The Results Are In!

Last week I had a couple of homebrew club events. The first being our monthly BJCP style session at The Old Toad, this month featuring...

Category 12: Porter

An awesome beer in an awesome-r bottle!

The Porter category is broken down into 3 sub categories, and Thomas, one of our BJCP gurus did an awesome job of sourcing some great examples of each.

12-A: Brown Porter

• Old-Style Porter by St. James Brewery
• Taddy Porter by Samuel Smith
• Entire Butt English Porter by Salopian Brewery
• London Porter by Meantime Brewing

12-B: Robust Porter

• Porter by Sierra Nevada
• Bully! Porter by Boulevard Brewing
• New World Porter by Avery Brewing
• Bad Elmers Porter by Upland Brewing

12-C: Baltic Porter

• Baltika #6 Porter by Baltika
• Porteris by Aldaris
• Gonzo Imperial Porter by Flying Dog

After all those great porters, it was time to get some sleep because we had our UNYHA meeting the next day and I was ready to get my scoresheets from our annual competition!

I'd entered two beers in the UNYHA competition, both in category 16. 16-A Witbier and 16-B Belgian Pale Ale, and they both did pretty good. I was hoping for a little higher score, but I was pretty happy for my first time entering a competition.

Cover sheet for my judging notes

Both of my beers scored a 26 out of a perfect possible score of 50, which puts them in the range of "Good" beers. I was hoping to push a little closer to 30, but theres always next year! Most of the feedback I got on the beers was pretty good. They both were a little stale and oxidized, most likely due to the fact that these brews were about 4 months old at the time of the competition. They both also lacked a little head retention, which is something I've noticed about them and need to tweak my recipes.   Overall though, the judges seemed to think these beers were going in the right direction, just a few more tweaks needed. As a comparison, I think the beer that won my category scored a 32 or a 32.5, so I wasn't too far behind! Not too bad for a first effort!

With my scoresheets in tow, and some sanitizer that I picked up for helping steward the competition, it was time to head home, and to Columbus, Ohio for my annual concert weekend with my Brother-in-Law Andrew. We skipped the beers at the concert ($8 Bud Lights...no thanks!) but picked up some more Ohio beers at the carry-out by his house. It was a great beer week and I brought a few great beers back to Rochester with me!

Cheers!