I entered my second homebrew contest at a local brewpub today, it was a really neat event with the judges consisting of local brewers. The theme was honey.
I was brewing a hop heavy APA so I timed it to make sure the brew was as fresh as possible. The trouble was when I was carbing up the beer I ran out of C02 and didn't realize until shortly before hand - the result was a pale ale carbed more like a cask bitter.
Still, I was pretty happy with the results but was surprised at how large the swing was!
Brewer 1: 10 hop character, 10 malt character, 10 Overall, 7 color/clarity, and 5 in Carbonation. In his notes he said " Really nice hop character. Clean. Not Oxidized. Balanced. Under carbonated" 42 points.
Brewer 2: 10 hop character, 2 malt character, 6 Overall, 7 color/clarity, and 6 in carbonation. Notes: A bit out of balance, too much hops. 31 points.
Brewer 3: 8 hop character, 5 malt character, 5 overall, 5 color/clarity, and 5 in carbonation. Notes: Lots of potential but lack of carbonation brings it down. Nice hop character. 28 points.
The low carb was an understandable common theme but I'm glad that the hops were well received. But what stood out was how my malt character rank swung from 2 to 10! All in all a fun experience though.
My beer was 75% Marris Otter, 13% Flaked Oats, 10% Honey, 2% Acid malt. I used a single 28 IBU 60m charge of CTZ, a 170f hop steep of Simcoe, Amarillo, and Cascade (A bit over an oz/gallon) and double dry hopped with the same hops at the same rate. Conan yeast.
First, Second, and Third all went to Porters/Stouts!
Topic: Homebrew Contest Blunder (Read 874 times)
