It's almost May in VT, and that means fiddleheads, dandelions, and homebrew competitions. I brewed around 18 batches last year, and am already up to 7 batches this year... and not that they all rocked, but I did have a hard time narrowing down my entries. I narrowed it down to around 10, then somehow a couple other crept in there... I had a hard cutting any, so I went with 12 in the end. Here's a list with a few comments, I'll post an update once the competition (May 14th) is finished:
Maple Red Ale - amber ale brewed with 100% maple sap instead of water, maple syrup added at bottling. I bottled it 2 weeks ago and it's still hardly carbonated, so hopefully by the time the competition happens, it'll be good. Hopefully.
Berliner Weisse - an old German sour ale, 3.5%, light, tart, and with the rhubarb addition, even more tart. I'm really hoping this does well, but I think it might get flagged for being a little
too light. It tastes pretty watery to me. I also bottled it last night, and I'm hoping the yeast held out and do their job now. I also added a tiny bit of champagne yeast, probably so tiny that it won't make any difference.
Amber Ale - a nice solid amber, I wasn't particularly fond of one of the hops I used, but that won't hurt. It's also got a little chill haze, and last year this category was judged in the morning, so there's a chance it will still be cold and hazed, but hopefully not. I think this one has potential to place, but it could go in any direction.
Saison - brewed this for my former drummer's wedding last August, getting a little old, but still solid.
Oktoberfest -brewed this a year ago. Borderline too old, but... whatever. Still a solid beer regardless.
[Update 5/4 - had one of these last night at a BJCP study group session, it seems as though the ones I bottled are infected with something. We found a ring inside the bottle just where the beer stopped in the neck. We also found that it was quite oxidized, which in the end was good for us all to experience. Kind of embarrasing on my end, but it sounds like it could have been the carb tabs that caused it. I checked the only other bottle I had and it also had a ring. I'm going to check the brown rice lager bottles too to see if they have it since I bottled them all the same night. In any case, I'm going to try and pull this from the competition.]
Double IPA 1 - this was my HopSlam clone, could be good, who knows. I was a little down on this beer before, but when I finally did a side by side of an actual HopSlam, I was pretty surprised how similar the aroma, flavor, and mouthfeel were. The biggest difference was in the color and clarity. Appearance is only 3 points, so I'm guessing I get a 1 or 2.
Double IPA 2 - most recent one... actually, so recent that aside from 4 bottles that I capped today, the rest of it is still sitting in secondary! This is definitely on the lighter side of the imperial IPA category, but still meets all the criteria aside from color... this one was purposely brewed to be very light in color (and it still has a nice malty body). If this thing carbs right, I'm one lucky SOB. What a afro-engineered job I did.
Patersbier - This one has probably my highest hopes, although the category its in is a competitive one. I also worry about carbonation since I bottled this out of a keg with my nifty little homemade beer gun.
Honey Rye - This one I love. Period. But, this was brewed for a mashers style competition and got thrown out early because it had a vanilla taste to it... I was a little peeved about this because I don't think they considered that I used a Kolsch yeast which is what they were tasting. But, nonetheless, a few other people that brewed beers for that are also submitting and we're waiting to see if they'll be judged similarly. As much as I was not into this style (6D - American Wheat or Rye beer) I absolutely love this creation. Perfect spring beer.
Cranberry Oak Tripel - This was probably the most debatable of the bunch as to whether I should enter it. It's got some age under it now, so things have mellowed out a bit, but I have been to hell and back trying to tie this thing up. I'm going to try some more tonight, but last time I had it I thought that it was a little too dry of a finish. I could definitely taste the cranberry and oak, but that damn champagne yeast I used just effed it up. When I brew this again, I will repitch with some of the original yeast I think. Anyways, this got submitted to the Specialty Category, pretty much the catch-all, so we'll see how it does. My Rye IPA placed 3rd in this category last year.
Belgian Strong Dark - Ah yes, the good old Sugar Plum Fairy. I think that this achieved what I set out to do, and I'm particularly proud that I got such a great plum-like flavor just from the grains... but really it was all the grain's doing. I think this finished a little thick, a little sweet, but still pretty solid. One thing that has really come out with age is the spicing, which may throw this out of the category I submitted it in - 18E - Belgian Strong Dark. The judges that score this could throw it out because of this quality and say that it should have been in the Belgian Specialty category or the Christmas/Winter Specialty beer category. It would be a shame if this got tossed because of a logistical thing like that, because I think it pairs well to style.
Doppelbock (x2) - As Jack Skellington once said "And the best, I must confess, I have saved for the last..." My friend and brewing cohort Matt joined me in brewing 2 different doppelbocks a few months ago - one was a 3 gallon double decoction batch, and the other was a 3 gallon infusion batch. We both feel that the infusion batch is much better, but we decided to enter both just to see what the judges come up with. Should be interesting.
So, as I'm about to try and enjoy a rare evening at home, I have my thoughts on these babies of mine that are now in the care of some fellow brewers. The next 15 days will be a little difficult, but I'm confident in my brewing, and should see some success. But ya never know!
5/26 UPDATE
The comp didn't turn out as good as I had hoped. Most of my beers were major failures, and there were definitely some questionable reviews... like my saison, it got a 12 out of 50. My Sugar Plum Fairy got a 40 out of 50, which is outstanding, but when it advanced to a mini best of show for that category, 3 beers with lower scores ended up taking the top 3 places. Kind of effed, but what can I do? Nothing. In addition to that, one of our doppelbocks took 2nd in the bock category... the interesting thing about that is that the decoction took 2nd... not the infusion. Still to this day, we both agree (as do a group of peeps we do tastings with) that the decoction is off mark... it's hot, and quite the cherry bomb. The infusion is much nicer. Who knows what happened. Most of the other beers dropped somewhere in the middle, some scored a lot lower than expected. Definitely not a good day, and I could feel it coming. Oh well. Tough lesson learned. I definitely wanted that credibility or validation, and I fell way short of it. It hurts the old self esteem a bit, I feel that I'm a better brewer than what I was scored at. I think part of it was getting skunked on a few things, but I can also confirm that I held on to these beers too long. I also never brewed any of them to style, I really was creating my own recipe, and dropped them into categories they may fit into. The judging is so subjective and entries live or die by the pallets of two particular people doing the judging. I stewarded the event, and it was definitely interesting to see how different people tasted things. I first helped out with the American Ale category, the two judges I was assigned to covered brown ales, and a couple pales. They both really liked a brown ale that was (in my opinion) way over roasty. They didn't think so, they advanced it to the mini best of show for the category, and as soon as two elder judges tried it, they flagged it for being too roasty. At least I got some validation for my own judging. Needless to say, the whole experience kind of turned me off of competitions. I can certainly say that I will not be submitting a dozen beers next year. Maybe a couple. That was just effin stupid on my part.
