"Esplanade Explosion" - what a blast!

This beer had been sitting in the carboy for 2 years. Yes - 2 YEARS. And I finally picked up the courage to taste it just one more time, and dump the whole load today.

It started off with an experiment of Sylvia's. She discovered that durians pair exceptionally well with some beers, and proposed that we do a durian beer. I then split a batch, took a gallon and let her dump some durians into it for secondary fermentation. 2 weeks later, the durian beer (now named "Esplanade Explosion" by Sylvia) was phenomenal. Phenomenally gross, that is! Waves of rotten eggy sulfurous gases wafted up from the carboy, and both brewer and co-brewer shrank back in speechless horror. The lid was hastily thrust back on with much gusto, and we knew then - never try to secondary durians in beer! I'm not sure of the mechanisms involved, but our suspicion was that the yeast most likely metabolised the sulfurous compounds in durians to form H2S.

But time heals most beers right? We let it sit, and finally had the courage to try it one more time. (And now looking back, it might not have been courage - it could have been that I was just too drunk at that time.) No rotten egg smell this time, but instead the acrid overnotes of acetone hit us immediately. It had morphed into nail varnish!

It doesn't help either that the lumps of durians floating in a murky, brown liquid is just too much like what you'd find in the sewers.

Most likely the H2S had dissipated, but Acetobacter from the durians had set in and soured the entire beer. That was it - the end! I ended up pouring the entire contents down the drain outside (with my breath held), and the carboy was massively nuked with multiple attacks of bleach in order to get rid of any nasties. And bless the impermeable glass, there was no residual smell by the time I was done with the nuking!

Goodbye, shit-water - you go where you belong!