The Blue Stein

This weekend I was almost trampled by Buffalo JL at the 28th Bluebonnet Brew-off Awards Ceremony. I’d won 1st Place in Sour Ale with a Black Cherry Kriek. Greeted with the most gigantic hug ever was priceless! JL is a hoot and awesome brewer!

Wining anything from the nation’s largest single site home brew competition can be daunting. I am humbled. My one award is a penny in comparison to great brewers with multiple awards. When it comes to sour ale my journey will forever honor SF at overcarbed.com for my first ever sour beer experience. Thanks for sharing your awesome sours!

The ladies and gents of my club are also proud. North Texas Home Brewers Association took home Bluebonnet Club of the Year as well as The People’s Choice Award for best beers served during the glass evaluation. Moreover I am excited to see CH walk away with two awards the first for a Kolsch and the second for a Golden Sour. Watching his brewing take down giants has been fun. This excitement is mutual.

The Bluebonnet Brew-off is also a technical conference. This year speaker Gary Glass from The American Home Brewers Association spoke on homebrewing laws. The talk included federal and state legislation how laws are passed and how they affect be home brewer. Gary gave a quick list on what is legal in Texas and what is not. The Bluebonnet entered the year with some legal challenges. The competition while educational and non-profit needed to be sanctioned by the state alcohol and beverage commission. Steve Westrom led this charge with success. Home brewers could enter their beers for evaluation without fear of violation.

Keynote speaker Eric Warren of Karbach Brewing gave a historical overview of craft beer culture. He predicts the culture will become increasingly more local. He also predicts the industry will focus on more balanced flavorful beers. On Saturday the technical sessions were followed by pub tour. I skipped the tour for a panel discussion. Five leading North Texas breweries were represented Cedar Creek, Lakewood, Rabbit Hole, Revolver, and Rahr & Sons. Home brewers received technical advice from commercial brew masters. I found the discussion very informative. Topics included starting a brewery, water analysis, yeast management, recipe scaling, dry hopping, and brewery operations. Home brewers are encouraged to seek formal education and make the switch to professional brewing. The dreams of working wort for a living equates to a full time commitment to running a successful business.

Works Cited:
Awards Ceremony Photo by Marina
http://www.bluebonnetbrewoff.com/
2014 Bluebonnet Brew-off Results
http://www.overcarbed.com/

Lucky Leprechaun

In the wee hours of the morning AT snapped this photo of me bottling home brew. This morning would change my life in more ways than one. This was October 2012 the weekend my daughter returned to Alabama. My small house of beer would revert back to the silent cave you read of today. Like a Leprechaun on St Patrick's day I'd emerge to chase rainbows and store treasures. The beer made for competition are my treasure. The passion for brewing rages like a flame. I ponder brewing professionally as a business. I am equipping for the journey. I find the market part-talent part-force where much investment is required. The year of 2013 nearly wrecked me. I've been lucky my brews are gathering a small bounty of awards. Outside of the beer world these ribbons, glasses, plates, and medals are meaningless. However, for the barefooted home-brewer talented of limited resources they read job well done! Success happens one step at a time validation is worth it's weight in gold. Merging across this rainbow I brew beer and write these letters. The green weekend begins tomorrow my sister AT has returned to keep me busy. She insists on celebration. I'm not a fan of green beer but the experience will be priceless.

Works Cited:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6:19-21
http://domras.homebrewcomp.com/domras/Results.htm
*photos by http://instagram.com/_sunshine_smiles
Home Brew Bottling^*
Keep Calm and Brew On^*
2013 Brewer Royale NTHBA.org

Beer Judging Batman

Awards for the 2014 Midwinter Homebrew Competition have arrived by snail mail. It feels good to receive something other than bills. I was not expecting these! Given the nature of homebrew competition I suspect there were a lot of hands involved for Midwinter. Homebrew competitions don't just magically happen many volunteers are involved and many unpaid hours. We are in the midst of judging the 28th National Bluebonnet Brew-Off. All clubs in my region are busy. This weekend I had the honor of judging alongside Nationally ranked BJCP judges as far as Shreveport Louisiana. This weekend was for the die-hard fans of beer. We embarked on the task facing another cold front. The Dallas metropolis is covered in ice as I write. If you have ever wondered what it's like to judge beer imagine spending hours with your nose in a glass. Rise only to scribe notes then return lips to glass in a search for flavor the task can be daunting. At some point JD the 2014 Bluebonnet Director cued up the 1989 Nicholson & Keaton version of Batman. The crowd found new vigor with the back drop of Gotham City even beer geeks are superheros. Here are a couple of action shots.

Works Cited:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096895
http://bluebonnetbrewoff.com/
http://www.midwinterhbc.com/

Cheers Buddy!

This weekend was packed with beer exercises as my region prepares for the Bluebonnet Brewoff. In the coming weeks we will judge 1300+ entries from all over the United States. The first week began with unpacking, verifying, and sorting entries. I volunteered on the yellow sticky line. Having put dots on about 4500 bottles of beer I am still seeing dots. Sunday began with some spiritual cleansing. After worship I gathered with the community of beer lovers to empty the barrel. We racked the Berliner onto various bugs in attempt to get it sharply sour. The base had reach a SG 1.008 while fermented solely with WLP677 the beer tasted clean –Belgian clean that is with light notes of lactic acid. Pitching different bugs will allow us to identify which bugs are preferred. I will work much of the batch with a house culture. I am thinking Brett B will move the base into the Berliner family without being out of style. The challenge will be to produce sharply sour notes within three weeks. I am open to ideas on this. Having not pitched the bugs I’m still gathering thoughts. While the crew was around we also shared some award winning home brew. Cheers Buddy!

2014 Midwinter Homebrew Competition
1st Place - Straight Unblended Lambic - House Guest 2.0
Cuvee Conditioned -Dec 2012 Golden sour dry with medium funk and deep acidity | Exceptional | Bottled for aging

3rd Place - Open Category Mead - Coffee Mead
Coffee Mead 2.0 ground coffee added to 1/2 gallon. Stored cold. Racked and bottled.

2014 16th Annual Domras Cup Mead Competition
1st Place - Open Category Mead - Oak Aged Caramelized Honey Mead
Oak Stick Aged Caramelized honey mead. Ruby brown color. Fruity floral aroma. Flavor of toffee and light cinnamon. Getting better aged at room temperature. The sweetness and alcohol are becoming one/well rounded.

Works Cited:
Family Photo - AB, CH, AG, DM, SW, EF
http://domras.homebrewcomp.com/domras/Results.htm
http://www.midwinterhbc.com/

Strikeout

Give me the boot! I've struck out! The results for the 2014 Upper Mississipp Mashout are in. I presented my best yet none have placed. I shall know more about their performance when the scoresheets arrive. The blog allows me to chat up my best efforts. This post raises the glass to beers better than my own. The category winners are below. These guys make awesome home brew! Cheers!

Small Stouts
1st | Andrew Laidlaw | St. Louis Brews
2nd | Adrian Eastwick | The Brewing Network
3rd | Delano Stein | Saint Paul Homebrewers Club

Sour Berliner & Lambic
1st | Caleb Levar
2nd | John Lomnicki | Saint Paul Homebrewers Club
3rd | Sean Kampshoff | Minnesota Home Brewers Association

Works Cited:
https://mashout.org/content/results/2014Results.pdf
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/
https://twitter.com/TheMicrobeCOLL
http://www.mnbrewers.com/
http://www.stlbrews.org/
http://www.sphbc.org/

Mashout

This weekend I will be watching news feeds for 2014 Upper Mississippi Mash-out results. I decided enter a competition outside my region and so will not make the awards ceremony. The competition is open for national entries however most come from the local brewers. Judging from the list of winners the circuit is very competitive. There will be some brewing engines with their reputation on the line. I've selected UMMO for this reason. The area is home to a large brewing community. Many of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) officers live in Minnesota. I'd like to see how my home brewed dry stout scores in this region. The water profile for this beer also similar to their local ground water. Inspired by English ales it's fermented with Yorkshire ale yeast. The beer is smooth yet deeply roasted. Given a new set of taste-buds I'm open for feedback. I entered four others a NotSoEnglishDryCider, NotSoEnglishIPA, NotSoKolsch, and the work in progress black cherry Kriek. It's a sour beer tamed by a secondary fermentation with fruit. The effort grist building and fermenting has been fun. Wish me luck. I am shooting for two favorites. However competitions are subjective often luck of the draw. I enter for judges feedback some comments are humorous. I'm conceived it's all a fairytale with famous writers as national beer judges.

2014 UMMO Entries   

Brew It Again Prez

Each year I approach home brewing with the intent to make better beer. Last year I found a community of home brewers whose list of ales were far better than my homemade swill. I purposed to get involved and learn. I wanted to know more about brewing process and how it applied to the finish product. My beers got noticeably better as the year progressed.

This year I've set out to corral ideas by serving as club President. The duty is fun practice in leadership amidst politics. The club has been brewing for a while, I'd like to challenge us to brew our best. Thus, I'm taking the same brew it again make it better approach. This does not mean my ales will win awards, or ribbons. I still have the ability to make pridefully awful beer.

Here is my list of entries for competition. All are interpretations of style and ingredients. I've used uncommon hops, rye malt, limited release yeast, and aged for complexity. I am entering competition for feedback. I'd like to know about detectable flaws and off-flavors. My brewing process is subject to change leaving room for refinement.

2013 Bluebonnet Brew Off Entries:
Belgian Pale - Rye base with fermented with Belgian lager yeast.

Belgian Blonde - Table Trappist low gravity blonde.

Wood Aged Belgian Dark Strong - (Barrel Project) Beer in question.

Ordinary Bitter - No crystal malt or sugar fermented with Yorkshire yeast.

English IPA - English & American hop blend.

Robust Porter - Dry stout recipe with low roast profile. Noted diacetyl.

Dry Stout - Brew it again. Dry stout with more roast. Fermented with Yorkshire yeast. Bottled early.

Flanders Brown - (One Year Old) TX Wild Brown. Sour with berry notes.

Black Cherry Sparkling Hydromel - (Bottle Conditioned) Young low gravity cherry mead.

Team GBU

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a film I've only seen in collective portions. I can put together the plot and the over arching sequence of events but I can honestly say I've not watched the film entirely.

I have seen clips of the film in magic clouds in college. Yet, I've never been the cool type. I was guaranteed to show up and linger leaving before things got too crazy. There were moments when the opposite-sex got the best of me yielding the time of my life. Those reference moments were fun but I will assure I missed the Greek chants and bon fires and hell raising.

Team GBU is comprised of three men making homebrew and competing together or when time permitted. The Limbo Challenge was selected as our first rendezvous. We would brew collectively then submit entries as a team. OG the team lead had taken down the competition before. He was looking for a lone gun. Someone with confidence who had seen competition and could shoot it out with the best homebrewers around. WY of BarginFittings.com had seen homebrewing competitions before. Having taken awards for meads and beer he was the prime choice.

I entered the roll call in a confidence unknown. Having prepared good beer I'd snagged some awards. Yet, my brewing style was unheard of. Fire at will. Shoot from the hip was my approach —I should clarify. I am young to brewing and so every opportunity is an exercise in creativity. The goal is to create something withstanding having researched malts, hops, and yeast.

Coming into the team I needed to play it safe. Homebrewing competition is about interpreting to style and brewing to style. Lagers are to be fermented cold and conditioned. Ales have some flex but must still be clean. No DMS, no Brett or funk aromas. Beer styles are well defined on malt presence and hop bitterness. I have a tendency to blur the boundaries. A stubborn attempt at being unique. My greatest fashion at doing so was the Brown Porter category.

I had prepared three beers each with their own worries. The first was more of a dark mild fermented with Belgian yeast. The color was great but the body, flavor, and aroma were missing. Having prepared the beer in the dark of night (un-announced to the team) no one knew it existed. I wanted to test the Belgique use of yeast with roasted malt. I learned the yeast fermented cold would lack its peppery spice. The low clove notes with phenols were pleasant. I liked the beer but it was no brown porter. Too thin and lacking depth. The second attempt was a little more dignified brewed with the team using standard ale yest and English pale malt and 3% de-bittered roasted barley. The barley was chosen to add depth without sharpness. From my perspective the beer was great but lacking richness. It was also too dark. The final attempt was brewed alone with very little de-bittered malt. The color was the best of the bunch but there was still no depth.

The smoke had cleared. Score sheets from the Limbo Challenge were in. We had entered the No-So-Porter in the Northern English category. The beer earned no awards. The judges comments suggest the beer and was a Southern Brown not a Northern Brown. I should have know better. As a team we averaged 33/50 points with four medals as our bounty. One 1st and 2nd with two 3rd place awards. The first place winner prepared by OG was a Munich Helles rested on light oak. The beer was exceptional. We never identified who would be labeled Good, Bad, or Ugly. However I am learning this is not college. Reference moments in homebrew competition is a matter of marksmanship and equal measures of luck. Shoot fast or live wounded.

Imperial Stout

The best beer I've created to date the Imperial Stout is a rich and flavorful beer. The process to maturity was long enough to developed deep dried raisin notes with a warming chocolate finish. The nose is rich and bready with some fusels from the above average alcohol content. At 10.3% ABV the finish is drying leaving enough malt to coat the tongue. Packed with aroma and flavor it's reminiscent of an ole ale with Imperial Stout profile. Before my last pour I entered a few bottles into The Dixie Cup. Among the twenty nine pupils it ranked third of it's class. If there were more I would celebrate with a judicious pour; however, I've enjoyed the last drop. The competition entry was a for fun and should remain as such. I'd rather drink the beer I brew.

First Place & 3rd

What a surprise two awards for my homebrew! The first place in the wood aged category goes a dry stout I had brewed and rested on oak chips. The flavor profile of this beer after the oak was exceptional woody followed by a dry vanilla finish. The 3rd place metal was an all-grain rendering from the Kolsch recipe I've been developing. This was my third brew. Once the beer cleared, allowing the beer to mature presented a German style with light fruitiness and clean finish. I admired most finding my way into the style after several attempts. There was still some chill haze to work out in the mash but I can rest easy that the recipe is solid.

Competitive Feedback

Reviewing the results from my first beer competition. The Extra Foreign Stout I had entered was a good beer with rich flavor. There was light aroma but deep malt complexity. The recipe completely my own. I had high hopes it would kill the competition.

The score sheets revealed a more professional review. The beer was found to be good with low to no aroma. I figure as much. What I did not expect was a brewing fault in my boil process.

Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is a water-insoluble flammable liquid that boils at 99°F and has a canned corn odor. It is also an indication of bacterial infection in malt production and brewing. It is a breakdown product of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), and is also produced by the bacterial metabolism of methanethiol.

The problem with DMS is it's an easy fix. Boil the wort vigorously or longer then follow with fast chilling to 130°F or below.

This also means I have a problem detecting DMS in beer. I found my entry to be flawless. The beer tasted sweet to me with rich attention to roasted malts. I had aged it for even more smoothness. The judges of The 15th Annual Celtic Brew-Off are top-rated in my opinion. I'm looking forward to next year's competition.