Back in November, I entered a local homebrew contest that was put on by Northern Brewer and Bent Brewstillery. I only had one beer that was ready at the time of registration, my Dubbel, so I entered it under the name "The Merry Monk." It was my first time entering a competition, and I was both nervous and excited. I knew that the beer hadn't been steller, in fact I dumped about half of the batch out, but I wanted feedback and some validation that I'm not a complete waste of grain.
The recipe I had was partly from a kit from Midwest Supplies called the Noble Trappist Ale. Belgian yeast and German hops. I got most of the kit from a Craigslist deal, the seller was moving so he just threw it in as I was buying all his carboys and bottles. I needed to get the yeast, specialty grains, and hops from the store since they weren't in the box. I also added an extra pound of dark candi sugar (at the suggestion of the sales clerk) to bump up the abv a bit.
I brewed this in August, before this blog, so I don't have my notes, though the original recipe can be found here. I didn't expect to win anything, but since my wife doesn't have a discerning craft beer palate and most of my craft beer friends live 500 miles away in Missouri, I wanted some feedback on my process. I did better than I expected, but obviously not as good as I'd liked. I got a 26. See my scoresheets here. If you'd like to see the winners, the list can be found here.
I'm not discouraged from competing, in fact I might enter several more in the months to come. Who knows, maybe I'll have a killer batch and maybe even win something. I'll have to refer to myself as an "award winning homebrewer." Hahaha! Until then, I brew for myself...the science of the process and the enjoyment of the end result.
Have you entered in a competition? Tell me about it in the comments below. Cheers.
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