It's amazing how many things we believe without checking for ourselves (No, this isn't going to be an atheist rant, although parallels could be drawn)
In cooking, for example, people are still convinced that sealing meat will keep in the juices. In fact the opposite is true. People still waste time sifting flour to 'trap air in' and still salt their aubergines, even TV cooks now say this is unnecessary.
Brewing is another area, there are all kinds of do's and dont's you hear parroted without anyone actually checking for themselves. Luckily, partly through laziness, I've always been a little sloppy in my brewing techniques and haven't yet produced a bad brew. With only one exception, when my pale malt had been hanging around too long and the resulting beer was rather soapy tasting, I have never produced a beer that wasn't as good as something I've been served in a pub and enjoyed.
My most recent 'happy accident' was when I found I had no yeast left and resorted to a sachet of Tesco bread yeast. It fermented well, as expected, and once cleared it produced a very nice beer. No 'doughy' taste that some suggest would result from it. It had quite a dry taste to it, similar to other beers I have tried. I think the amount of hops I use may have helped the flavor.
My only issues I had with it was that the yeast didn't form a very dense layer in the bottle and stirred up easily when poured, something that is true to other commercial ale yeasts, and it got rather lively in the bottle, priming was certainly unnecessary!
I liked it so much, not least the economy, that I have used some that I collected from the secondary fermenter to start my next brew. This time I will put it in a barrel for a while to clear before bottling and maybe skip the priming. This one will be going with me to Cropredy Festival next month so fingers crossed it will be a good one.
