my brother-in-law and I bought some cultures of wild yeast and wild bacteria and decided to make a Belgian cherry Lambic beer. Started out with a mild wheat base and added 10 pounds of cherries, a neutral flavored ale yeast, and the wild yeast and bacteria cultures. After only 10 years it reached maturity and it was terrific.

In the meantime, the downside was that then our brewery (my basement) was contaminated with wild yeast and bacteria. One of the characteristics of the mixture was an acetic acid (vinegar) phase. Our next batch was an Octoberfest beer. Unfortunately, it turned out to be 5 gallons of nicely hopped Octoberfest malt vinegar. We made four more batches (20 gallons) after hours and hours of cleaning and sanitizing. We ended up with 25 gallons of a variety of flavored malt vinegars. We should have opened a specialty store.

Needless to say that we moved the brewery to his place, and it was still downhill because some of the tubing and equipment was contaminated, and despite bleach and iodine sanitizing (not at the same time) our homebrewing days were over. Bummer. But, the upside was that we had the makings for a lot of good salads.