the flavor or aroma is mild, you can always either leave it alone or blend it with a more mildly flavored batch to tone down the flavor.

But, what you cannot do is remove the flavor altogether. Once chlorine is in your beer, there is no removing it.

Chlorophenols are not dangerous is small doses, so if you got it from your tap water, it is likely because your city uses chlorine in small amounts to clean your water. You don’t have to worry you will harm yourself or anyone who drinks your beer with these chlorophenols.

If you don’t like the flavor, and you’re pretty sure you won’t be able to tone it down, there are some things to do to avoid it in your next batch.

Avoid the Band Aid Off Flavor

Now that you know where it’s coming from, you can take steps to avoid it.

The band aid off flavor is either in your water, in your sanitation process (if you use chlorine or chlorinated water to clean your equipment), or your yeast.

If you know there’s chlorine in your tap water, and you’re using it for your brewing, you can do a few things:

Use a filter for your tap water;
Add a tablet of campden to dechlorinate your tap water;
Use distilled water for your brew;
Check to make sure any water you use is actually chlorine free.

If you think it may be in your sanitation process:

Avoid using bleach or chlorine to sanitize your equipment;
If you continue to use bleach or chlorine, be sure to rinse your equipment thoroughly.

If you think it may be in your yeast:

Make sure you get your yeast from a reputable source. Your yeast should not have any wild strains producing chlorophenols.

Free Yeast Analysis

In the end, brewing is all a trial-and-error process. Remember that Rome was not built in a day, and that you will inevitably have to toss a batch here and there that simply did not work out.

Rest assured, most problems can be remedied, and failure to produce an excellent beer this time around just means you’ll get better for next time. Brewing truly is a craft to be practiced and mastered.

Cheers!

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