Homebrew Competitions
Over a bottle of smoked ham flavored beer last night, MikeT mentioned it would be fun to have some club contests with some loose style categories and some loose jugding guidelines for a little club fun. I was wondering if anyone would like to brainstorm or post some ideas about how we might start one of these. I for one think (as this was also pointed out last night) since we don't have a goofy acronym name for our club maybe we could name our competitions creatively. I was thinking of naming them after History Channel shows - Deadliest Brew, Ice Road Brewers Competition. Maybe this is just residual hallucinations from the bottle of Fantome Hiver I drank last night. Throwdown with Charlie P. Dirty Brews. The Rachel Ray Memorial Brewing Competition and Benefit Concert. Just some ideas.
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So you don't want to get
So you don't want to get inspiration from the Smoked Ham and Beef Brisket beer and have a "Beer that tastes like food" competition? I already had ideas in my head for making one that tastes like Chicken Vindaloo.
If you really want to go outside of style, you could have a Extreme Brüe(tm) contest, which could cater to the experimenter.
Is there a time of year when beer competitions are traditionally held?
My main reason for a looser
My main reason for a looser club competition as opposed to what seems to be out there is I like being a beer lover rather than a beer nerd (no offense to you aspiring BJCP's, hehe). Nerds can't enjoy an IPA if the IBU is a few points off. Maybe we could do a couple categories like Budweiser Category (Belgian Style), Pabst Category (American Style), Corona (Skunked beer style). I am sure there could be others... I propose seasonal contests.
My thought was just loose
My thought was just loose guidelines for example there was a contest in Texas this year where they broke it down like this:
1.) Malty or Sweet Beers
2.) Bitter or Hoppy Beers
3.) Balanced Beers
4.) Strong Beers
5.) Dark Beers
6.) "Yeasty" Beers
7.) Lagers
8.) Flavored Beers
9.) Experimental Beers
10.) Open Category
I’m not sure that is the “best” way to do it, but we could make up seasonally appropriate categories of our choosing and go from there. Just something to get a bunch of people all brewing/talking about some of the same things. Judging could be as simple as having a vote box where everyone could submit an anonymous vote for their favorite. We could then have the winner post their recipe on a page of the site in case anyone wanted to brew a batch for themselves.
I like these broad
I like these broad categories. Also, I think Mike mentioned last night doing a seasonally-based competition, like only having "autumn" beers at the fall competition. I like this idea since it not only creates some good categories for the competition (oktoberfest, brown, harvest ales, etc.), but it also helps me come up with ideas for stuff to brew.
Good seeing everyone last night!
Maybe for september: 1)
Maybe for september:
1) German (Festbier would be the obvious choice, but wheats and such would work too)
2) American Pale/IPA
Thoughts?
The next two things I'm
The next two things I'm brewing are an IPA and a marzen, so these categories are great for me. I also like just calling it "German", since some people don't have lagering capabilities or the time to really get something ready.
What about also throwing out something like "Darker American ales" to catch anyone who wants to brew a brown (like that delicious hoppy brown from last week) or stout?
I like the idea of doing
I like the idea of doing "Fall" beers as well, thats as broad a category as it gets.
I would also advocate for including Dark Ale category for a brown ale (as pure self interest, i am brewing one for this month)