Be a Beer Judge for a Day [General]

2012 Feb 3
Members of Barleyment / Beaus Pro-Am Homebrew Competition

In conjunction with Beaus Brewery we are holding a homebrew competition on Saturday April 14th, 2012, at Beaus Brewery

The grand prize winner will get to brew a batch of beer at Beaus!

It is a closed competition for Members of Barleyment only. But the general public gets to play beer judge!

This first event will be a limited competition of the following styles :

- APA / IPA - each brewer can submit one entry of either APA or IPA. Each will be judged against its own BJCP guidelines, and the highest points scored of all entires in this category will win $150 in gift certificates from Beaus. (BJCP styles 14ABC, 10A)

- Light Hybrid Ale - each brewer can submit one entry from any of the styles in this category, and each will be judged against its own BJCP guidelines, with the overall winner getting a $150 gift certificate from Beaus (BJCP 6ABCD)

- People's Choice Award - the general public will be encouraged to take part in judging beers. A person will get 2 samples from a given category and will be asked "which do you like best". The beer with the most thumbs-up will be the winner of $150 in Beaus gift certficates

OK, but who gets to brew the beer?

The top 2 winners from each of those categories will go into a Best of Show competition, to be judged according to the BJCP rules for that. And the winner of BoS gets to brew at Beaus!

OK, but what if I live in Newfoundland and win?

Beaus will gladly provide up to $500 in transportation costs to any winner who happens to be from afar. I'm sure volunteers from the MoB are good for the rest - I'll kick in $20 to start you out :-)

So ... get brewing!

Anyone doing BJCP training - we need you to judge! No, this first one in April won't get you BJCP points because it won't be a sanctioned event. This first one is a "practice event" for us :-) But the winner still gets a pretty awesome prize!

Let the games begin!

Full rules to follow

Beau's All Natural Brewing Company
Vankleek Hill, ON

2012 Feb 3
Can I just say that I love this plan...because I enjoy creative competition.

I think maybe it's high time that I started drinking beer.
My family is from Bremen and it's criminal that I do not. :)
Even as a non-drinker, when Beck's was sold to Interbrew, it pierced my heart.

Good luck with the event.


2012 Feb 3
Good God that sounds like a good one on Beau's part - mine the faithful beer drinkers for hidden talent! I hope it's a resounding success, and further, I hope I get to enjoy the results of the competition.

Reminds me of one of the tasty beers I bought last spring from a similar event: Garrison Brewing's 3rd annual Ultimate Brew-Off - the winning Tilford's NiT-WiT Belgian-Style Wheat.

2012 Feb 3
I think my favourite thing about Beaus (aside from the taste of the sweet sweet beer) is their sense of fun and creativity. A business owned by people who so clearly love what they do and are always coming up with new ideas to promote themselves/beer/craft brewing....

2012 Feb 3
wow maybe beau's will finally brew some good consistent beer with the new recipe from the winner!

sorry I find them highly overrated.....maybe spend a little less on marketing hype and more on brewing consistency.

2012 Feb 3
They don't want to be consistent krusty, Steve has said that many times. Sorry but I have to thumbs-down you because I think their beer is fantastic and I don't say that easily especially for something as main stream as Lug Tread.

Consistency is what you get when you brew in a laboratory not a brewery. Roughly paraphrasing Steve (and I agree)

You should sign back up to the list and enter a beer ...

2012 Feb 3
I don't mind a thumbs down at all! When you have quality issues you need consistency. There have been many a pint I have sent back since they started.

I appreciate diversity of recipes but when you have product that goes off much more frequent than other beers on tap I am suspect. Am certainly not alone on this one.

To each there own....but my $$ goes elsewhere at this point. As for entering....IPA/APA is not something I am consistent in brewing. Now if it was for a great authentic German lager or English bitter I would be tempted :)

2012 Feb 3
Going off is another issue. I think that is a general problem with filtering and then not pasteurising. I've had exactly 1 Beaus that was off and I reported it to them, gave them the serial number off the bottle, and they traced back the root cause and make sure it would not happen again. They gave me some free samples to compensate and I was happy. Though Nicklebrook gave me a whole 24 free samples when I reported their beer was off :-)

Anyway, small brewers are generally pretty happy when you report off beers to them, because it helps them trace issues like this and eliminate them.

2012 Feb 17
OK, the official rules are finally up, and FAQ

docs.google.com

If anyone wants to volunteer to help run the competition send me a PM and I'll hook you up.

Some of you may even qualify to judge if you want - Brian Mc I'm looking at you. But you'll have to familiarize yourself with the BJCP styles (2008) if you are not already

www.bjcp.org

We are only doing 6ABCD and 14ABC and 10A

2012 Apr 10
Just FYI the public component of this competition is unfortunately cancelled due to restrictive alcohol regulations in Ontario. Simply put, there is no way to get a license to do what we wanted to do.

But the main part of the competition is still on with our brew club. and the winner still gets to brew a batch of beer commercially at Beaus!

I'll post a follow up after the competition on Saturday with details on the winner.

2012 Apr 15
What a fantastic day yesterday!




2012 Apr 15
Wow, someone thumbs-downed my videos? Fresh Foodie, can you create one for middle-finger up? :-)

Here are some shots of the judging at Beaus yesterday