What did you learn from your 1st homebrew competition?

[MrFrugalPharmacist]

I entered my first homebrew competition a couple of weeks ago, and I lost. Probably by a decent margin too. Others might've gotten discouraged by this if it happened to them, but I was just grateful for the feedback. My overall score was a 25 on the BJCP scale, but the comments were awesome. The single thing I got deducted so heavily for was such an easy fix. Apparently all this time, I didn't know that to get consistent bottle conditioning you need to use bottles that don't have threads! Mind you, I've only been homebrewing for about a half a year now but still. The two samples I submitted ended up being under carbonated. I have a mix of bottles at home; some have threads and some don't, and I always wondered why carbonation seemed to be a mixed bag but at least now I know. Watch out for me during the next competition!

How about you? What did you learn from your first competition? How did it make you a better brewer?

 

[CGVT]

My Saison sucked

 

[hottpeper13]

I've always thought the cool thing about these competitions is there are winners but no losers. Just entering makes you a winner!

 

[CGVT]

 

[RichBenn]

I learned the judges both loved it (one comment -I would drink a lot of this!), but it was not to style, so was marked down pretty much for that only. That was OK, as I brewed it for my taste.

 

[BMWillis]

I learned that I need to remember to submit the recipe form next time.

Still scored pretty well, but most of the notes I got for the fruit beer I entered were 'hard to judge the beer without knowing what fruit/base beer you used'

 

[Roadie]

The first competition I learned that you can have high scores and still not win anything (41 in my case). I've entered a couple more and found that judges are looking for about 3/4 of the way on the different ranges (color, IBU, etc.) for each style.

 

[HamiltonBrian]

I got the feedback sheets for a recent competition. Each beer was judged by 2 judges. Most of the judges are BJCP-certified. The disparity in what was noticed was remarkable in many cases. The key thing I think I learned was to look at the recommendations for "next time" on the score sheets and try to implement them, but in a sense that pleases me while also trying to improve the beer.

 

[jtrentpearson]

My first competition is going to be hard to match, I entered 2 styles and placed in both. One got a 38 and one a 42.5. I received great feedback on both and used it to improve the lower scoring beer.

I also learned that it is completely subjective.

 

[Lefou]

My Saison sucked

A while back they had the big international competition in Philadelphia. Wife works in the airlines and loads of people were bringing beer and samples from competitive vendors, some of which wouldn't make it on the plane.
Some of it ended up in dumpsters or with TSA, no doubt, but one passenger surrendered a couple cans of his Dale's Pale Ale and a 22oz. bottle of saison from a brewery in the Dominican Republic. That particular portion ended up with me because the wife doesn't really favor beer, but didn't want to throw it out, either.
Needless to say, the saison was HORRIBLE and the hopping couldn't cover up the metallic off-flavors. I looked up the winners and noticed that particular brewery had gotten honors before, but didn't win jack for this particular saison at Philly.

 

[Kent88]

I submitted my rhubarb saison in the county fair last summer. Got lots of contradicting statements. Either the judge wanted a subtle rhubarb flavor or the rhubarb to figuratively punch them in the face. I had one judge ask if it was fermented with lacto or brett, which is certainly wasn't and made me wonder if they read my paperwork or if that person had ever eaten anything made with rhubarb. About the only thing they seemed to agree on was that I should make it maltier, so I'm sub'ing in some munich malt. I entered the contest to figure out if I was making a decent beer and to see if I could improve the recipe, so I'd better take the advice that they agreed on.

I think there is a song with the lyrics "you don't always get what you want... but sometimes you get what you need". You may not get the feedback you want, but you'll get feedback, and if the judges are any good then you'll get some kind of consistency in their reviews and you can make some tweaks to your process or recipe.

What I'll be doing for my next contest is making a beer that conforms more to a style. You can enter a beer that doesn't conform to a style and you should at least figure out if other people like the taste, but if you want to win I think you need to conform to style guidelines.

Actually, next summer I think I'll be entering my Belgian Dark Strong Ale that I bottled a month ago. With that already done I think I'll get another entry or two brewed this winter. This contest gives you points for quantity of quality beer you enter as well.