With November coming to a close, I thought I would put up a quick post about the homebrewing competition scoresheets I got back from the NERHBC.
Pretty middle of the road scores as you can see from the photo above. The Oktoberfest did place but it is always interesting to see what scores and comments you get back.
Beers that did well in a previous competition got lower marks this time around.
Beer that I thought weren’t that great received some positive remarks.
Beers with a higher scores than the Oktoberfest didn’t place at all. It comes down to competition in the category, I guess.
Anyway, next year it’s all about brewing more and submitting more.
Chris
I am going to enter in the next competition around my area. I don’t care about a medal at this point, just some feed back from judges. Since I don’t know any local homebrewers, I think I need a point of view besides my own.
chris
I started judging this year and it opened my eyes. I limited my judging to styles i know inside out (Ales, Stouts, Octoberfest). It was actually much easier than anticipated as the majority of faulty beer had major flaws. When it came to deciding the top three often it was easy to pick the winner but it was a lottery as to who got silver and who got bronze. One plight of beer had 50% infection! Amazing.
Still I got enough insight to know what to do in 2012…..don’t enter the stout category as there are so many subdivisions you can score a 40 but still not make the cut. Also, perfect your recipe. My special bitter scored 38, 39.5 and then 40 in three consecutive competitions. Each time i tweaked it and took into consideration the judges comments and finally I won a lovely bier stein. Second also, doing something to make your beer stand out will fool novice judges but not experienced ones so you can tweak your beer depending on the level of competition.
I’m looking forward to 2012 and I’m focusing on two styles: Strong Bitter and Special Bitter. Then i’m entering national competitions in 2013.
Here’s to next year, cheers!