Fault
Vegetal character
Cooked-vegetable notes that are not DMS — a residual category rather than a single compound.
Also called cooked vegetable, celery, parsnip.
What it tastes and smells like
This is the hardest fault on BeerHQ to be precise about, and the honest description of it is partly a description of what it is not. Cooked-vegetable character from wort held hot after the boil is dimethyl sulphide, which has its own record and its own evidence; what is left under this name is the sweetcorn-adjacent character that is not that, and the literature does not characterise it as a distinct compound.
Treat it as a prompt to check the two things that are well described — a long hot stand, and hops past their best — rather than as a diagnosis in its own right.
Styles this tends to affect
Not where it belongs — where it is most likely to appear when something has gone wrong.
- Alcohol-free IPA — An alcohol-free beer built around heavy dry hopping, since hop aroma is added after fermentation and survives the process intact.
- Alcohol-free pale lager — A pale lager produced at or near zero alcohol, now the largest and most refined part of the no-alcohol category.
- Alcohol-free stout — An alcohol-free dark beer where roasted grain does most of the work — one of the more successful conversions in the category.
- Alcohol-free wheat beer — An alcohol-free wheat beer — often the most convincing of the category, because wheat body and yeast esters survive dealcoholisation well.
- Belgian table beer — A very low-strength everyday Belgian beer, historically served with meals including in school canteens.
- Kettle sour — Beer soured with Lactobacillus in the kettle over hours rather than months, then boiled and fermented normally — usually fruited.
- Low-alcohol bitter — A genuinely fermented British ale brewed at very low strength, keeping cask character without dealcoholisation.
If you are drinking it
A cooked-vegetable character is a fault. Harmless, but the beer is not as intended. If it reads specifically as sweetcorn or creamed corn, the DMS page is the more precise answer.
Not a safety issue. Beer’s alcohol, hop compounds and low pH make it inhospitable to organisms that cause illness.
What causes it
| Cause | Stage | How often | Who can act |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wort held hot for a long period after the boil. The well-characterised product of this is DMS, which has its own record; a broader cooked-vegetable character is reported alongside it and is less well pinned down. | cooling | common | brewer |
| Degraded hops contributing vegetal rather than aromatic character. | raw materials | occasional | brewer |
If you are brewing it
- Brewer: Chill wort promptly after the boil rather than leaving it to stand hot. (prevents)
Where in the process this comes from
Steps that can produce this fault when they go wrong. Each links to what the step is for and how it is controlled.
- Arrested fermentation — Stop fermentation deliberately and early — by chilling, filtering or pasteurising — so little alcohol is produced.
Often confused with
- DMS — cooked sweetcorn, creamed corn