bsay
Well-Known Member
What do I need to know to enter a homebrew contest? I figure brew time is time to start preparing brews to be "Contest Ready." Any advice you have would be great!
- Stick to brewing a simple beer, specific to a style, using a proven recipe (like from Jamil's book).
- Plan on allowing your beer plenty of time from brewing...to fermenting...to conditioning...to aging...(don't brew this weekend to try and squeeze a beer into a contest next weekend.)
- If you keg and then transfer to bottles...don't transfer until the last possible day. Beer profiles can change in the bottles over time.
- Store your bottles cold to preserve the freshness as much as possible.
- Always store four bottles:
2 for the comp,
1 to taste the day before you submit so you can make sure the beer didn't go bad,
1 to taste after the comp with a score sheet in front of you so you can gauge their feed back while tasting.
Good info, but better make it 5 bottles. Some contests want 3 entries.
Good info, but better make it 5 bottles. Some contests want 3 entries.
I am likely going to a contest third weekend of October, at least to see how things go, even if I don't have anything to enter. A buddy of mine, who is semi-responsible for getting me into homebrewing, is entering his wines (He's a Grand Champion in wines for many previous years). I'm excited to at least see the procedures and find out if I can enter anything in coming years.
As far as "proven recipes" go, would it be taboo to enter a kit that I thought was good, or should I brew it, tweak it, brew it again, tweak it, have five friends try it, tweak it again and then enter it? I'm sure the later would be better, I'm just wondering the etiquette of entering a kit.
Thanks for all the replies so far!
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