Pilgarlic
Well-Known Member
Our homebrew club, Brandon, FL Bootleggers, has a small group of brewers who meet monthly to judge one anothers beers (we do complete BJCP score sheets and were pretty careful about it) in an effort to improve both our evaluation skills and our beers. Each of us has chosen a particular style that we brew repeatedly in order to minimize the variables as we seek improvement. We also submit our beers routinely to competitions (not just our primary beers, but lots of them). Some of our best results have been curious cases:
Case #1.
One of our brewers brews a small ale that I suppose would best be called a cream ale. A year or so it took Gold as an American Light Lager and also took 2nd, best of show.
Case #2.
My first four iterations of my witbier showed steady improvement but seemed to be capping out at around 40 in competition. A 40 wit isnt enough to beat the saisons (same category), though its often the best of the wits. For my fifth iteration I opened the smack pack and was hit with an unmistakable putrid smell. No problem, I used a washed yeast from a previous batch. My mistake: the unlabeled yeast, presumably a wit, was actually a hefe yeast. You guessed it. My Hefewit took gold.
Case #3.
One of our brewers had been making steady progress in competitions with his dunkelweizen. He brought his latest to the competition team meeting for judging and we gave it a 21, because it just didnt meet the criteria for a good dunkelweizen, but it was a really tasty beer. We evaluated it and told him enter this as a Southern English Brown and youll score really well. Sure enough, Gold and 3rd place Best of Show.
Conclusions?
Case #1.
One of our brewers brews a small ale that I suppose would best be called a cream ale. A year or so it took Gold as an American Light Lager and also took 2nd, best of show.
Case #2.
My first four iterations of my witbier showed steady improvement but seemed to be capping out at around 40 in competition. A 40 wit isnt enough to beat the saisons (same category), though its often the best of the wits. For my fifth iteration I opened the smack pack and was hit with an unmistakable putrid smell. No problem, I used a washed yeast from a previous batch. My mistake: the unlabeled yeast, presumably a wit, was actually a hefe yeast. You guessed it. My Hefewit took gold.
Case #3.
One of our brewers had been making steady progress in competitions with his dunkelweizen. He brought his latest to the competition team meeting for judging and we gave it a 21, because it just didnt meet the criteria for a good dunkelweizen, but it was a really tasty beer. We evaluated it and told him enter this as a Southern English Brown and youll score really well. Sure enough, Gold and 3rd place Best of Show.
Conclusions?
