Is sanitation that necessary after wort is beer?

I was just wondering, if you have to be soooooo causious after your wort has fermented out and has become beer. I do clean and sanitize everything, but if I put some beer in a growler (from my keg), and let say my growler wasnt cleaned properly, and was a little bit dirty, would it really change the taste or ruin the beer?

It might, why risk it? 

It might not ruin the beer but it might change it in a less than favorable way.  You just never know.  I realize the common wisdom is that after wort is beer it does a pretty good job of taking care of itself and I believe this to be true.  Having said that, It's not that hard to clean and sanitize the containers holding my beer so I prefer to put the odds in my beers favor whenever and where ever I have the power to do so.  Nothing worse than having a ruined beer because YOU failed to take adequate care when it comes to cleaning and sanitation (speaking from experience here)

$0.02

dabeer said:

I was just wondering, if you have to be soooooo causious after your wort has fermented out and has become beer. I do clean and sanitize everything, but if I put some beer in a growler (from my keg), and let say my growler wasnt cleaned properly, and was a little bit dirty, would it really change the taste or ruin the beer?

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Fun story.  My brew partner had an Irish Red Ale that he had sitting in a carboy for oooh about 3-4 weeks.  One day I came over and saw that there was this white film on the top of the beer in the carboy with this neat pattern in it.  I asked him what was up and he told me that it was mold that probably came from a dirty Beer Thief.  I told him I was sorry that he lost the brew and he replied "Oh it isn't lost, I'll just siphon out the beer and be careful not to disturb the mold".  We about a week later he did just that and he now has the brew kegged and on tap....tastes great!  So to answer your question, yes and no.  You still want to sanitize because it is always good to stay clean.  But after fermentation, the alcohol makes the beer pretty hardy.  However, it can get infected with some wild yeast which will affect the flavor significantly.

Thanks for the input, I always do a good job of cleaning and sanatizing, but went to a party last weekend and bottled some beers off of my keg, and cleaned and santized some bottles (the reason I got into kegging) and I thought to myself, "do I really need to be this sanitary with the bottles?"

I come from the wine making world and just starting beer.

The white mold is generally refered to as "Flowers of Wine", Mycoderma.
http://www.bacchus-barleycorn.com/catalog/article_info.php?articles_id=25

Wine is of higher alcohol and has sulfates to protect it, but I've still had it happen.

You should take care of it asap.  The mold turns alcohol into volatile acids, vinegar.

The mold also needs o2 to live.  Keep the carboy topped up.

I did a little anecdotal type test trying to ruin my beer.
When bottling  I took a bottle  took a hefty swig sloshed it around in my mouth and spit it back into the bottle and capped it.

Some weeks and weeks later I opened it.  It was only a little off.

CR said:

I did a little anecdotal type test trying to ruin my beer.
When bottling  I took a bottle  took a hefty swig sloshed it around in my mouth and spit it back into the bottle and capped it.

Some weeks and weeks later I opened it.  It was only a little off.

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More time would have killed it and it would have been undrinkable.

Just saying

Cheers
Preston

You should be careful to clean and sanitize.  However, I have been known to fill bottles or growlers that I just cleaned and rinsed very well when I knew the beer was going to be drank within 24 hours.  Just have to be careful if you don't empty the growler it might end up with issues.

UselessBrewing said:

More time would have killed it and it would have been undrinkable.

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I dunno.  Ya think?

CR said:

I did a little anecdotal type test trying to ruin my beer.
When bottling  I took a bottle  took a hefty swig sloshed it around in my mouth and spit it back into the bottle and capped it.

Some weeks and weeks later I opened it.  It was only a little off.

Click to expand...

gross