Anybody else coming to today's festivities? It was a blast last year. Let's see: great beer, homebrew vendors, a raffle with great prizes, getting to go into the brewery and get your bucket filled with wort. And then - a hotdog eating contest(I took down 6-1/2 dogs last year). Plus, it is all followed up by taking the wort home and brewing - What could possibly be a better day than that? I am leaving shortly to go down there and get in line. Signup starts at 11, wort pickup starts at 1.

I was out there, been there all 3 years. Planning a tart saison for this years wort. Didn't do well in the hot dog eating contest... only downed 4.3 dogs.

4.3 dogs is not a great showing - but hey, 4.3 free hot dogs and a T-shirt? Pretty sweet deal. I have been in the hotdog eating contest the past 2 years, but unfortunately I couldn't his year. I had to get home and brew cause I was leaving for Grand Rapids in a few hours. It was a great time, though. I won one of the raffle drawings and got a Blichmann Brewmometer, some cleaning stuff, and a carboy hauler. The best prize left when I was called was a beer gun, but I already have one. Plus I'm making a new mash tun soon so I would have been buying a thermometer anyway. For my contest beer I made a rich brown ale with some smoked malt. I only used half the Bell' wort though, so today I'm brewing a small batch with just that stuff and I'm going to pick a single hop to use in it. I'm curious how just the base wort they gave us tastes.

yeah I can't brew until Tuesday. Pitched a handful of grains in the wort while still at Bells. The lacto has been working ever since. Got it on heat now.

I got an email today stating my beer had made it to the final table of judging. Not sure what that means.... Final table could still be 100 beers. Saturday nov 3rd is the aha Homebrew day and our club has Phil Sullivan coming out so I'm not sure ill be up to making the drive to bells on Sunday. Ugh. I want to go so bad though, especially if black note gets tapped!

I got the same email, and was also wondering exactly how many beers made the "final table". I'm thinking it's probably not many, I don't think they would want to have too many to choose between on the final judging. Plus, I'm encouraged by the wording of the last sentence of the email: "..come grab a stout and celebrate your victory with us on Sunday!" So maybe only those who actually placed got the email? Maybe just hopeful thinking. Besides you and I, there is one other person who I've heard that got the email. I'll be at the store getting some grains tomorrow, I'll see if I can find anything out. And as for the black note, I'm pretty sure they will have some Sunday. A friend of mine is the beer manager at the cafe and I think I remember him telling me he had some saved to be on tap for all stouts day. Hope you can make it, and hope one of us has cause to celebrate!

Just got back from the store, I was told only 10 beers made it to the final table. So if you got the email you were in the top ten, pretty good. Besides the winner who gets to brew at Bell's, the 2nd and 3rd place finishers get gift certificates to the store - not sure for how much though. And there will be some black note on tap, as well as some barrel aged kalamazoo stout and some nitro taps. Can't wait.

My smoked brown ale took 3rd. Not bad out of 127 entries. I got a $50 gift card to the general store, good thing I held off on that blichmann burner I almost picked up last week. Man did I want to brew at Bell's though. The winner was a black Belgian Rye IPA brewed by another HBT member, "HopRodGR".

Congrats on taking 3rd place!!! A great accomplishment.