I don’t know if I mentioned this or not (and if I didn’t it was a huge mistake on my part) but way back in July, Sean Sweeney of the St. Louis Brews Homebrewing club, got a chance to brew his award winning Dubbel at Buffalo Brewing with Dave Johnson. Well, Dave has informed me that another local homebrewer and frequent STL Hops commenter Sam Huff will have the opportunity to brew his American Brown Ale at Buffalo as well.

Recently Bottoms Up Brewhouse held a homebrew competition with the grand prize of having your beer on tap at Bottom’s Up. Sam entered his American Brown Ale and won, so now he’s working with Dave to switch his extract recipe to all-grain to have it brewed on Buffalo’s system. After the beer is done it will be available not only at Bottoms Up but a small amount will hopefully be available at Buffalo as well. As soon as the beer has been released, I’ll make sure to let everyone know. Congrats to Sam!

I mentioned in last Friday’s Round-Up that I was participating in a couple of firsts in my short homebrewing career. I was entering my beer for the first time into a competition and I was judging in a homebrew competition for the first time ever. I was a little nervous leading up to the competition. I mean, who am I to judge someone else’s beer? But I was reassured that it’s good practice and all judges had to start somewhere.

First a little background on how a homebrew competition works. Each brewer enters their beer into the competition based on Beer Judge Certification Program’s (BJCP) style guidelines. (The BJCP is kind of a controversial entity for some in the beer world, but that’s another topic all together.) The judges then use the style guideline to determine if the beer submitted fits into the category. Beers are awarded points via five different components: Aroma (12 points), Appearance (3 points), Taste (20 points), Mouth Feel (5 points) and Overall Impression (10 points.) Here’s the score sheet for my Southern English Brown to give you a look at the judging process.

Read the rest…

I know this is a bit of a repeat post, but I want to make sure to get the word out. If you’re interested in getting some feedback on some of your beers, a homebrewing competition is the best place to get it. Lucky for you there is a local competition coming up soon.

The Happy Holiday Homebrew Competition is the St. Louis Brews annual homebrew competition. It is a fully sanctioned AHA and BJCP event. This year it will be held on December 8, 2007.

The location of the competition & banquet is the Annunciation Church in Webster Groves, located at 12 West Glendale Road, just South of Hwy. 44 on Elm Avenue. Here is a link to a map. We are proud to be the final qualifying event for the Tenth Annual Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing.

2 bottles per entry
Fee is $6.00 per entry

Please register on the web with a valid email address. The registration page will have all the details of where to send the entries. Local dropoff will be at the local homebrew shops.

Scoresheets will be scanned and emailed back to the brewer by the next day. Currently this is the only competition that I know that scans and emails scoresheets for quick feedback to the brewer.

At this point I believe I’m entering a Belgian Wit, Robust Porter, Vanilla Robust Porter and a Scottish 80. With the exception of the Belgian Wit, these are all brand new styles for me to brew. This is a perfect opportunity to see how close I came to the style.

This one is for all of those homebrewers out there. If you’re looking to get some honest feedback on your beer, a homebrew competition is the best place to start. They’re going to give you informative feedback that can only help to improve your beer. Dan Stauder of the St. Louis Brews forwarded information on to me about this year’s competition:

The Happy Holiday Homebrew Competition is the St. Louis Brews annual homebrew competition. It is a fully sanctioned AHA and BJCP event. This year it will be held on December 8, 2007.

The location of the competition & banquet is the Annunciation Church in Webster Groves, located at 12 West Glendale Road, just South of Hwy. 44 on Elm Avenue. Here is a link to a map. We are proud to be the final qualifying event for the Tenth Annual Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing.

2 bottles per entry
Fee is $6.00 per entry

Please register on the web with a valid email address. The registration page will have all the details of where to send the entries. Local dropoff will be at the local homebrew shops.

Scoresheets will be scanned and emailed back to the brewer by the next day. Currently this is the only competition that I know that scans and emails scoresheets for quick feedback to the brewer.

I plan on entering a few beers this year just to get some feedback (and if they’re good enough maybe win an award.) If you’re a homebrewer I would strongly suggest that you do the same!