My local homebrew club, the San Joaquin Worthogs, hosts a competition where members submit beers of predetermined styles every quarter, which are judged by National ranked BJCP judges, then the person with the most points by the end of the year wins Worthog of the Year (WotY). Now, I don’t enter many competitions, usually just those that help support my club, and even then, I don’t really take it all too seriously. It just so happened The Great Trub exBEERiment brew day coincided with the day I needed to brew for this competition, hence my choice to make a Cream Ale. Following the results of the exBEERiment, I though it would be cool to see how these highly respected judges, both of whom have been doing this shit for decades, rated the beer. Well, as luck would have it…

Truby took first place!! Not only that, but this is the best score I’ve received on a competition beer. I’m pretty shocked with these results for myriad reasons:

– Truby was fermented with a literal fuck-ton of trub, which tradition dictates is a bad idea.

– There were no hop additions during the boil, just FWH and flameout (w/ 15 min stand).

– The hops used, Australian Summer, are nowhere near traditional for the style.

– I fermented it with Nottingham, an inexpensive dry ale yeast.

These results and the judges comments, I believe, contribute to the notion that kettle trub making it into carboy is not only something not worthy of worry, but may actually benefit the finished beer.

This victory puts me in third place overall as far as WotY standings, with only one beer left to submit, a style I’ve score well with in past comps: Märzen. I just tapped a keg of my (m)Oktoberfest, it’s pretty damn good, I plan to bottle off a 6 pack and let them “bottle lager” until the submission date. Until then, cheers!

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