Competition results

[JohnK93]

Hello all,
On Jan 3, I brewed Jamil's Ordinary Bitter recipe and I really loved it. I entered it into a competition that was judged on March 11 and scored a 28 from a Grand Master judge and a 33 from a second judge. Not great, but I liked it so much I brewed it again (before I got the results). I lost points mostly on aroma and flavor with the comments that it lacked aroma, grainy notes, understated malt flavor, it was a little thin, and that it's generally bland. No off flavors, clean taste, and clear.

The shop owner suggested upping the grain bill and trying the 1098 yeast to add some flavor, but I wonder if the lack of aroma and flavor is due to the recipe or my brewing, and how much could be due to it's age (it was almost 3 months old). Any thoughts on how I could improve this beer?

My second batch was almost identical but i used WLP007. I have one of the old batch left and I'll do a side-by-side with the new batch once it's ready.

Thanks!
John

 

[broncosmoker]

What was your efficiency? Did you change the grain bill at all or did you use the exact recipe on everything? How fresh are the grains? Lots of variables that we need information about as well as posting the recipe.

 

[JohnK93]

broncosmoker, thanks for the response. I did not change the grain bill at all from Jamil's version and I used the Wyeast 1968 and fermented at 67. The full recipe is here, about half way down the page...I used the all grain recipe. I can't verify that the grains were fresh, but my homebrew shop has pretty good turnover so I would think it's fairly fresh.

My efficiency is usually around 70% and my OG was 1.039 (FG 1.012), so pretty close to his recipe.

I just checked my notes and I did add come carastan to my second batch in an effort to get a little more of a toffee flavor, but the results on that one aren't in yet.