Two different beer contests, two entirely different weekends, both great.
Sue Smith
This time, some weeks ago, I was recovering from an exhausting two days of judging beers in Tallahassee for the first round of the AHA Nationals to be held later this year in Michigan. Several of our members, including Mark, are going to go up for that and plan to stay with Ed Wolfe, past Hogtown Brewer and instigator of turning us all into BJCP judges. I am a little jealous that I will not be among those going. If the quality of beers from the rest of the country compares to the quality of those we sent on, it will be a beer judge heaven. I judged all the Belgian Ales, including the Wits. Those were some really nice bold beers. I judged all the Fruit beers and was surprised to find all of them of such quality that none received less that a 30 (out of a maximum of 44 points) on the rating sheet. Included in this batch was raspberry oatmeal stout that was like biting into a cordial. About the time your tongue broke through the smooth roasty malt of the stout, the raspberry took over, like breaking through the chocolate surrounding the center. I discovered its creator in Orlando and have been promised a recipe to be posted in a later newsletter. Of course there was a down side. I judged half of the herb/vegetable beers and only one rated as high as a 30, a Belgian Ale with sweet potatoes. There was a spruce/sage beer that was reminiscent of Pine Sol. Nothing subtle about that one. But, the disappointments are far fewer than the surprises. I judged the Northern German Pilsners and got to taste one of the finest beers I have ever had. There were over 400 beers to judge, so we were at it hard all day Saturday and Sunday until mid-afternoon. I was sure glad Mark was driving when we left. I don't think I recuperated until the following weekend. I know I was in no mood to go to Orlando to help out with pre-judging.
The Sunshine Challenge in Orlando this past weekend was more party/festival. They had over 600 beers entered, but they started judging the weekend before and also Friday afternoon, before we could get there, so there was a lot less to do. Good thing, because they offered a lecture in the morning that most of the judges attended and a pub crawl that afternoon that only left a small number of us to do second round judging. That was the most fun. All the marginal and bad beers are gone. Just the 7-8 best of category are placed in front of you and you don't have to rate them or write anything. Just pick the first, second and third place beer. It was especially fun during awards, knowing you picked the winners and seeing who made the beers you really liked best. I did the second round of the sour beers and had a difficult choice on placing. We finally agreed to give the Oud Bruin first place and a Geuze second. The Oud Bruin was the most complex beer I have ever had the pleasure of drinking. It had more complex flavors than an Old Peculiar and esters that would embarrass a wit bier. It changed while it sat in your mouth. The Geuze was as good as the St Louis Geuze we got in all those kegs a while back. I really wanted to catch these two brewers in particular, but they left before I could catch them. If only I could brew something this spectacular. I was much less impressed with the stouts, one of which must have had that rare single bottle contamination, because it was phenolic to the max. Not one of them compared to Wayne's. I bet the people who judged the first round are among those who think that Guinness is just not roasty enough to be a dry stout, despite the fact the style was based on it. They seemed to be too harsh, and the foreign extra was wimpy, and shouldn't have been. Ray Badowski's friend, Steve, from the Orlando club, walked off with first and second in the meads.
Best of all, we got to meet a whole lot of new people, including a contingent of brewers from the Nethoppers in Dallas, Texas. Did I mention they are from Texas??? Their club president, Dave Dixon, was the creator of the aforementioned raspberry stout and they took home quite a few prizes. We also met the famous/infamous Wes and Nancy Sampson, of the Central Florida Home Brewers. They enter around 50 beers in each contest, so they win a lot of ribbons by sheer quantity. Beer contests are their life, but the trophy for most points went to Jeff Gladish of Tampa Bay. Jeff is responsible for running the judging at the State Fair. He is also very active as a judge and attended both contests in Tallahassee as well as the Sunshine Challenge. Wish he were a Hogtown Brewer so we could sample his beers. One of our Monster Mash beers did win second place in light ales, probably the one with Saaz, since the name entered on it was Dave Williams. Boy was he surprised to hear his name called. Mark entered the beer in his name. There was a raffle of two tables full of booty donated by various companies; pounds and pounds of malt, hops, dollies for carting carboys, shirts, glassware. Of course nobody at the Hogtown Brewers table won anything, but we all got a large bag of hops as a consolation prize plus the judges got a couple of small bags of hops and a tee shirt. Guess I have to take up brewing now that I have all those hops.