Eli's Homebrew Competition

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JohnnyO

JohnnyO

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Hey everyone. Just learned of an upcoming homebrew competition being put on by the Eli's restaurant group. Entry fee is $5.00 (donated to charity apparently). Entries are due by July 13th. Final judging to be done by August 1st.

Winner to receive trip to GABF, hotel and airfare included.

Here's the link:

http://www.elisonwhitney.com/documents/Registration%20Packet%20Final.pdf
 
FYI...

Entries were due last Saturday. best of luck (to me, mostly) to anyone who entered.

First round of judging is taking place at Maltose Express next Wednesday, 7/24. They have 100+ beers to judge, and are looking for help. If you're interested and available, contact Mark or Tess at Maltose.

Final round of juding will take place at Eli's in Hamden on the evening of Wednesday, August 7th. I believe 12 beers will go to final judging.
 
I submitted my 'Merican Pale Ale. Hopefully it makes it into the finals. I love it and so does everyone I've given it to. I'll most likely update this thread when I get the results.

Cheers!
 
I had a bottle of my Summer Wheat that I submitted last night. It may not be complex, but it's a solid beer. I hope we at least get scoresheets back.
 
I was pretty sure that you had to submit your beer by 7/13. Got some connections?
 
BigTuna said:
I was pretty sure that you had to submit your beer by 7/13. Got some connections?
Click to expand...

Haha no. I submitted before the 13th. What I meant was that I had a bottle of the beer that I bottled at the same time as my submissions. I wanted to check the carb level (bottled from keg).
 
The initial judging took place this past Wednesday. No results from that (that I know of). They had over 100 entries, and they were narrowing it down to twelve, I believe.

Final judging is taking place next Friday, 8/2 at Eli's in Hamden. I believe it's in the evening and they're doing some event around it.
 
Well, I'm rooting for myself. In my experience you need to go big or go home for best of show comps. That's why I entered an 11.5% RIS! It's god damned tasty too.
 
foodplusbeer said:
Well, I'm rooting for myself. In my experience you need to go big or go home for best of show comps. That's why I entered an 11.5% RIS! It's god damned tasty too.
Click to expand...

Nice! Solid submission and gameplan. Good luck to you on taking second place. :p
 
Did you notice that Best in Show at the National Homebrew Competition this year was a light American lager? ;)

Looking forward to the results.... I entered a Rye IPA.
 
I did. That was interesting, huh?
Wasn't the brewer an African American female too? Pretty cool if you ask me.
 
So, I emailed the contact on the registration form asking about the first round results, and here is the reply that I received:

"The finals will be held at Eli's on Whitney Aug 7th at 7:00pm I will be sending an email blast to all particpants shortly with all the details. Should be a great night with food raffles and brewery reps pouring samples!

See you there!"

Translation: "we want to get as many people as possible attending the finals event, so we aren't going to announce the finalists until then". I can understand where they're coming from, but with only about a 1 in 10 chance of being in the finals, I don't think I'm going to rearrange my schedule to go to Eli's up in Hamden on a Wednesday night (I'm in Branford). Anyone else thinking of going?
 
That's actually pretty good news for me. Originally, the finals were supposed to be held this Friday. I wasn't able to attend. I live around the corner, so I'm probably going to swing by next Wednesday.

This whole thing is marketing. Eli's has actually done a shift in the past year, bringing in many more craft offerings. They have Allagash, New England Brewing, Two Roads, Brooklyn, Sixpoint, and a bunch of other craft lines now. When I dropped my entry off (and had a couple beers), I noticed they installed a big beer board too. I think that they see a market and want to capitalize on it.

Now, if they'd just drop their prices a bit...
 
Damn, I thought I would find out tomorrow since it says in the details that "details for final judging will be announced aug 1st". I guess I'll be at the finals in hopes mine will make the cut, if not I'm going to collect that second bottle I gave them!
 
BigTuna said:
Damn, I thought I would find out tomorrow since it says in the details that "details for final judging will be announced aug 1st". I guess I'll be at the finals in hopes mine will make the cut, if not I'm going to collect that second bottle I gave them!
Click to expand...

Ha, good luck with getting your bottle back. Anything left over from a judging either gets dumped or goes home with a judge or a steward.
 
I can't make it up there on the 7th. - would either of you guys be willing to email or text me that night if my entry happened to make the finals? If so, please PM me. Thanks!
 
ehh heading north on 95 blows after work. Suppose i could show up late. Would be nice to know if I had a shot!
 
Did anyone receive an email? I'll probably go to the finals but I'm wondering why they haven't contacted any of us about it yet.
 
I didn't get one, even though she said she would be sending one "shortly". They did post the info on their Facebook page, though.

My impression is that they didn't plan the thing all the way through from the beginning, so they're kind of winging it as they go. A least that's what it looks like from the outside...
 
This is definitely something new for Eli's. I'll give them a break on any flaws. It's nice to have some more local competitions to participate in.
 
Neither did I. Wife still at work, so I was on dad duty tonight.
 
They just posted on their Facebook page. "Joanne P" won, with an American Pale Ale. No info on other finalists, just the overall winner.
 
I went to the event. It was pretty cool, free beer and food and some good conversation with the brewers. I believe that Mark and Tess have all of the judging forms so I'd call over to them and ask for your form.

As it turns out my beer got 3rd place in the American pale ale category. The judges told me that there were 3 beers in that category that were extremely close so they judged them again separately against each other... like a mini competition inside the competition I'm very pleased even though I didn't win since my beer was almost picked to win the category and that category is the one that won the whole thing.

I got a 36 and a 38. Minimal notes but positive feedback overall.

I love the beer and I'm glad that it did well. Hope you guys did well too!:rockin:

-Kevin
 
BigTuna said:
I went to the event. It was pretty cool, free beer and food and some good conversation with the brewers. I believe that Mark and Tess have all of the judging forms so I'd call over to them and ask for your form.

As it turns out my beer got 3rd place in the American pale ale category. The judges told me that there were 3 beers in that category that were extremely close so they judged them again separately against each other... like a mini competition inside the competition I'm very pleased even though I didn't win since my beer was almost picked to win the category and that category is the one that won the whole thing.

I got a 36 and a 38. Minimal notes but positive feedback overall.

I love the beer and I'm glad that it did well. Hope you guys did well too!:rockin:

-Kevin
Click to expand...

Thanks for the head's up, Kevin. Glad it was a fun event. Did they announce the other finalist beers at all? Were there other prizes offered, or was it just the BOS prize?
 
There were 9 finalists. Each received a prize. Maltose gc's from $20 to $100. Dinner at Cambridge house brewery for 6. Dinner at hooker for 8 and of course the big prize. There were 2 winners not present but I think they ranked 6 and 4 or so.

I look forward to next years completion. They did a great job and it was nice to have mark and Tess as the mc's and judges for the event.
 
Mine may have been the third entry in that category - I entered a Rye IPA, so unless they had both a Pale Ale and a IPA category (or specialty), mine was probably in there, too...
 
Here's what maltose posted on their facebook:

Here are the results from the Eli's competition last evening. Grand Prize Joanne Parshall for American Pale Ale, 1st runner up Carlos deCastro for a Double IPA, 2nd runner up Kyle Moran & Ryan Prescot for a Russian Imperial Stout, 3rd runner up Douglas Gladue for a wood aged Barleywine. The five who made it to the finals but did not place were Joe Bow all the way from Fairfield CT with a Robust Porter, Keith Binders with a Saison, Tom Snyder with a Strong Scotch Ale, Glenn Parshall with a Pumpkin Spice beer and Paul Verbitsky with a Munich Dunkel. Congratulations to all of the winners. There were 95 entries so just to get to the final nine was great!


I got second runner up. I guess 3rd out of 95 ain't bad!
 
Congrats! Got my scoresheet today, my RyePA scored a 34 and a 38, and there was a note that it was 4th out of 18 IPAs. Can't really be unhappy with that. Both judges knocked it for a one-dimensional hop profile, so I guess I know what to work on.
 

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