My First Homebrew Medals!

Homebrew competitions have had a steep learning curve for me, and the experience has been a mixed bag as a result. I've entered two competitions previously, to mostly mediocre scores (28 for a milk stout and 28.6 for a vanilla porter I brewed in 2014, and 25 for an oatmeal stout I entered in 2015, all out of 50). Using the BJCP scoring guide, that puts them range of entries that are "good" but "[miss] the mark on style and/or minor flaws". This was a bit disappointing at the time, but the feedback was really helpful as a learning experience.

What I Learned From Previous Competitions

Although my scores were not awful, they were instructive on how I could improve my brewing, and even more critically, how I could improve my entries for competition. As I learned from reading many sources, it's not enough to brew a good beer--you also have to brew a beer that hits the points that judges are looking for within a flight of entries. Time and introspection have shown the following:

• Category matters (Part 1). It's easier to place in smaller categories, particularly against the odds in big categories with experienced brewers (and there are lots here in SoCal!). This is the reason I haven't bothered with an IPA, for instance. I really like some of my IPA's, but am not convinced they would score well against the really excellent brews my friends and colleagues are brewing.
• Category matters (Part 2). If you're going to enter a category, make sure you are brewing your beer within the overall style parameters. An otherwise good beer might get dinged for being outside of style, if it's not a good match. For instance, I submitted a vanilla porter as a robust porter -- and that was a mistake. The judges noted "odd" aromas that were almost certainly in part from the vanilla--in fact, one even stated that "The herbal flavor is vanilla, so this beer should have been entered as a specialty [beer]." This is a bit different from the oft-repeated advice that winning beers often push the bounds of categories; after all, a beer can push bounds while still being within believable reach of the style. Stretch boundaries, but not too much!
• Fresh, fresh, fresh. I'm really proud of my oatmeal stout, and consider it a good beer. The one time I entered it in competition, though, the bottles had been sitting around for a few months. One judge suggested some oxidized flavors were at play, and another noted that the beer was a tad thin. I suspect both of these were due (in part) to the age of the brew, with maybe a bit of secondary fermentation in the bottle. Surely there were other facets I could improve, but nonetheless resting at room temperature for months didn't do the beer any favors. Lesson learned.
• You have to be on top of your brewing game. I have definitely improved over the past few years, as I pay closer attention to fermentation temperature and such. For instance, I have drastically improved my carbonation procedures (either by carbonating with CO2 or more carefully measuring my priming sugar), which avoid hazards of overcarbonation. This can only help in judging!
• Read the comments. Even if the judges' assessments of the beer didn't match my own lofty expectations, I needed to swallow my pride and take their comments seriously. Every entry has two score sheets, and there is naturally a bit of variance. One judge might pick up oxidation, but the other judge might not. Even so, I have seen enough commonalities between scorings that I am willing to listen. If both judges give middling scores, it is probably a middling beer for the purposes of that category.

Although I was disappointed that I didn't get any medals in my first two competitions, they were a valuable learning experience. Firstly, I gained confidence that my beers weren't awful. Nothing the judges said indicated that I had tremendous process flaws--it was a matter of relatively minor tweaking to transform decent beer into good beer into great beer. I also gained an understanding of the competition process--brewing for a medal can be (but isn't necessarily) different from brewing for personal satisfaction. I might have the best vanilla-infused porter on the planet, but it will never do well if the judges are expecting a standard porter. 

A celebratory IPA for my first medals

Renewed Efforts

Based on my adequate, but not great, performances, I was a little cynical on competitions. I liked my beer, and many of my friends said they liked my beer, so why bother with the dog-and-pony show of a formal beer competition? I had accepted the lessons mentioned above, but wasn't confident enough or filled with enough energy to test the waters in another competition.

Thankfully, I have a homebrew club to kick my butt into gear.

At the December meeting of Horse Thief Brewers Association, our president noted the upcoming "Romancing the Beer" competition, sponsored by Thousand Oaked Brewers. He wanted to see a good turnout for "The Thieves," and even offered to transport the beers personally to the entry center. I came to a final realization--what would it hurt to try again? No entries, no awards.

I decided to enter my 80 shilling ale, imperial stout, Berliner Weisse, and Irish stout. They were pretty fresh, decent brews (in my opinion), and for at least two (the Scottish and the Irish beers) were in categories that don't always get a lot of entries.

Due to my own incompetence, I only ended up with three entries, because I had attached the wrong labels to one set of bottles. Oops! One of my four initial submission was removed from competition as a result (major kudos to the folks in charge for alerting me to this, and refunding my entry fee). So, three beers went into the fray.

And of those three, it turned out the wrong labels were on one (oops again--the wrong set of beers had been removed of the original four). Totally my fault, but needless to say, a Scottish export doesn't score well in the imperial stout category (to the tune of 17/50 as a score). Lesson learned, and I'll definitely double-check the bottle labels next time!

But for my remaining two...what a surprise! I was completely shocked to see that both placed first in category.

My Irish Stout placed first out of the five combined "Scottish and Irish Beer" entries, with a respectable (but not outstanding) score of 36.5 (average of 36 and 37). I suspect it wouldn't have placed so highly if there were more entries, but I'll take a win! And, it was nice to see the beer so well received.

The real shocker, though, was for my Berliner Weisse. It placed first out of 12 entries in the "Sour Beers" category, with an average score of 41.5 (39 and 44)! This was a pleasant surprise on several counts. First, sour beers are a bit in vogue at the moment, and there are some great sour brewers in Southern California. There must have been stiff competition! Second, I had never attempted a sour before, and I don't drink a lot of them, so I really had no idea how my beer really fell on the sour spectrum. Finally, I "cheated" a bit with this brew. It was brew-in-a-bag, and kettle soured. Easy, simple, and apparently successful! That was a nice boost of confidence, to realize that simple techniques could produce something so technically solid in the eyes of a judge.

Final Thoughts

It was a nice boost of confidence to get external validation for some of my brews, particularly after the learning curve of earlier competitions. I don't know if I'm going to enter every competition that comes my way, but I'll certainly be trying a few more in the future. The overall process has forced me to consider my technical processes more carefully, and provided some helpful feedback along the way. That has definitely added up to better beer overall. I don't expect to have such success every time, but I am hopeful for future efforts as a whole, regardless of whether they go to competition.

Beer Tasting: The Celtic Elk Stout

My Irish stout ("The Celtic Elk Stout") has been on tap for a few weeks now, and is definitely ready for a tasting.

• The Basics
• Original gravity = 1.048; final gravity = 1.018; abv = 3.9%; estimated IBU = 36
• Aroma
• Strong and ever-so-slightly sweet coffee aroma, with a roasty chocolate note behind it. 
• Appearance
• Clear as near as I can tell, but pitch-black in the glass. When you hold it up to the light, you can glimpse a dark brown color with a red tinge to it, but that's only if you have the thinnest sliver of beer against strong backlight. The head is dark tan and thin, with a fine texture and good retention.
• Flavor
• This beer has a very coffee-like quality, in terms of being quite roasty in flavor with a bitter finish (more from the barley than the hops, though, in terms of the bitterness character).
• Mouthfeel
• The stout has a moderate-low body, with moderate and fine carbonation. It is a pretty dry (but not puckering) beer, as befits the style. 
• Would I brew this again?
• This beer is a darned good Irish stout, and I'd definitely use the recipe again in the future. It hits exactly what I was looking for, in terms of dryness, drinkability, fairly low alcohol content, and intangibles. I like this one!
• Overall
• 9.5/10

And a label!

On a whim, I drafted a beer label in honor of the original "Celtic Elk," Megaloceras. It brings in one of the "Irish elk" skulls along with a Celtic knot. Maybe it will make a good t-shirt someday?

The Celtic Elk Stout Kegged

I kegged The Celtic Elk Stout tonight, with 5 gallons as the end product. The final gravity was 1.018, down from 1.048, for 3.9% abv. Flavor is pretty nice so far!

The Celtic Elk Stout

Dark grains set aside to add during vorlauf

As we inch closer to the dark days of winter, I'm in a mood for some good, robust beers. Robust for me usually doesn't require high alcohol content (although it can)--I think of it more as something with a strong malt backbone, prominent flavors from specialty grains, and perhaps some nice yeast character. Following on the heels of last weekend's 80 shilling ale, tonight I brewed an Irish stout.

The recipe is based on Gordon Strong's recipe from Modern Homebrew Recipes, with some modifications for the grains and hops I had on hand. My goal with this batch is to get a robust beer, but one that clocks in lower on the alcohol side of things (in this case, 4.3%). The beer is actually a bit outside the 2015 BJCP guidelines for the Irish Stout style, in terms of original gravity and color. The latter point surprised me--the BJCP lists 40 SRM as the maximum for this style, and to me it seems a little silly to set an arbitrary maximum for a beer explicitly described as "black" in the style guidelines.

The name for the batch stems from the famed Irish Elk, Megaloceras. Because why not?

The Celtic Elk Stout

• 6.5 lbs. Maris Otter malt (Thomas Fawcett)
• 1.25 lbs. flaked barley
• 0.25 lbs. Carapils malt
• 0.75 lbs. 80° crystal malt (added at vorlauf)
• 0.67 lbs. roasted barley (Simpsons, 550 SRM, added at vorlauf)
• 0.5 lbs. pale chocolate malt (225 SRM, added at vorlauf)
• 0.375 lbs de-bittered black malt (Dingemans, added at vorlauf)
• 1 oz. Newport hops pellets, 40 minute boil (10.7% alpha, 6.4% beta)
• 1 Whirlfloc pellet (10 minute boil)
• 1 pkg. Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004), prepared 12 hours in advance in 1 L starter

Procedure

• I mashed in with the Maris Otter, flaked barley, and Carapils, using 4.1 gallons of water at 168°. The mash stabilized at 157°, and was down to 153.5° after 40 minutes. [note: I did not use 5.2 pH stabilizer in this batch]
• I added the dark grains (cystal malt, roasted barley, chocolate malt, and black malt) along with 0.75 gallons of water at 160°, let the mash sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected 3 gallons of wort.
• I then added 4 gallons of water at 180°, which raised the mash temperature to 164°. I let the mash sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the rest of the wort.
• All told, I collected 6.75 gallons of wort at a gravity of 1.040. This works out to ~73% efficiency, right where I had been hoping.
• I brought the wort to a boil, and added the hops and Whirlfloc at the appropriate times (aiming for 40 minute boil and 10 minute boil, respectively). After 60 minutes of boiling, I turned off the flame and chilled the wort down to 78° using my copper coil chiller.
• I transferred ~5.5 gallons of wort into the fermenter and pitched the yeast in its starter. I plan to let the temperature slowly equilibrate with the fermentation chamber overnight.
• The beer had a starting gravity of 1.048, exactly where expected. It was brewed on Saturday, November 21, 2015.

Amber Ale, Vanilla Porter, and Irish Stout Updates

A few updates condensed into one post. . .

Vanilla Voay Porter
This experimental brew (recipe, update, and update) was bottled on Saturday, December 10. This gave the vanilla extract/pods around two weeks in the secondary fermenter - the chopped and scraped pods floated on the surface, and many of the tiny seeds were everywhere in the fermenter.

Final gravity was 1.016, from a starting gravity of 1.056, giving 5.25% alcohol by volume. Final yield was just over 5 gallons of beer(!), with 30 12-oz. bottles, 12 1-pt. bottles, and 4 22-oz. bottles.

Four days after bottling, I was impatient and opened one of the small bottles. Carbonation was still very slight, but the flavor and aroma were delicious. A faint vanilla scent, but a rich vanilla flavor (not overpowering though, thankfully). I'm very excited to see how this is going to mature over the next few weeks!

Fake Tire Amber Ale
One week after brewing, I transferred my Fat Tire clone into the secondary fermenter. The aroma was very estery, with a strong banana component. I might have been a little worried, except the yeast strain is known to do this. The gravity was around 1.014 at this point, and hadn't changed at all when I racked the beer into the bottling bucket today (December 17, 19 days after brewing). This gives 5% alcohol by volume, a little less than the 5.2% of real Fat Tire.

From this batch, I got 20 12-oz. bottles, 14 1-pt. bottles, and 1 22-oz. bottle. Next time I might try scaling the recipe up a bit.

When preparing to bottle, I'm very impressed by the absolute clarity of the beer. This bodes well for the final product (which I'll probably test in a week's time - Christmas Eve!).

Coopers Irish Stout
The Irish stout I made a few weeks ago has matured into a wonderfully drinkable brew. The head is a nice caramel-color, and isn't overwhelming, but certainly sticks around the edges of the glass after pouring. The flavor has a hint of malt and is dominated by the roasted grains, and has a nice dry finish (as expected for the style). As I noted at the time of bottling, it's not a very exciting beer (middle of the road flavor - good but no really unusual highlights), but it's certainly a solid one.

This kit was cheap, fast, easy, and tasty - perfect for the beginning or end of the brew season when I just want to crank something out! I'll admit that it's not quite as much fun as doing everything from scratch, but then again that's also a welcome break sometimes. I expect I'll probably do this kit (or a similar one) again!

Irish stout, in the glass

Coopers Irish Stout - An Experiment

Last weekend I was at my local home brew store, getting the stuff together for tomorrow's brewing session (a Fat Tire-ish amber ale). Looking up on one shelf, I saw these cans of hopped extract kits. $21 on the price tag. Intrigued by the low cost, I asked the shop owner if it was worth trying. He told me that many home brewers look down their noses at these kits (I suppose because it's considered cheating), but that they actually can turn out some great beer. Quick, easy, cheap. . .worth a try! So, I bought a kit and took it home.

I selected a Coopers Irish Stout kit, which included a can of hopped malt and a packet of yeast. The package recommended adding some additional malt and dextrose - I had dry malt already, but not the latter, so I skipped dextrose. Instead, I used one pound of light and one pound of amber dry malt extract.

The directions recommended dissolving the can's contents and the dry malt in 2 liters of boiling water. In order to achieve an additional level of sanitation, I boiled the dry malt first (in about 3 liters of water). Once that had gone for a few minutes, I turned off the heat and stirred in the liquid hopped malt. Several websites I saw said not to boil this final mixture, in order to maximize flavor. That makes sense, because the malt in the can should already be sterile, and I didn't want to drive off any latent aroma.

At any rate, I dumped the hot mixture in my primary fermenter, and topped it up with cold tap water to about 5.25 gallons (enough to get the overall temperature down appropriately for the yeast). Original gravity was 1.044. I pitched the dry yeast directly into the fermenter (per the package directions), sealed it up, and hoped for the best.

The fermentation was clearly moving along after 24 hours, and after 48 hours it was so vigorous as to be spilling out the top of my airlock. I let it go for seven days, until the gravity had dropped to 1.018. Then, I transferred the beer into my bottling bucket (with 2/3 cup corn sugar added for priming), and bottled. The overall yield was 10 18 oz. bottles and 36 12 oz. bottles - not too shabby! Given the o.g. and f.g., I can expect about 3.4% alcohol by volume.

The uncarbonated beer has a clean flavor, but I must say it isn't that complex or interesting otherwise. Then again, what can you expect for around $25 worth of materials? A big plus was the speed of initial brewing - it was only about 90 minutes of work to get from can to sealed primary fermenter (this includes cleaning all of the equipment!). Once carbonated, I anticipate this Irish Stout being a rather drinkable session brew - perfect for the upcoming winter months!