Cigar City Brewing "Pilot This" Competition & Kit & your beer on their tap

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Apr 23, 2009
Messages
37,024
Reaction score
17,721
Location
☀️ Clearwater, FL ☀️


This is pretty cool. Cigar City gives you a bunch of random hops, hop extract, yeast, etc, you make the best beer you can with it, the winner gets their beer brewed and on tap at the Cigar City taproom.

Only 300 entries available though. Ugh.

Please, somebody from HBT, win this. I think I'm gonna give it a try. It's a little pricey though ($49), but it comes with a bunch of different hops and stuff. Sounds like fun to me. Looks like it's all-grain only, but I'm not sure.

If you win, I'll personally go drink some of your beer at the taproom and send you a picture :D

http://www.vetterbrew.com/pilot-thistrade.html

ccb.jpg
 
I may give this a shot too! It'd be pretty damn sweet to have a beer you made on tap at Cigar City!
 
I bought my kit today. Can't pick it up till August 3 though (ugh). Anyway, that gives me time to figure out to do with the intriguing hops that come with it... much research to be done!



  • 1 oz Eureka 17.7%
  • 1 oz Lemon Drop 4.4%
  • 1 oz Citra 13.1%
  • 1 oz Calypso 15.4%
  • 1 oz Azacca 10.3%
  • 1 oz El Dorado 14.9%
  • 1 oz Equinox 14.5%
  • 3 ml. syringe of hop extract (60 min)
 
I bought my kit today. Can't pick it up till August 3 though (ugh). Anyway, that gives me time to figure out to do with the intriguing hops that come with it... much research to be done!



  • 1 oz Eureka 17.7%
  • 1 oz Lemon Drop 4.4%
  • 1 oz Citra 13.1%
  • 1 oz Calypso 15.4%
  • 1 oz Azacca 10.3%
  • 1 oz El Dorado 14.9%
  • 1 oz Equinox 14.5%
  • 3 ml. syringe of hop extract (60 min)

What is the malt bill?
 
Grain bill


12.5 lbs of Rahr 2-Row Malt
.875 lbs of Bairds Carastan Malt
.5 lbs Weyermann Munich II Malt
.3 lbs Briess White Wheat
 
By the way, there was a clarification to the rules that I posted above. The beer does not need to be an IPA, but the judges are looking for hoppy beers.

Dear Pilot This! brewer,

We wanted to make a clarification to assist in your recipe formulation. We posted that this was supposed to be an American IPA. This was my error. Wayne wanted me to make it clear we are looking for a hop forward, hop centered beer and will NOT be judging it against any style standards such as the BJCP guidelines. Wayne is looking for a creative hoppy beer and will base the decision on aroma and taste. I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Michael Vetter
 
1332 Northwest Ale
1469 West Yorkshire Ale
1272 American Ale II

I used 1332 and my fermentation just kicked off, seemed a bit slow to start, it's kinda ramping up slowly it seems.
 
I'm going with the Northwest Ale. But I'm trying to make my beer stand out, so I toasted the yeast a bit to try to get some nice "scalded and pissed" character from yeast, maybe a little revenge fermentation. We'll see how it works out.
 
I'm going with the Northwest Ale. But I'm trying to make my beer stand out, so I toasted the yeast a bit to try to get some nice "scalded and pissed" character from yeast, maybe a little revenge fermentation. We'll see how it works out.


Haha that's funny! My yeast was warm upon arrival so mine might be slightly toasted also! It's fermenting nicely now though, took almost 2 days to get started though, which was weird. I'm excited to try this beer, sounds like a good yeast. It should leave a sweeter beer since its lower attenuation.
 
I just want some Jai Alai.... :mug:

I was down on AMI for 2 weeks and brought back 4 six packs but only 1 6er actually made it to my house lol. God that stuff is gooooood.

Good luck guys. Make HBT proud!
 
Oh man I just tried a green bottle (3 days bottle cond.) and it's pretty good! I'm digging this Northwest Ale yeast!
 
Did you brew yet, Passed?

How's yours aging, Indexck?


Dry hopped mine tonight. Hadn't used hop extract before, so I'm really happy I got the bitterness I wanted with the extract and some of the other hops.
 
Did you brew yet, Passed?

How's yours aging, Indexck?


Dry hopped mine tonight. Hadn't used hop extract before, so I'm really happy I got the bitterness I wanted with the extract and some of the other hops.

Brewed it today! My first experience with hop extract too. I really liked how easy it was to add. I might grab a whole can of the stuff from Yakima. Seems perfect for 60m additions.

Those were some interesting hops there. I didn't use the lemon drop, el dorado, and one of the other that escapes my mind. Actually, I did use them, but in a different beer.

Good luck to those that entered here. Hope your beers turn out great.
 
Mine tastes great! I ordered a 100 ml can of the extract from Yakima and 10 syringes going to make some IPAs in the future! I really like this grain bill also, I'll probably bump up the wheat a bit and add in some oats to see what that does
 
Ah.

I'm not really into competitions. I was when I got started.

So, I brewed a beer for this comp, and in fact I'm drinking it at this moment. It's fine, a suitably hoppy IPA. I'm looking at some great lacing on my glass right now, a sight I love.

And though the place to turn in my entries is literally two miles from my house, I didn't. I just don't care about winning. I'm so meh about that.

Good luck to anyone who actually sent them in.
 
Ah.

I'm not really into competitions. I was when I got started.

So, I brewed a beer for this comp, and in fact I'm drinking it at this moment. It's fine, a suitably hoppy IPA. I'm looking at some great lacing on my glass right now, a sight I love.

And though the place to turn in my entries is literally two miles from my house, I didn't. I just don't care about winning. I'm so meh about that.

Good luck to anyone who actually sent them in.

Looks like I advanced to round 2 :) (as did 14 other people)
 
Back
Top