How my train wreck ale got a ribbon

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Fade1800

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Recently I got the bug to pursue BJCP judging certification. I’ve been home brewing since the mid ‘90’s, though not consistently. Some years I may have only brewed two or three batches, and other years none. The past year I’ve had more free time and with it, a renewed interest in brewing. I took up all grain brewing finally, and have made a few batches that I liked a lot, so I thought I’d enter a competition and get some feedback. At the same competition I also volunteered to steward to gain some experience with the judging process. I’m writing this to sort of document this experience and relay some somewhat humorous observations.

I entered three of my beers in the competition, none of which I thought were ready for prime-time. But the event came up on me quickly, and I really just wanted the experience and the feedback. One of the batches of beer I thought was actually pretty much a train wreck.

The week before Christmas I was cleaning out a closet in the back of my house and came upon an old brown ale extract kit that had been sitting in a box since somewhere around February of 2009. This kit was nearly five year old, but it had been sitting in my environmentally controlled house all of that time, and I thought there was a good chance I could still make a decent batch of beer out of it. I was off work the next week for the Christmas holidays, so I put it aside and figured to brew it on my days off.

December 23 rolled around, and I got my kettle and propane out. I used tap water and didn’t do anything special, to the water to treat it. I began the boil and thought that I might like to make this a coffee brown ale, and so I happen to have a bag of BiLo coffee grounds that was nearly empty, or so I believed. When I dumped the grounds into my kettle, it must have been more than an eighth of a bag full, and it seemed close to a quarter bag, as the grounds came out forever. Chuckling at this mistake, I shrugged it off and continued to boil. I figured what the hell, it’s old ingredients anyway.

So, a few minutes later I pitched the initial round of hops into the batch. About ten minutes later I notice my rolling boil beginning to subside. I cranked up the propane, but still, over the next few minutes the boil began to wane. It was at this point I discovered my propane tank was bone dry. I watched as the flame went out. Being too lazy to trudge out on the day before Christmas eve to scavenge up more propane, I shrugged yet again, and tossed the rest of my hops into the decaying boil. Okay, so this is going to be a “mild” ale, I snickered.

Since I don’t have a wort chiller, I normally cool my batches with an ice bath. But again, this was supposed to be a lazy day off, so I resigned myself to cooling the kettle in my kitchen sink by running water from the tap around it instead of going out to buy bags of ice. While this process was going on, my OCD took over, and I found myself cleaning and organizing my garage about an hour later. Some nagging sensation was telling me there was something else I was supposed to be doing, and when the thought occurred to me that I had beer in my sink, I figured it must be cooled to pitching temperatures by now. Thus was not the case. When I checked it, the thermometer read 150F. So, I decided to go get some ice. After two and half hours, my batch was finally cooled.

At this point I committed another series of blunders, if you can imagine that. I put the carboy in my empty kegerator, I’d ferment it in there with the power off. It was still winter time, and my house was around 65F, so I thought that would be about right. I just poured the single pack of 5 year old Nottingham dry yeast right in, and shoved this monstrosity in the kegerator, thinking “let’s see what happens.” I think it was that evening that while jerking around with my router, I accidently plugged the kegerator in.

Three days later when I opened the kegerator door to check on my brew, after getting hit in the face with a 40F breeze and seeing literally no fermentation activity whatsoever, I discovered my blunder. I unplugged the kegerator and left the door open for the rest of the day.
After 5 days of no activity, I figured I must have killed the yeast, and it would be a miracle if this batch wasn’t infected. On day 6, fermentation began, and the rest of the debacle went off relatively uneventful.

The batch was ready by Superbowl Sunday. I hated it. All I could think of was everything I had done wrong. It tasted more like something you’d buy at Starbucks than beer to me. But at my Superbowl party, everyone loved it. Especially the ladies.

I told you all of that to get to my time stewarding at the competition. I entered this beer just to get some real feedback and to confirm that I was right. This beer sucked, and my friends don’t know what they’re talking about.

At the table I where I was stewarding sat two fairly experienced judges. One I believe said he had 15 years experience, and the other five. These guys know beer, I thought to myself. There was also another steward at the table who admitted he only had a handful of batches under his belt and was there, like me, to learn.

In gleaning the list of beers to come in the flight, I saw something that sparked my eye – a beer that was describe simply as a coffee and vanilla porter. This was similar enough to my coffee English mild ale that I was intrigued to see what kind of marks it would get.

When the judges finally got to this beer, my interest was piqued. The other steward and I had been getting to taste the brews along with the judges, and we were always first to taste as the judges were still evaluating aroma and appearance, and writing.

As the other steward and I took our sips, he got a puzzled look and declared he tasted jalapeño in the beer. I thought this was funny for a few reasons. There was no note of jalapeno anywhere in the description. It was listed, as I said, as a coffee and vanilla porter. Secondly, I didn’t taste jalapeno at all. The taste I felt sure was one I was all too familiar with after having to drink the better part of five gallons of a batch of beer I didn’t particularly like, coffee. More specifically, I think it was a mild astringency from coffee grounds or beans steeped in the boil, just like I did. Not to say it’s not a similar sensation to very mild jalapeno, it is. And I could certainly see how it could be confused for that. But I didn’t say anything though, I just smiled. I was sure the judges would pick up on his blunder and pick it apart.

I was wrong. I watched as the jalapeno meme traveled around the table, from steward, to judge, to judge. They were all indubitably sure the coffee and vanilla porter had capsaicin in it. Why you’d put jalapeno in a coffee and vanilla porter and then not even mention it in your description I wouldn’t know, but these three people were sure. I wasn’t so sure.
Then, the discussion about when to add coffee to the brewing process came up, broached by the novice steward. The judges were quick to assert that one should never steep coffee in the boil … because then, you’d get pure coffee … not beer! It was a big no no in their minds. At this point I shrugged again, as I had entered a batch in this very competition after having done exactly that – among all of the other blunders.

BTW, the vanilla porter scored good marks, but didn’t field a ribbon with these judges.

Anyway, this story has gone long … and if you’re still with me at this point, here’s the hook.

After using five year old extract kit ingredients, boiling for less than 30 minutes, a botched hop schedule, 2 and half hour cooling period, and cold shocking dry yeast with no fermentation for six days, my mild English ale took second place in the category. I was shocked.
It’s somewhat of a hollow victory. On the one hand, I’m glad I won something and that other people like it. On the other hand, it pretty well underscores that the conventional teach about how to brew are more guidelines than rules, and that judging and perceptions are extremely subjective. I’m not trying to bash anyone’s judging skills or the processes and procedures of competition judging, this is just my humble, honest, and hopefully humorous account of this experience with these things.

I’m not sure what to take from all of this except to think outside the box when we brew beer. I guess there are no hard and fast methods.
 
Good post !! You just never know what chemistry can make a good beer, The best are usually accidents........ Good job !
 
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