Anyone Submitting Beers For The LA County Fair?

The deadline for submitting to the Los Angeles County Fair is next Friday, July 20, 2007. Entry fee is $7 per entry (one entry is 3 bottles). Luckily for me, my LHBS is a drop off location. I'm going to enter a few, I just need to decide what. Here's my possible list:

#33 Old Helicon Barleywine 2006
#35 Belgian Dubbel
#39 Vienna Lager
#41 777 Rye IPA
#42 Fat Tuba Pale Ale
#43 Kolsch

So I'm submitting five:

Old Helicon Barleywine
Belgian (Belgian Style Strong, Dark Ale)
Vienna Lager (Oktoberfest)
777 Rye IPA (Experimental and Specialty Beer)
Kolsch

We'll see results in a few weeks...

Shhhh don't tell people.. the less competition there is, the better chance you of a ribbon!

Well, I got my 5 beers submitted. When I got to the LHBS for drop off, I was surprised to see that there was only about 6 other submissions there. Now I know that tomorrow is saturday and the last day to drop off at the store, so I suspect there will be more, but it has me thinking my odds aren't that bad. LA county is huge and there were only three homebrew stores and the fairgrounds themselves for drop-off points. Wish me luck!

So I went to the fair today to see if I won anything. Nothing was posted online and there was no other notification, so we decided to go and check it out anyways. Here's me looking pretty sharp at the display:



So I start looking through all of the bottles on display and I find:


My vienna lager, which I submitted under the Oktoberfest catagory tied for 3rd place!

I keep looking and see...


My kolsch which was bottled with my new counter pressure filler from the keg. 3rd place! Looking some more...


It's my Rye IPA! Which also just happens to be the 07.07.07 recipe, Brewpastor's Rye IPA, also 3rd place. An finally I find...


My Old Helicon Barleywine 2006, which was brewed in December of '06 won 2nd place! That was one of the beers that I hoped would do well.

Overall I am completely happy at the results. Four ribbons with five beers submitted! I didn't really intend any of these beers to be for competition. When the deadline rolled around to submit, I just looked through my stash and picked some of what I thought were the best. Now the pressure is on. Now I have to brew something with the intent of going to competition.

Just a bump for bragging purposes.

Nice work.

If I had seen it yesterday, I would have given your props in a more timely fashion.

I guess that makes us even.

Congrats. Thats gotta feel good!

It feels good, but now I have to step it up. I've gotta turn those 2nd a 3rds into 1st Place awards.

I've gotta get brewing again first...

So I got my awards today in the mail. Three white ribbons and a red one!

Even better was the judging sheets. I was the most curious about the Barleywine and the Rye IPA. Here's the scoop:

The Rye IPA took a 3rd place. By all accounts it was a great beer, but the rye flavor was a little subdued. All of the judges said I should have also entered it in the regular IPA catagory. I think the flavor faded a little over time, because I remember the rye was in there. If I make it again for next time, I'll use a little more rye and not have it age so much before submitting.

The Barleywine took 2nd place. The main comment was that it was a little too sweet. They said it might be under attenuated, but I know it was over 80%. It probably had to do with the fact that it was an 11% ABV beer with all malt. It was just so big that the residual sugars added up. They liked the hops and even said it had a dry finish, just a little too much up-front sweetness. Next time I'll either make a slightly smaller beer, maybe around 9%, or use some sugar to get the gravity down.

How do you think the beers compared to the judging sheets?

orfy said:

How do you think the beers compared to the judging sheets?

Click to expand...

I think it was pretty fair. Most of the comments were pretty good. They did mention aging the barleywine, but I had already aged it for 7 months...I think it was more of a fact that the barleywine was just so big. They loved the hops in that one and the IPA. It was just smaller details that kept them from winning higher scores.