First competition

I've got to qualify this by saying I'm a competition newbie and don't know how it goes, what competitions are correctly judged and which ones are difficult to win, etc. I know very little and have no competition experience.

That said, a brewpub local to me had a competition so I figured I would enter. I understand it is a small privately owned chain, called Iron Hill, that has more locations in the northeast (I'm in SC). They are going to pick a winner from each location so I'm only up against other SC entries. There were 51 total in this region. I made the first round cut into the top 5! Pretty cool. Final judging is attendable and is next Saturday. They have a bunch of different styles in the top 5, so not sure how exactly they compare that, but they will pick one overall winner. That winner will have a batch of their recipe brewed on the big system, and will get a 500$ gift card and a sixth keg from the big batch. $1/pint from the big batch goes to charity.

Looking forward to see how it pans out and hopefully at least going to be able to get real scorecards from my two entries. The one that advanced is a simple wheat beer recipe so I guess they are judging more on execution than complexity of the process.

 

Congratulations on making the top five! That's awesome!

 

Thanks sir! I was surprised for sure.

 

Congrats on the top 5! Very exciting stuff, good luck!

 

Congrats and good luck!

I was also selected as a top 5 (from the New Jersey location at Iron Hill). It's my first time in a competition as well. I made a Märzen, going against a Mango Jalapeno Pale Ale, Fruited Sour Ale, English Barley wine and a Porter. I imagine they go by the scorecard? I won't be able to make the judging, since I'll be at a memorial for a friend that we just lost.

 

Ah, sorry to hear about your friend.
Congrats and good luck!
The "Mango Jalapeno ale" did catch my eye... no idea how they judge something that far off from the norm but I'm hoping to get scorecards as well. I guess they will just go highest number on the scorecard wins.

 

I believe we get the score cards emailed to us by the end of the month.

 

Well I ended up 3rd in the SC region. They did say that scorecards for all entries will be sent out, so looking forward to seeing that.

 

Very, very respectable! Again, congratulations! It sounds like future competitions are in your future!

 

Thanks sir. Yes, assuming actionable feedback comes from the scorecard, I would like to try again!

 

Not too shabby. Did you go to the judging? I don’t know where I finished but I’d like to find out.

 

Yes I went.

Two of the judges were full time local employees... You can probably call the head Brewer at your location, he probably knows.

 

Thanks! I went there tonight, the head brewer wasn't in. The manager didn't seem to have the answer and said that I should come back when the head brewer was there. I'm just excited to be in the top 5 out of my State.

Again, congratulations on making it to the finals!

 

Thanks you too!

 

It sounds like this is the inaugural "Brew With a Legend" home brew competition with Iron Hill. Looking forward to next year already! Question is... do you go and try to improve the last entry or go on with something else?