Puget Sound Pro-Am Results & Big Brew Day 2011

Last weekend was the 2011 Puget Sound Pro-Am homebrew competition.  There were a total of 403 entries made by 109 different homebrewers.  By last Monday, the results were posted for the homebrew competition.  Congratulations to the winners! 

Just this past weekend, however, was the time for the majority of the breweries involved to select which homebrews from the competition they wanted to scale up and brew on their own systems. 

The participating breweries included:
Ram Restaurant and Brewery
Elysian Brewery
Big Time Brewery
Rock Bottom - Seattle
Rock Bottom - Bellevue
Big Al Brewing
Baron Brewing
Diamond Knot Brewery
Snipes Mountain Brewing
Naked City Brewing
Harmon Brewery
BJ's - Tacoma
Powerhouse Brewery
Issaquah Brewhouse
Silver City Brewery
Elliott Bay Brewing Company

Each of these breweries could select one of the homebrew entries from the competition to brew.  It was not necessary for the breweries to select a beer that placed well in the actual homebrew competition, but most did. 

Here is the list of what each brewery decided to brew:
Baron Brewing – Mike Ritzer’s Grunge Effect, North German Altbier
Big Time Brewing – Ken Reister’s Reisterbrau’s Czar Russian Imperial Stout
BJ’s Brewery Tacoma – Trevor Nichol’s Biere de Printemps Biere de Garde
Elliott Bay Brewing Company – Tim Hervyford’s Black Pepper Porter
Elysian Brewing Company – Travis Nye’s Rye PA
Harmon Brewery – Ben Schielke’s Expedi-ale New American Pale Ale
Issaquah Brewhouse – TBD this week
Ram Brewery Tacoma – Jonathan Permen’s Fruition Raspberry Biere de Garde
Rock Bottom Seattle – Jesse Perez’s Siberian Baltic Porter
Rock Bottom Bellevue – Dan Hansen’s Bohemian Pilsner
Snipes Mountain Brewery – Karl VanEvenhoven’s Cascadian Dark Ale
Naked City Brewery – TBD this week
Silver City Brewery – TBD this week

Recreational
Big Al Brewing – TBD this week
Powerhouse -Ryan McGee's Mai Sharona, Maibock
Diamond Knot – TBD in a few weeks

Once again, congratulations to those selected!  They will soon have the opportunity to see their own beer on tap at these breweries.  What an honor, and a great way to celebrate and share their homebrew with their fellow brewers and friends. 

I didn't have any beers ready to enter for this year's Pro-Am or this year's National Homebrew Competition, but I hope to have a few things ready to enter for both events next year. 

AHA Big Brew Day:
This past Saturday, May 7th was also AHA Big Brew Day.  It's an annual event where homebrewers are encouraged to gather together in groups to brew for the day.  Bringing along, family, friends, and anyone else interested in learning more about or getting in volved in homebrewing. 

For me, the closest place to celebrate Big Brew Day was at Larry's Brewing Supply in Kent, WA.  I didn't have the means to bring my own system down to Larry's (I brewed later at home - video coming soon), but I was there for the festivities (as well as there to assist with the brewery selections from the Puget Sound Pro-Am homebrew competition - so I was rather busy). 

There were plenty of brewers at Larry's that day, and everyone was having a great time and brewing batch after batch of beer.  The smells coming from all the brewing were amazing.  I took a short video you can check out, to see how crazy/busy it was, but also how much fun!  You may need to 'Like' Beer Monger on Facebook in order to see the video. 

As for myself, I brewed my Oktoberfest Lager this weekend.  Its currently sitting in it's fermenter at 42 degrees in my beer fridge, and I plan to slowly raise the temperature to 48-50 degrees over the new few days.  There it will sit, fermenting for three weeks before I raise the temp a bit for a dicetyl rest and then lower the temp again before kegging the beer to allow it to Lager for three months.  It should be ready to drink by September 17th, the first official day of Oktoberfest in Germany this year.

Drink responsibly and stay safe out there.

I Popped My Judging Cherry

Today, I had the opportunity to be an official judge as part of the first round of the National Homebrew Competition - Northwest Region.  This was my first time ever acting as an official judge for an AHA/BJCP sanctioned competition.  It was a great experience, and makes me look forward to much more judging in the future. 

As luck would have it, I was assigned to judge BJCP Style Category 14 - India Pale Ale (pretty much my favorite style of beer).  This style section inclues the sub-styles of:

14A: English IPA
14B: American IPA
14C: Imperial IPA

During the course of my judging today, I tasted eight (8) different IPA's - 6 American IPA's (14B) and 2 Imperial IPA's (14C).  Of those eight, our tasting group sent on two for a 'mini-best of show' competition.  I was not a judge for that portion of the competition. 

As a first time judge, the process was enjoyable but slightly intimidating.  For each beer sampled (1-2oz), I had to fill out a complete BJCP National Homebrew Competition Beer Scoreshet.  All of the following sections had to be filled out in their entirety:

-Bottle Inspection
-Aroma
-Appearance
-Flavor
-Mouthfeel
-Overall Impression

All of these aspects, except for Bottle Inspection, are assigned a numeric score according to a scale.  Those points are added to create the beer's overall score (from 1-50).  I also had to comment on the accuracy to the intended beer style, the technical merit of the beer and my overall impression of its 'intangible' qualities.  I had 10 minutes to evaluate each entry in the competition, and then to discuss my score and it's aspects with the other judges score(s) and notes, so that we could reach a concensus on a fair score for each entry. 

This was a great first step in my journey to my BJCP Certification.  I look forward to my next judging experience.  It looks as though I may have another opportunity to judge near the end of April. 

Drink responsibly and stay safe out there.