BetterBeerBlog

I recently had the opportunity to be somewhat involved in helping run the Bay Area Brew Off (BABO). This is a BJCP sanctioned competition run by the Draught Board Homebrew Club (out of San Leandro, CA) of which I’m a member. It is held annually at the Alameda County Fair and this year saw a record 251 entries.

Now, when I say “somewhat” involved, I mean just that. One thing I learned is that putting on a judging competition is a heck of a lot of work! The extent of my involvement was minor compared to the competition organizer Roger St. Denis, and there were plenty of others more fully involved than I.

To get an idea of what it takes, here are a few things I was able to help out with:

Drop-off location pickup

This is one thing about most competitions that I initially took for granted. You just drop your entries at your local homebrew shop and that’s it, right?

Well, there can be a dozen or more drop-off locations around the Bay Area and all of those entries need to be collected, transported, refrigerated and eventually make it to the competition in one piece. Most shops are generous enough to provide the location, but it is club members and other volunteers that do the leg work.

I personally collected from only one location and ended up with 5 cases! (Good thing my lager freezer was not in use, or I wouldn’t have had space for all that beer.) The entries had to be collected before the shop closed on Friday eve and transported the next day to the fairgrounds where check-in and registration was being held.

Check-in and Registration

This was an all day affair. Folks were at it well before I even arrived at 10:00. Each entry had to be checked-in, registration and payment information recorded, every bottle labeled with a generic entry number, the entrants temporary labels removed, special ingredients listed on a separate label affixed to the bottle, bottles sorted and cellarred…. you get the idea.

The process was conducted by an assembly line of people. With 251 entries, we’re talking 753 bottles of beer that need to be managed. Beer would come through the door, be unpacked and correlated to registration info, then make it’s way around a series of 3 long tables where the rest of the work was completed.

Entries awaiting check-in.

Yours truly (helping with check-in) and Roger St. Denis (chained to his laptop.)

At the end of the table, the bottles would make their way to the “cellar”, which in this case was a cool room staging area, then eventually were moved to large commercial size refrigerators.

Preliminary Judging

Another logistical problem with a competition of this size is how to get all the judging completed. A panel preferably consists of 3 judges and a single flight no more than 10 beers. Judging any more than 10 at a single sitting can be a bit daunting especially when your dealing with high alcohol Strong Ales or palate-frying IPAs.

With 250+ entries, this equates to roughly 75 judges. Even the bigger comps with over 600 entries (such as World Cup and NHC) can’t get that many judges on a single day, so judging is usually carried out in stages. This allows folks to judge more than a single round over the course of a week or two.

I personally judged in four separate preliminary rounds, two of which were hosted at people’s homes, the other two at the Firehouse in Sunnyvale (thanks Steve!) I would have judged more, but I had 10 entries in the comp which disqualified me from judging a number of sessions.

Preliminary Judging from a previous BABO.

Final Judging

Final judging is usually held over the course of a single day (or for larger comps an entire weekend.) At this point, most of the better beers have bubbled up to the top, and judges that sit on these panels can expect some good brews.

Cellar-Master Paul Goularte at the Cellar Staging Area.

One of two rooms where final judging was conducted.

Bob, Kevin and a flight in progress.

Label Judging

Many homebrew comps also provide a category for labels. BABO is no exception and I helped steward the judging table. This was a marathon session with 16 total entries in the category we judged. Every label was evaluated on design criteria using a judging form similar to that used for judging beer entries.

Kudos to the 4 judges who slogged through this huge flight. I don’t exaggerate when I say a bit of writer’s cramp punctuated the effort.

My personal favorite - one of several Erich Schmidt label entries.

Best of Show

After the winners of each category are determined, a Best of Show (BOS) round is judged. This flight consists of the first place winners in each category. In large comps where categories are not collapsed, this can be a whopping 23 beers!

Although I didn’t judge BOS, astute readers may be able to pick out Mr. BetterBeerBlog in the photo below. (Hint, he just got a haircut!)

BOS judging panel: John, Kevin, Lee, David and Peter

Best of Show Flight

Fair Homebrew Display

My final contribution to this huge undertaking will be to help set up the Fair display this coming weekend. Each winning entry will be on display, so stop by and have a look! Unfortunately, no samples will be available.

San Mateo County Fair Homebrew Display (BABO’s will be similar.)

Again, this is just a small part of the overall effort required to make a comp like this happen. To say that the paperwork involved is a bit overwhelming would be an understatement. Not only do all the results need to be checked and cross-checked, but they need to be correlated with the original entrants, scores and winners validated and final score sheets packed up with ribbons to be sent to the winning entrant.

Thanks to the Draught Board and it’s members for organizing and running this competition on behalf of the entire Bay Area homebrew community. Personal thanks to Roger St. Denis who put in hours upon hours as competition organizer and who included me in this year’s effort. Special thanks to Charles Webster for taking most of these photos and giving me permission to use them.

For more information on how BABO is run, see the How We Do It page on the Draught Board website.

Brian the Rabid Brewer

I recently attended new beer tapping at one of my local brewpubs. As usual, I had a great time at the event and did my write up a day or so later. The brewmaster wrote back to me commenting on how I compared this beer to the BJCP guideline for the style. Long story short, he purposely doesn’t brew that specific beer to “style” but instead brews it to the palettes of his consumers. It’s one of his best selling beers so it’s a justifiable change. So that got me thinking about beer style guidelines; how useful they are, how limiting they can be and most of all, how divisive they are in the beer community.

From: Peter at BetterBeerBlog

The beer style guidelines I most refer to are those from the BJCP. As a BJCP judge, these form the backbone of the work we do. Part of the BJCP’s Mission Statement is to promote beer literacy and these guidelines help to do so.

The other set of guidelines I refer to less but are no less useful come from the Brewers Association. While the BA style guidelines are very similar those from the BJCP, there are major differences. The BA guidelines are more succinct; they are also organized with a greater focus on country of origin and historical consideration.

When initially developed, each set of guidelines had a specific objective they wanted to fulfill. Individually they are great resources but when used together, they paint a very comprehensive portrait of the world of craft beer.

As important as I think style guidelines are in providing a common language and context for craft beer, I have met more than a handful of brewers who aren’t too keen about them. Their resistance ranges from annoyance to declarations of evil! A major criticism is that style guidelines are restricting.

What are your thoughts regarding beer styles? Do you find them useful in defining a common ground by which we can all talk about beers in-depth? Do you think they’re restrictive and killers of the imagination?

From: Mario at Brewed For Thought

I like this topic as I was thinking about it myself recently. As some may already know, I am actively avoiding any BJCP certification. My reasoning is that I want to avoid honing my ability to detect flaws in the beer in front of me and simply enjoy it. Ignorance is bliss after all.

On the topic of styles, I am pro- and anti-guidelines. My problem with BJCP or BA guidelines is that it finds a way to criticize a beer that is otherwise perfectly fine. The subtle difference between a Bohemian Pilsner and a German Pilsner matters if you’re specifically trying to brew a style, or looking at beer from a historic perspective, but from a beer drinker’s point of view it simply needs to taste good.

The use of guidelines reminds me of my time working at a music store through high school and college. At first, you had a handful of sections: Rock, R&B, Classical, Jazz, Country. Then there was a section for Rap; then Electronica, then the Jazz section was split, and so on and so forth. Eventually, there were so many sections and sub-sections that order was lost. Some bands would belong in multiple sections, making finding anything more difficult.

Beer can be the same way. If a brewery brews a beer exactly as they intended and it’s an excellent beer, but it falls between categories, that beer is punished by the powers that be. They will not bring home GABF hardware, they will not win anything at the World Beer Cup. Does this mean a beer is a lesser beer than some that win those medals? Does it mean a gold medal is the best beer or the beer that fell in line the best?

This is where I think the guidelines can hurt the awards themselves. Every year, brewers submit for GABF and World Beer Cup with hopes of winning, but you also hear the dismissal of the awards and the judging after the fact. Brewers will be biased, but there are always surprises among the winners where you wonder how that beer beat out some of the others in the same category. Granted, no system will make everyone happy, but should the best beers win the gold medals?

So do I say get rid of styles all together? Not at all. The 2008 BJCP Style Guidelines has 23 Categories and over 70 individual styles. How about drop the sub-categories, make it simple. Sure, some categories need a split between Imperial and otherwise, but that’s simple, find a dividing line according to strength and give a little in each direction (e.g. Stouts with ABV less than 8%, Imperial Stouts with ABV of 7.5% or more)

Styles can be helpful for an everyday beer drinker as well. Hand me a beer, say it’s a pale ale, I know what to expect. Sure, it could be an English pale or an American pale, but that can be left to the brewer to describe to the customer.

From: Peter at BetterBeerBlog

BJCP certification really isn’t for everyone, in reality it’s not for everyone. If you want to take an active role in the homebrew scene, then it might be something to look into. Being able to recognize flaws in beers is actually a good thing. How else would be able to know what good beers are or how to fix bad ones? Trust me when I say that it’s pretty easy to shut off the “beer analysis” part of the brain and just enjoy a beer. That being said, I think having a lexicon by which to describe beers goes a long way toward appreciation. I’d rather someone be specific when describing a beer as opposed to telling me, “It’s a’ight.” or “Meh.” or “Hella good!”. Why is the beer lackluster? Why is it good? I don’t need to know what the “original gravity” is or what the “apparent extract” or even what “SRM” the beer is at to enjoy it. A little too much information. That being said…

The whole reason we have beer styles today is because beer, like many other food products, are regional. They are a direct result of the ingredients available to local brewers and the techniques they’ve been taught and incorporate. A few insightful people in the craft beer community noticed this, drank a lot of beer, took detailed notes, drank more beer, refined those notes and did their best to categorize a vast body of information. If anything, blame the late Michael Jackson for this quagmire because it is through his notes that many of these beer style guidelines have been developed from.

I’m glad you brought up the issue of competition and awards. I have to respectfully disagree with you in this matter. It is in these specific instances that style guidelines were developed. While I like your analogy of the record store as it relates to the organization of beer styles, I think a dog show analogy would better represent what goes on during a competition. Beers are not necessarily judged against each other, at least not in the beginning. When judges receives beers, they are “blind” in that they have no idea who brewed this beer or where it came from. Judges then have to compare the beer in front of them against a “standard”. In this case, the “standard” is taken from a style guideline. In the Best of Show rounds, beers are then judged against one another. I think this is a fair system. I think the BJCP says it best:

Without beer styles, competitions would be nearly impossible to conduct. Judging would simply become a hedonistic event, where judges would simply pick beers according to their preference. The outcome would be totally arbitrary and would depend on the background and preferences of those who judge their beers. This is not a desirable situation.

With regards to beers that don’t fit a particular category, there are “catch-all” categories in both the BA and BJCP guidelines in which these beers can be entered. The BJCP has Category 23: Specialty Beers, which was designed just for this purpose. The BA has Specialty Beers, Experimental Beers and Out of Category - Traditionally Brewed Beer categories for tweener beers. Entering your beers in any of these categories gives you just as good a chance to medal as the traditional categories. Take the Sam Adams Longshot homebrew competition. In the short time I’ve been involved in the craft beer scene, I’ve noticed just as many non-traditional beer recipes win as traditional. Grape Pale Ale? Not my favorite but it won.

One thing to remember is that there is no super-secret Craft Beer Illuminati trying to push their agenda on the populace. Beer style guidelines are just that - guidelines. They should not be seen as hard and fast rules but as a point of reference. They are living documents; constantly evolving and being updated as brewers push the boundaries of current styles and in many cases, develop entirely new ones.

Going back to the original reason I chose this topic, a local brewmaster decided to brew one of his best selling beers slightly out of style. His customers demanded it and he’d have been a fool not to listen. That being said, what are some notable non-traditional beers you’ve had? I found the Orange Kush from Ale Industries, an American-style Witbier I suppose, to have been surprisingly good. The Hades Habañero from Devils Canyon remains one of the few chili beers I actually enjoy. Hell, most of what The Bruery or Lost Abbey brews can be considered non-traditional.

From: Mario at Brewed For Thought

I wasn’t suggesting a free for all-category free competition. I just thought less specialization would be nice. I like the analogy of the dog show. We need less best of breeds and more of the best of groups.

For me, I live in the heart of non-traditional brewing. Lagunitas makes an excellent pilsner that doesn’t fall into categories as it’s their own interpretation of the broader style. Or take their most recent release, A Little Sumpin’ Wild, a highly hopped, wheat ale that comes in at over 7% and is fermented using Belgian yeast. What style would that beer fall into?

This actually reminds me of a conversation I had at the bar a few weeks back. A man was sipping a Scrimshaw pilsner and complaining about the Lagunitas pint night going on. According to him, Lagunitas needs to use less hops. He wondered why Lagunitas couldn’t brew a pils like Scrimshaw, to which I replied “because North Coast already brews it, why do we need two of the same beers?”

The point of this is that I love style bending. I love when a brewer take a style, sees room for improvement (in his or her opinion) and executes it. That’s how we see changes in the brewing industry. Racer 5 calls itself an IPA, but how does this compare to an IPA of 15 years ago? In terms of IPA, one of my favorites right now is Belhaven’s Twisted Thistle. This was an IPA brewed by a Scottish brewery specifically for the American market.It’s incredibly fragrant, but not bitter and still in the 5% range. It’s not an English IPA and definitely not an American IPA, but it’s own style.

This conversation has me thirsty. I think I’ll go dig through my fridge and find a style bending beer and raise a toast to the BJCP. In the end, as long as good beer continues to make it’s way to my glass, I can’t complain. Styles do a great job of reminding us where we should be and also let’s all of us, home brewers and professionals, to feel like a rebel when we break out of the mold.

The BJCP stands for Beer Judge Certification Program. The purpose of the BJCP is to:

1. promote beer literacy
2. promote the appreciation of real beer, and
3. recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills

BJCP Grandmaster-level judge John Watson has organized another BJCP prep class. I’ve taken John’s prep class in the past, twice actually. As a craft beer lover, it was the best thing I ever decided to do. Not only did I learn a lot about craft beer in general, I learned a lot about the various styles in the BJCP style guideline. I had no idea there were over 70 recognized styles!

I would highly recommend this BJCP prep class to homebrewers and to anyone who is interested in craft beer. Even if you decide to never take the BJCP exam, you will get more out of this class than you expect. Here are the details:

Who: BJCP Grandmaster-level judge John Watson
What: BJCP Prep class
Where: More Beer homebrew shop, 991 N. San Antonio Road, Los Altos, CA 94022 map
When: First class is on Thursday, January 28, 2010, 6:30pm - 10pm
Why: Because it’s cool to be a beer geek
Cost: $135 ($20 deposit at the shop) for an 11 week course

I had the opportunity to judge a preliminary round for the California State Homebrew Competition, better known in homebrew circles as Stern Grove, at Firehouse Brewery & Grill last night. Stern Grove holds a special place in many a homebrewer’s and BJCP judge’s heart for a variety of reasons. It is one of the oldest homebrew competitions in California. Stern Grove also signals the end of homebrew competition season. It is one of the last, if not the last, homebrew competition in California.

Judging Stern Grove is a bit of a departure from your typical BJCP/AHA sanctioned event. The biggest difference is the way the beers are scored. In a typical homebrew competition, beers are judged against a 50 point scale. Beers are evaluated according to aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel and overall impression. Because the competition has been around for so long, Stern Grove has it’s own competition forms. They’re not really trying to be different from your typical BJCP event more than they’ve been grandfathered in.

The Stern Grove worksheets are evaluated on a 20 point scale. This poses a slight conversion issue for judges in the sense that a point given or taken away from a Stern Grove worksheet will have a greater impact than your typical BJCP score sheet. That being said, it takes a little bit getting used to.

Most homebrew competitions will have preliminary rounds. This allows the judges to cull the field of entries, weeding out the stronger ones from the entries that need a little more work. By the time the final rounds of judging at Stern Grove actually takes place, the majority of the beers there will be pretty good.

In last night’s preliminary round, we had the opportunity to judge the wheat beer category. There were 3 judging groups. Two of the groups had 3 judges while the final group had only 2. Unlike other preliminary rounds I’ve judged at, we actually had 2 stewards to help us out. Big thanks goes stewards Bobby and Anthony for keeping things fluid.

There were a few issues that kept cropping up as the night wore on. Weizen beers are supposed to be lighter, effervescent, refreshing and flavorful. Yeast character needs to be the dominant, yet balanced, character in a weizen beer. Just about all the entries we tried were lacking banana esters and clove phenolics. In their place were generic fruit esters slightly reminiscent of Belgian yeasts while the phenolic character was equally generic and varied from spicy to plastic/band-aid. Body was an issue as well as many beers were watery while other samples were undercarbonated. Surprisingly a few beers were clear and lacked the “mit hefe” cloudiness one would expect from the style.

To bring out more of the weizen yeast character, start with a viable weizen strain of yeast and then ferment one’s beers at a slightly higher temperature (70º F +). Having a thin body in a hefeweizen is unusual since the addition of wheat malt is usually the prescription for thickening up a beer’s body. For the hefeweizen though, the brewer can implement a decoction mash to both thicken up the body and darken the beer slightly to get a gold color. Wheat malt will also help with head retention. When bottling beers, make sure to measure out one’s priming sugar correctly. Weizen beers are noted for their effervescent character and a flat beer is not a good sign. Lastly, always be mindful of one’s sanitation.

It was good to get back on the beer judging horse. It had been at least 6 months or so since my last competition. I may have been a little rusty with filling out score sheets and with my descriptions but my palette’s been okay. For whatever reason, I haven’t been all that interested in judging competitions this year. You could probably count on one hand how many competitions I’ve judged. What’s ironic is that I received my BJCP exam results (I retook the tasting portion of the exam) and I moved up a rank. There’s always next year.

I received word from BetterBeerBlog friend and Mad Zymurgist Brian Cooper that a BJCP Exam Prep Course has been scheduled and is coming up. For those of you interested in becoming a BJCP judge, this is a great course to take. I know the people who are scheduling this prep course and this class will have a huge emphasis on passing the exam. There will be beer provided for the tasting portion but I am not sure how many. Instead of retyping the details, I’ll just copy and paste them below.

The course is planned for Wednesday evenings from 7/22 to 9/23 (6:30 PM to 9:30 PM). Classes will be held in the Livermore / Pleasanton area.  We’ve lined up several great instructors for the course so far, including David Teckam, Kevin Pratt, Nathan Smith, Jim Files, and others.

The fee for the prep course + exam is $75; this includes full exam fee, certain study materials, quizzes graded weekly, and some of the beers for the course.  The exam will be held on 10/3, from 12 noon to 3PM in Pleasanton. If anyone is looking to take the exam for the first time (or to improve their existing score), I would be happy to send a syllabus.

If you’re re-taking, naturally the course fee would be lowered.  Please contact me at brewerbrian@sbcglobal.net if interested. Let me know whether you’re taking the exam for the first time, or re-taking — and if it’s the latter, whether it’s a partial or full exam.

Sammy and I spent our Tuesday night celebrating the 50th birthday of our friend John Watson. John is a Grandmaster 2 level BJCP judge. What this means, simply put, is that John knows his beer. I first met John at the More Beer homebrew store up in Los Altos where he was teaching a BJCP prep/study group. Ever since then, we’ve seen him at the various Bay Area beer festivals and homebrew competitions. John is a soft-spoken man who loves his beer and gives back to the craft beer community by teaching others how to appreciate beer.

To help celebrate his birthday a group of us, mostly homebrewers, all headed toward the mean streets of Sunnyvale to Firehouse Brewery & Grill where we had dinner and threw back a few pints. Firehouse brewmaster Steve Donohue was there to play host to our little group of homebrewers and craft beer lovers. He was even kind enough to pour his Hops on Rye (HOR), Velles Baltic Porter (Velles being the name of the beer) as well as the last little bit of his Belgian-style tripel.

I’ve always stated that beer is a social beverage. The best beers often become that much better when you are able to share them with other people who can really appreciate them. It’s the truth. Even though it was his birthday, John was kind enough to whip out a vintage 2005 bottle of Samuel Adams much coveted Utopia beer. For those who aren’t familar with Samuel Adams Utopia beers, here’s a little background.

Weighing in at over 25% ABV (probably around 27%), Sam Adams Utopia beers hold the title of  “World’s Strongest Beer”. Utopia is a high gravity beer brewed with a wide variety of malts and hops with a “touch of maple syrup”. They then ferment the beer with two proprietary yeasts (one of which is a champagne yeast, I believe). The final product is actually a blend of different beers, some aged for up to 13 years, that came from bourbon, sherry, Madiera, brandy and Cognac. They didn’t mess around with this beer and at a MSRP of $100/bottle, you shouldn’t either.

Utopia, Samuel Adams, 27% ABV

To enjoy a Utopia is to enjoy all of it, especially the bottle. The bottle is copper colored and shaped to resemble a copper brew kettle. The “Sam Adams” name is on one side while a portrait of Paul Revere (why Paul Revere and not Sam Adams?) is hidden behind two “doors”. The bottom of the bottle lists what year it was bottled and what bottle number you have. The Utopia we had last night was from 2005 and was #01824. Beneath the lid is a crown cap.

Utopia pours out a light caramel brown in color with no head. The beer is too high in alcohol to even hold a head. Even before putting the beer to our noses we can already smell the alcohol. Despite the high alcohol level of the beer, the Utopia had the most amazing aroma. It was a mix of caramel with maple syrup undertones as well as some oak notes, vanilla, slight spiciness and a walnut-like sherry character. Because of the volatility of the higher alcohol, the aroma never faded and remained strong long after the last drop ws consumed. It’s hard to nurse a 1-ounce pour but we all tried our hardest. The Utopia had the most amazing malt flavor that was composed of caramel, brandy, slight bourbon, walnut and sherry. You would think that a 27% beer would be a hot beer but that wasn’t the case. Instead, I was treated to a luxurious and velvety smooth mouthfeel with a noticeable but not hot or harsh alcohol warming. As I said, the beer is flat and it was about medium-high in body.

Utopia definitely did not disappoint. I would purchase a bottle, or more, of this beer just to hold on to for special occasions. I think this beer is that special and I only hope the positive experience I received carries onto every bottle. While I could drink this beer alone, this is definitely a beer worth sharing with good friends who can understand and appreciate this beer.

Happy Birthday again, John! Thanks for bringing out the Utopia and sharing with us. There are more pictures from his dinner that you can see on my Facebook page. Won’t you be my friend?

The National Homebrew Conference (NHC) is happening this week, running from Thursday (6/19) through Saturday (6/20). This event is not unlike many of the other conferences you may have attended for business, only it’s beer related. I will be attending NHC this year primarily because it’s in my backyard. Because I registered for the event months ago, I’ve had it out of my head until this week. But now that I’ve had the opportunity to take a look at the Conference Schedule, I’m pretty excited.

While registration will officially begin on Wednesday, the actual conference and sessions will not begin until Thursday. Here’s a tentative list of sessions I plan on attending.

Thursday

• Wood Aging with Matt Brynildson of Firestone Walker.
• Brewing Great German Lagers: Finding the perfect balance of traditional and modern techniques in your brewery with Michael Ferguson of BJ’s Restaurants.

Friday

• Great Brewery Tours Around the World: How to make the most of your beer travel experiences with Peter Symons
• Funkification: A 100% Brettanomyces Spontaneously Fermented Mind Dump with Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River.
• Mead Panel moderated by James Spencer with Charlie Papazian, Byron Burch, Curt Stock and Harold Culbransen
• Going Pro Panel moderated by Justin Crossley with Tomme Arthur, Vinnie Cilurzo, Sean O’Sullivan, John Pinkerton and Keith Lemcke

Saturday

• Troubleshooting Panel moderated by James Spencer wtih Tomme Arthur, Vinnie Cilurzo, Michael Ferguson and John Palmer.
• All About Proteins… or how to get great head retention and more with John Palmer
• Maintaining Ideal Yeast Health: Nutrients yeast need with Dr. Tobias Fischborn
• Chocolate and Beer with Timothy Childs
• Ingredients 5-10 with Tomme Arthur

This is just a tentative list and I may change what sessions I attend as I learn what each session will be about. I’m looking to learn a lot about brewing, the brewing industry, connect with fellow brewers and hopefully make meaningful connections with people. Here’s a link where you can view the rest of the speakers at the NHC.

As important as the actual sessions are, many attendees are mainly there for the social activities. Wednesday has a few pre-conference social experiences in the works, such as beer tours, MLB baseball game and a BJCP judge reception. Thursday night as the Pro-Brewers Night, which is basically a brew fest for homebrewers with many of the Bay Area local breweries, if not all, participating as well as breweries. Friday night features Club Night, where many local homebrew clubs get to show off their beers and skills. From what I’ve been hearing, none of the homebrew clubs I’m loosely affiliated with will be participating. Not sure why. Lastly, Saturday features a Grand Banquet and NHC Awards Ceremony. I’m hoping to have enough beer to have fun but not to much where I can’t remember all the good times. It’s a fine line that gets finer as I get older.

The Trappist

If you are a craft beer lover and have not yet visited the Trappist, you are missing out. I’ve written many posts in the past about this bar. They specialize in Belgian ale and have one of the best Belgian beer portfolios I have ever seen. They are my barometer by which I measure other Belgian beer bars really.

In honor of the NHC, the Trappist is having beer specials from Wednesday, June 17th through Sunday, June 21st where there will have ten special and rare beers on tap. Here’s the list:

• Cantillion Kriek, 100% Lambic, 5% ABV - $7/5 oz
• Allagash Hugh Malone, 8.5% ABV - $8/25 cl
• Allagash Confluence, 7.5% ABV - $8/25 cl
• Allagash Victor, 10.4% ABV - $8/25 cl
• Allagash Victoria, 9% ABV  - $8/25 cl
• Russian River Sanctification, 6.5% ABV - $8
• Russian River Mortification, 10% ABV - $8
• Russian River Consecration, 10% ABV - $10
• Russian River Perdition, 6.1% ABV - $6
• Russian River Benediction, 6.75% ABV - $8

In addition to serving all of those good beers, Duvel will be releasing Duvel Green on June 25th. Green is a “sessionable” Belgian golden ale that weighs in at only 6.8%. This is going to be an epic week of excellent beer. As I type this, I am getting more and more excited.

One last thing, BetterBeerBlog friends Beer by Bart, in conjunction with the Mad Zymgists, are holding a BJCP Beer 101 event where you can learn how to judge and appreciate beers similar to how a beer judge (like myself) would approach a beer. I helped them the last time they hosted this event and it was a blast and worth it. If they’re not yet sold out, you should check the event out. Here’s the registration page.

Without meaning to, this post got longer than expected. Thank you bullet points, ha! Anyway, if any of you will be attending, I’d love to meet up in between sessions, during lunch or at the various social events. You can contact me by leaving a message in the comments section and I’ll get back to you!

Hooray for beer!

The National Homebrew Competition, put on by the American Homebrewer’s Association, is one of the largest, if not the largest, international homebrew competition in the world. This year there were over 5000 entries and I signed up for my opportunity to judge some of the entries. Last year, this event was held at Devil’s Canyon Brewing Company in Burlingame. At the time, Sammy and I were both stewards at the competition but this year, I was a judge and she was a steward.

This year West Regionals were held at Lodi Beer Company in Lodi, California. From where I live, Lodi is about 1.5 hours away. With judging scheduled to start at 9:30am, Sammy and I were on the road by 7am. Even though it was a tough and long drive, we arrived in Lodi by 9am. I thought we were early but it would seem that half the judges were already there.

Lodi Beer Company is a very nice looking brewpub. Once you walk in through the front doors, you are greeted by two copper brew kettles. Surveying the dining area further, you can see all the beer-related artwork up on the brick walls. The artwork is of their regular beer styles, in label form, painted on their brick walls. There’s a lot of decorative iron work throughout as well as ornate woodwork. Judging was being held in a backroom that served as dining overflow, I think. Even though the brew kettles are visible in the front, I believe the actual brewing is done downstairs in their basement.

As a side note, the owners of the place are pretty good friends of BJCP Grandmaster Judge John Watson. From what John has told me, they all studied to be BJCP judge together. John went on to become a GrandMaster 2 judge while the owners decided they’d rather just make beer so they moved to Lodi and started a brewpub.

Running a competition of this size takes a lot of work and coordination. I’m probably forgetting a few people but here’s how a competition basically gets organized. There’s a competition organizer who organizes the entire event. There’s a site coordination that acts as a liason between the BJCP and the site of the competition judging. There’s a cellar master who handles and keeps the beers in optimal condition before and during the event. There are us judges who judge the homebrews, note our impressions and give feedback when applicable. Last but not least, there are the stewards who are lifeblood of the event. They take the beers to the judges and bring the beers back. They also pick up our scoresheets and double check our math. Without the stewards help, these competitions would run much, much more rough. Did I mention that all these people are volunteers? Yep, that’s right. None of us get any compensation for doing what we do. It’s all “for the love” and to help our fellow homebrewers improve their beers. Okay, I’m not being completely truthful, we do get some compensation in the form of food as Lodi Beer Company was kind enough to provide lunch for us as well as one free beer.

We were informed that we would be judging two flights of beers today. The first flight was to consist of at least 11-12 beers while the second afteroon flight would be about 5-6 beers. As I’ve found over the past year, judging usually happens in groups of 3. 3 is a good number of judges to have as the third judge is kinda like the “tie-breaker”. Because of the large number of entries in this competition, we were assigned into juding pairs. Some of the styles with a higher number of entries may have gotten 2 judging pairs but, for the most part, each style got a single judging pair. Unlike competitions in the past, all beers, regardless if we had passed them onto the Best of Show (BOS) round or not, were capped. This adjustment was implemented to preserve the beers further. Unlike other competitions, there a very limited number of bottles to go around so we had to be judicious with our samples.

We were assigned to judge various beer styles by the event coordinator. As names were being called out, I commented to a fellow judge that it seemed like we were getting drafted. To me, it felt like I was getting drafted into the NBA. You always want to get drafted into one of the more interesting styles, like Belgian Strong Ales or Sour Ales, and hoped to avoid other styles like American Lagers. I got “drafted” to judge the fruit beer category.

Fruit beers are an interesting bunch. A good fruit beer is an exercise in balance. You want to be able to taste the fruit in the beer without compromising the flavors or character of the base beer style. Some styles lend themselves to fruit additions better than others but in theory, all beer styles can have fruit added to them. Each judge is given a BJCP style guideline they can refer to during judging. The fruit beer style guideline basically says that a good fruit beer is balanced between the fruit character with the base beer character. As our judging group found out, this style guideline is woefully inadequate. Thankfully two of the judges brought their complete BJCP style guidelines for us to refer to. Considering that the beers we judged ranged from something as light as a Light American Lager all the way up to a Stout, these complete guidelines were a lifesaver.

Because none of the homebrewers have received their feedback yet, I don’t feel it would be appropriate to list the beers I had. I can say that the quality of beers a judge will be given is all about the luck of the draw. In my flight, the highest rated beer scored a 30. The other judging pair had a beers that scored 39.5, 37 and 33. I heard another judge say that for every high quality beer he had, had a corresponding bad beer. Unlike some of the other competitions I’ve judged, we all had to do a mini-BOS to decide what beers to pass onto the final round. Judging a BOS round is much easier than normal as we don’t have to re-score the beers. Judges take all the beers on the table and pretty much decide what beer best exemplifies the style, at least for a style BOS.

After our lunch break, I was reassigned to a different group. This time, I was drafted to judge Smoke and Wood-Aged beers. As with fruit beers, Smoke and Wood-Aged beers can have a wide variety. In this afternoon flight, we had 25 beers to judge, thankfully there were 4 judging pairs so the workload was equally distributed. My afternoon flight was much better than my morning flight but a lot of that had to do with the beer style versus the quality of beers. I think the highest rated beer of the afternoon for me scored about 33. As with the morning, the judging pair to my left had quite a number of good beers. The one thing that I found was a problem with judging this style was that some of the brewers didn’t list a base beer style for which we should be judging against. As per the rules, homebrewers were supposed to list what special ingredients they used. Some beers had just about everything listed except the base beer style. This makes judging difficult as we can say the beer was pretty good but at the same time, we could be judging from an incorrect premise. At the end of the day, we have to judge the beer on its own merits and truthfully, you can usually tell what the base beer is, well kind of anyway.

As with the fruit beers, smoke and wood-aged beers are difficult to make as well. Balance is a key, more so for wood-aged beers than smoked beers. Just like the fruit, you want to avoid the wood character from becoming dominant while trying to put enough in to be noticeable in the first place. Wood-aged beers are also interesting in that people add a bunch of different stuff in their beers to augment certain flavors. While I have no problem with this practice, I must say that balance is key. Personally, I like these secondary flavors to be a background note to the base beer style. Think of them as layers of complexity that are pulled back as the beer is allowed to warm and grow in sophistication. While it’s nice to notice things right off the bat, it’s also cool to discover things as you go along.

At the end of my second flight, I finally had the opportunity to cash in my one, free drink ticket for a Lodi beer. All throughout the day I have been surveying my fellow judges about the quality of the “house” beers. Unfortunatey I have to say reviews have been mixed. Some of the better beers were met with reserved praise (as in, “okay”, “eh” and “drinkable”) while the worst were generally noted to have some sort of defect or two or three. I ordered a doppelbock. Simply put a doppelbock is going to have a complex malt character and be very clean, meaning, it has no esters (fruit character). The malt character may be toasty but roasted is inappropriate. My doppelbock poured out like a soda. It sat in my pint glass with no head and a few bubbles clinging desperately to the side of the glass. It was essentially flat. While the beer was malty, it had a noticeable roasted malt character and a tart sourness in the finish. All who tried it agreed that it wasn’t a good example of the style. From what I’ve heard throughout the day, Lodi Beer Company were having some issues with “critters” but were able to get everything cleaned out to spec. I guess we were on the last couple of barrels  of the old stuff.

Sammy ordered the house framboise and liked it. It had the right color, flavor and tartness. Nothing mind-blowing but pretty good. In fact, I think most judges that day ordered the framboise. The one thing you can count on with a group of beer judges is that if there’s a good beer in the house, word spreads fast. As with many breweries I’ve had poor, initial experiences with, I will be visiting Lodi Beer Company again in the hopes that these out-of-style beers were just flukes. Call me a bleeding heart for being so forgiving but I like to try and support craft brewers.

I would like to say that, overall, judging at the NHC West Regionals was a very good experience. I would like to thank Lodi Beer Company for allowing us to judge at their location. The food they served for us was good and we all appreciate it. Once things got going, the actual judging itself went smoothly after working out a few early hiccups. This is a testament to the stewards and organizing staff for keeping things going like a machine. Lastly, I’d just like to say to any homebrewer who is getting back a scoresheet from either myself or another judge. The BJCP is primarily an all-volunteer organization. My wife and I drove 1.5 hours up and back of our own accord and on our own dime to help support the homebrewing community. In fact, most of us did. We do this because we all love beer and we all would like to see the quality of homebrewing increase. Please keep this in mind when you receive your scoresheets. I can’t speak for any other judge but I do my best to give the most accurate and complete feedback I can get. This includes suggestions for improvement. I put my email on each and every scoresheet so feel free to email me, or any other BJCP judge, with any questions you may have.

It’s rare for me to get up early on Saturday mornings. It’s enough that I have to get up early during the week for work, I don’t want to do so during my weekends. But today I made an exception. Of course, it’s beer related.

Sammy and I got up at at 7am to get ready to head over to Santa Cruz to take the BJCP exam. She had initially planned to take the BJCP exam but after failing miserably on the practice, she decided against it. As a BJCP judge, you are always welcome to retake that test to improve your ranking at a reduced price. As an added bonus for passing the first time, you can choose which part you want to take; the tasting or the written. Seeing as I haven’t really studied, I opted for the tasting portion.

Santa Cruz Ale Works was kind enough to open up the brewery and allow us to take the exam there. I had the opportunity to try their beers for the first time on Saturday. I will end up doing a Beer in Review on them at a later date but I will say that I enjoyed their pale ale and IPA. I think it’s always cool when pro-brewers open up their places for home brewers. Many pros often start out as home brewers and it’s great when they can share their professional experiences.

I’ve written about taking the BJCP exam before but I’ll paraphrase again. Taking the BJCP exam is an exercise in brute force memorization. The successful exam taker will be able to memorize a great deal of information (various beer styles) and build relationships between their sub-styles. The successful exam taker will have taken the practice exams to get used to writing things by hand. Computers make us a little dumb when it comes to writing things down but let me tell you first hand that your hands will cramp after writing for 3 hours straight.

With regards to the tasting portion, there is no substitute for experience. Doing well is a matter of learning the major points of each style. You have to train your palette to discern the flaws from the good stuff. The most important aspect of being a beer judge is to make recommendations to the home brewer as to how they can improve their beers. More often than not, home brewers enter their beers not because they’re looking to win but because they’re looking for feedback from their trained peers. It’s the feedback that home brewers really look for when they get their scores back. Once you’re familiar with a style, it’s pretty easy to figure out which is a good beer. The hard part is trying to figure out what’s wrong, if anything at all, and how to fix it.

I will be honest in saying that my tasting skills have been improved but it will be a lifelong effort to improve. There are some flavors I am still learning to recognize, there are still many flaws I am still learning to discern. I am constantly learning about home brewing and the brewing process so that I can give accurate feedback to those people I judge. In any event, I hope I did well enough to improve my ranking within the BJCP.

Below are some pics from the event. As always, let me know if you have any questions regarding anything I’m writing about. I will do my best to answer them and if I can’t find the answer myself, I’ll do my best to find out for you.

Saturday was supposed to be a very busy day for us. It still ended up being pretty busy, just not in the way I had originally planned. Sammy and I were supposed to start our day over at the Firken Festival at Triple Rock. We had gone last year and had a good time so we put it on the calendar again this year. Well, we didn’t make it there. At the last minute, I changed up our plans so that we could hit up this new… landscape/garden store that had its grand opening on Saturday. Sammy is a big fan of garden so I thought I’d surprise her by taking her there. She’s always doing beer stuff with me and I thought I’d return the favor. Of course it doesn’t hurt that I’m into gardening stuff as well.

We then made the trek up to Berkeley for the 2009 World Cup after party. As with last year, Trumer Pils was the spot for the after party. Judging took place inside of their keg warehouse while the majority of the festivities took place outside. The weather was awesome, sunny with a slight breeze, that having the party anywhere but outside would’ve been a crime. I’m not sure if they did it again this year but last year, we got a tour of the brewery. That was fun. From what I’ve been hearing, Trumer Pils (Berkeley) recently beat out a lot of the traditional German Pils breweries for best Pilsner. Good to see that world-class examples of a traditional European style are being made domestically.

We were running a little late and thought we were going to miss out on some of the homebrewed beer as well as the results but it looked like we were just in time. When Sammy and I went last year, I was taking the BJCP study group with John Watson the first time around. As a result, we knew almost no one there. This year it’s almost like night and day. We knew a lot more people this time around, the majority of them BJCP judges as well. The judging community is fairly small. After sometime, you start to see the same faces at each competitions. Some of the larger competitions become reunion-type affairs as judges will come from all over the state (or even out of state).

Some of the familiar faces we saw ended up placing in a couple of categories. It’s good to see the people we know be rewarded for their hard work by a placing in their respective categories. While it’s always nice to hear from people that they like your beer, it’s especially rewarding to have that honor bestowed to you by a group of your peers. I would liken it to the NBA All-Star game. The 5 starters are voted in by the fans (popularity contest), which is cool, but the reserves are voted in by coaches. I’d rather be voted in by the coaches as these are the people who know something about something.

What’s cool about World Cup is that if you win (or place) here, you not only get a ribbon (standard for most competitions) but you also get an extra set of prizes. This year saw t-shirts and/or hats as well as beer glassware and growlers. While this may not seem like a lot, the majority of these prizes have been furnished/donated by local breweries and homebrew shops. World Cup is one of the larger homebrew competitions but it’s always nice to get a little something extra.

Sammy and I ended the day by taking a slight detour to Cactus Jungle, just a few blocks from Trumer. Despite the look and feel of the website, the plants most available at Cactus Jungle were cacti and succulents. That didn’t stop us from picking up a few herbs, tomatoes and ornamental plants as well.

So the day didn’t go as planned, big deal. The most important part was that Sammy and I enjoyed ourselves. We each got to do something we both enjoyed.