Beer Apostles

Yesterday was our first official Homebrew Competition. We had four brewers enter five beers (one guy entered two, just for feedback), and had two different voting situations, allowing for two homebrew champions. The first, official voting system involved multiple judges all using the oficial BJCP beer scoring sheers and a few copies of the BJCP style guidelines were available so that judges could compare the beer that were entered to their official stylistic guidelines. The second voting system was for everyone at the event to participate in, and was essentially a popular vote. Everyone ranked their top three favorite brews, in order.

In typical Beer Apostle fashion, the two winners of the competition were, of course, the Beer Apostles. Jordan won the first voting system, with Will sweeping the popular vote. Jordan’s German Maibock was brewed intentionally darker than a traditional golden maibock. The color was a caramel brown, with a malty sweetness and a noticeable alcohol content. The taste was slightly buttery, malty, and finished fairly clean. It had a nice, tall white head and sat well in the glass.

Will entered an all-grain, dry-hopped, amber ale.  The amber ale was hopped slightly more than the typical amber ale with is’s IBU falling in the 45 range rather than the typical 20-40 range for Amber Ales.  The brew was hopped with Cascade for bittering, Centenial for Flavor, and Fuggles for aroma.  After 10 days in the fermenter, an extra ounce of cascade hops were added, creating a complex hop aroma.  The complex aroma was evident, but the beer went down smooth and was not overly bitter.  This combination proved to be pleasing as it ranked highest in popular vote.  The way the popular vote worked at the competition went as follows: all participants at the contest drinking and tasting the beers put their favorites in rank order based on any criteria they deemed most important.  That could be that the beer followed the style guidelines best, the beer was the most drinkable to them, they thought the beer was something they would purchase, or simply that the beer was more tolerable than the others.  having the two rating criteria made the contest more interesting and allowed us to shine in different areas, proving to be an overall success.

We plan on having another Brew Off soon, this time with all entrants required to brew the same style beer. So, if you’re interested in joining us in our quest for the best brew, e-mail us at theapostles@beerapostles.com and we’ll get you on the list!

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