I live in South Africa and started brewing in March 2013. I made the jump to all grain on my second brew and haven't looked back since.
In March this year I entered my first BJCP competition with Lil' Sparky's Nut Brown Ale . The competition was held at the Devils Peak Tap room . I scored, in my eyes, a respectable 35 (the upper end of "very good"). One of the judges commented that I missed getting an "excellent" rating because it needed more hops and/or less of a malt backbone.
With that start I was full of confidence and jumped at the opportunity to enter the next BJCP competition, which was hosted at Triggerfish Brewery. This competition had a slight twist to it. We had to make an English or American Pale Ale but could use only South African ingredients. Pale Malt is easy to get hold of from South African Breweries (SAB) and the quality is good. They produce a brown malt which isn't as readily available, but neither is it suitable for a pale ale. SAB sell a small range of hops. Look at the bottom of this page for the list of hops available. There are some really interesting hops on that list, but they do work a whole lot better when they can be combined imported hops than just on their own. So with the pale malt I made some crystal malt, roasted some biscuit malt and mixed the hops up as much as I thought would work for a good beer. I am not a pale ale enthusiast, but gave it my best shot.
I was not impressed the first time I taste the final product, but after a few weeks it turned into something I have since really enjoyed. I drank it quite often and with each bottle it got better and better. All the beers I tried were clear and packed with flavor. I was impressed I had managed to produce something like that given the constraints. By the time the competition day arrived I was confident this brew was in a similar league to the Nut Brown Ale from the March competition.
As you can see the beer is clear...
One of the things that struck me from the March competition was how accurate the descriptions of the beer were. I was especially impressed with the view of one judge that I should have rather used American Ale Yeast (I had used S-05). So I was quite shocked when I got the score sheet back at the second competition, which described a beer that gushed, had floaters and was hazy. None of these descriptions fitted my beer. I was stunned. As soon as I got home I opened a beer from the batch. I got my wife to film me cracking it open so I had evidence that it didn't gush (I posted that on instagram. Then I filmed the beer in the glass so I had evidence there were no floaters.
I was convinced that I had been given the wrong score sheet. The next day I wrote a very long email to the judges explaining to them that I was sure there was a mistake and asked them please to taste my beer again (just for my benefit, I didn't want a re-score). As a show of my appreciation for the time the judges had put in to judging and writing comments my e-mail was very long! I have no doubt they thought, or perhaps still think, I am a nutcase.
I follow a fairly standard practice with conditioning my beers. They are 'warm' conditioned (carbonated) for a month then put in the fridge for at least a week before I drink them. That way I know the dregs have hardened by the time I open it. I typically pour the beer within a second or two after opening to make sure I get the beer off the dregs.
Even dregs likes this are usually not a problem for me.
Once I sent the e-mail to the judges I realized the beer may behave in a way I had not yet seen if I were to let it stand in the bottle for a minute. ...I also hoped that doing so would give me more evidence that the gushing was NOT my mistake!
Well... after about 15 seconds the dregs on the bottom started a mini-nuclear reaction and a few seconds later the beer frothed out the neck of the bottle.
Is this the same beer?
This beer had floaters, was hazy and tasted TOTALLY different now. There were esters and solvent like flavours I had not tasted before. Also the beer was way more carbonated than before. By now I was impressed that the judges could actually pick up the things about the beer that they did considering the distracting flavours that came through.
This is exactly the same beer as above, but left in the bottle after it was opened for a bit longer.
So the eating of the humble pie started as well as the groveling to the judges. One of whom is author of this article on the down side of bottle conditioning and I suspect I am the twitter pal she refers to!
So what I have learnt so far from my two competitions:
In March this year I entered my first BJCP competition with Lil' Sparky's Nut Brown Ale . The competition was held at the Devils Peak Tap room . I scored, in my eyes, a respectable 35 (the upper end of "very good"). One of the judges commented that I missed getting an "excellent" rating because it needed more hops and/or less of a malt backbone.
With that start I was full of confidence and jumped at the opportunity to enter the next BJCP competition, which was hosted at Triggerfish Brewery. This competition had a slight twist to it. We had to make an English or American Pale Ale but could use only South African ingredients. Pale Malt is easy to get hold of from South African Breweries (SAB) and the quality is good. They produce a brown malt which isn't as readily available, but neither is it suitable for a pale ale. SAB sell a small range of hops. Look at the bottom of this page for the list of hops available. There are some really interesting hops on that list, but they do work a whole lot better when they can be combined imported hops than just on their own. So with the pale malt I made some crystal malt, roasted some biscuit malt and mixed the hops up as much as I thought would work for a good beer. I am not a pale ale enthusiast, but gave it my best shot.
I was not impressed the first time I taste the final product, but after a few weeks it turned into something I have since really enjoyed. I drank it quite often and with each bottle it got better and better. All the beers I tried were clear and packed with flavor. I was impressed I had managed to produce something like that given the constraints. By the time the competition day arrived I was confident this brew was in a similar league to the Nut Brown Ale from the March competition.
One of the things that struck me from the March competition was how accurate the descriptions of the beer were. I was especially impressed with the view of one judge that I should have rather used American Ale Yeast (I had used S-05). So I was quite shocked when I got the score sheet back at the second competition, which described a beer that gushed, had floaters and was hazy. None of these descriptions fitted my beer. I was stunned. As soon as I got home I opened a beer from the batch. I got my wife to film me cracking it open so I had evidence that it didn't gush (I posted that on instagram. Then I filmed the beer in the glass so I had evidence there were no floaters.
I was convinced that I had been given the wrong score sheet. The next day I wrote a very long email to the judges explaining to them that I was sure there was a mistake and asked them please to taste my beer again (just for my benefit, I didn't want a re-score). As a show of my appreciation for the time the judges had put in to judging and writing comments my e-mail was very long! I have no doubt they thought, or perhaps still think, I am a nutcase.
I follow a fairly standard practice with conditioning my beers. They are 'warm' conditioned (carbonated) for a month then put in the fridge for at least a week before I drink them. That way I know the dregs have hardened by the time I open it. I typically pour the beer within a second or two after opening to make sure I get the beer off the dregs.
Even dregs likes this are usually not a problem for me.
Once I sent the e-mail to the judges I realized the beer may behave in a way I had not yet seen if I were to let it stand in the bottle for a minute. ...I also hoped that doing so would give me more evidence that the gushing was NOT my mistake!
Well... after about 15 seconds the dregs on the bottom started a mini-nuclear reaction and a few seconds later the beer frothed out the neck of the bottle.
Is this the same beer?
This beer had floaters, was hazy and tasted TOTALLY different now. There were esters and solvent like flavours I had not tasted before. Also the beer was way more carbonated than before. By now I was impressed that the judges could actually pick up the things about the beer that they did considering the distracting flavours that came through.
This is exactly the same beer as above, but left in the bottle after it was opened for a bit longer.
So the eating of the humble pie started as well as the groveling to the judges. One of whom is author of this article on the down side of bottle conditioning and I suspect I am the twitter pal she refers to!
So what I have learnt so far from my two competitions:
- The judges give up their time to judge the beers. So far, the judges have made a good effort to write constructive comments about the beer. I am grateful for their time.
- A beer that wins a BJCP competition matches the style and then has something special on top of that but it must be within the parameters of the style. Bill Broas wrote about this here and if you follow the link to the Nut Brown Ale recipe posted above you will find a conversation about this topic there as well. That awesome beer you have may be truly awesome, but the judges score it on how well it matches the style. I recently made a beer that I rate as on my best ever, but it doesn't fit into a style so won't enter it in a BJCP competition.
- Wait 48 hours after a competition to make any comments ...don't rush in! The first sheet I read said the beer gushed, the second sheet said it frothed and the third said it foamed. But when I saw "gushed" I got so worked up that when I read the other sheets I just thought they said it gushed too. If I had paid more attention to the fact the 2/3 of the judges didn't say it gushed I may have saved myself a lot of time...but then I would not have learnt as much.
- When you test the beer before you enter it: open it and put on the table upright and leave it for a minute or more before drinking. On the day of the competition the beer will remain in the bottle for some time after it is opened as the judges taste the beer a few times. Unfortunately your beers have to be unlabeled so you can't give directions on how to pour the beer!
- You learn more from entering a bad beer than a good beer. This should also be read as: it's not too early in your brewing career to enter a BJCP competition, as long as your ego can handle a truthful and detailed description of your beer. With the Nut Brown Ale, which was good, I learnt that my entry needed some minor tweaks to fully meet the specifications of an 11C. With this second competition I learnt about a range of things that I hadn't ever heard of before; leakage from PVC pipes cause a solvent like flavor being the most valuable.