I have been brewing at the fastest sustained clip over the last few months since I started brewing. The main reasons have been two-fold – 1. I literally only had about three bottles of homebrew that were ready for everyday drinking 2. Competition season is very rapidly approaching. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been brewing beers just for the sake of competitions – in fact, I have brewed a lot of beers that have meant a lot to me. However, I love to have as many beers ready for competition as I can. Competitions are fantastic opportunities to gain valuable feedback on your beers from trained judges. They really are a great way to push yourself as a brewer and improve. And, hey, competitions are good way to use my favorite hobby to satisfy my competitive streak. :-)
That being said, it seems like a crazy amount of homebrewing competitions take place in my area in the first half of the year, culminating in June, during Philly Beer Week. I already have several competitions in my sights for the next few months.
War of the Worts
This February will be my first year competing in the War of the Worts, hosted by Keystone Hops. I have heard that it is one of the largest competitions in the area, making it a great place to really see how my brews stack up against the rest of the pack. I ended up entering six beers in the competition – Bulldog Brew (rye amber), Chipotle Ale, my Ruination clone, and all three of the Streetlight beers. I am hoping they all do well, but I have the highest hopes for the three Streetlight beers. The final judging for this competition is this weekend and should be a really fun time. This will also be the first time that Theresa will be able to make it to one of my competitions, so it will be a lot fun to have her along with me and show her what homebrew competitions are all about! Theresa’s cousin Stacy, and her husband Jeremy, will also be going to the competition since Jeremy is a homebrewer too and has entered the competition. It will be will great to see them and hang out!
NHC
The National Homebrew Competition is the big one for American homebrewers. The registration for this is coming up quick, and I am thinking I may enter all of the beers that I enter in the War of the Worts (depending on how they score at War of the Worts), plus my hefeweizen, Theresa’s Ale. This competition is so big that they have the first round judged at ten regional judging locations, where the top beers for each category from each location move on to the final round at the AHA National Homebrewers Conference in June. To say that this is the big leagues of homebrewing, is kind of an understatement. I’ll be pretty ecstatic if any of beers even make it past the first round.
Battle of the Homebrew Shops
New this year, the Battle of the Homebrew Shops is a competition that is being sponsored by Philly Beer Scene, and is planned to be an annual competition. This one sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun. Basically, each brewer enters a beer with their respective local homebrew shop, and the best two beers from each shop from the first round move on to the final round, where they will be judged in June, during Philly Beer Week. The first round is pretty open – the only rule is that it has to be 4.5% ABV or lower (in other words, a session beer). The entries from each shop will be traded with another shop, where the beers will be judged. The top two brewers from each shop will move on to the second round, where the brewers will be given a pound of coffee from a local supplier to brew a beer with the coffee. Here’s the twist – no stouts or porters (the two most logical styles to do with coffee) will be allowed. The judges will basically be looking to see who can pull off the most creative beer they can, while still producing a great beer. In other words, a good blonde ale brewed with coffee would have a better chance at winning than an amazing brown ale. The winning brewer wins a bunch of prizes, plus the homebrew shop that the brewer represents wins the trophy for the year and gets the shop name engraved on it. It should be a lot of fun to see the friendly rivalry develop between the different homebrew shops in the area. I am planning on entering Theresa’s Ale in the first round.
BUZZ Off
I am planning on entering the BUZZ Off competition (Hosted by BUZZ Homebrew Club) again this year. This is another BJCP open competitions, similar to the War of the Worts. Last year’s competition was the first competition that I entered, and I even managed to walk away with First Place in the English Pale Ales category for a beer that I brewed with my friend Keith. I am not sure what I am going to enter in this competition yet (this one will probably be in May sometime I am guessing) – I’ll have to see what I have that’s ready when we get closer to competition.
Commercial Breweries’ Competitions
There are also a couple competitions a little further out that are being sponsored by local breweries. Triumph Brewery (in Old City) is going to be bringing back their homebrew competition that they did last year in conjunction with the Preston and Steve Show. This competition was a blast last year and turned out to be a fun networking opportunity with other brewers. The winner of the competition gets to brew a beer with Triumph on their system. I’m not quite sure what I am going to enter in this competition, but I am leaning towards entering a re-vamped version of Angry Rhino (a Black IPA), which I entered in this competition last year.
Boxcar Brewing Company is planning on hosting their first annual homebrew competition this year. The details haven’t been fully released yet, but it sounds like the winning brewer will be brewing a beer with Boxcar to be served during Philly Beer Week (see what I mean when I say that competition season culminates with Philly Beer Week?), which would lead me to believe that the competition would be sometime in the next 2 -3 months.
As you can see, I’ll have my hands full with a bunch of competitions coming up. I just brewed up an imperial stout that will be fermenting for the next couple months before it is bottled and conditioned (more on the imperial stout in a future post). This will probably be my last beer that I do on my own for a bit. I’ve been brewing at a pretty fast clip for my time and capacity constraints, so I need to take a little bit of break from brewing on my own. In the mean time, my hands will be full with competitions and brewing and planning a couple collaborations with a couple of my buddies. Now that I have several different beers ready for competition, and my homebrew stock is more than caught up, it will be nice to experiment around a little. Until next time, cheers!
Song of the Day: “Wrong Company” by Flogging Molly
Beer of the Day: Victory Brewing Company’s Headwaters Pale Ale
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