2016 Beehive Brew Off

[Gameface]

Submitted my entries for the Beehive Brew Off today! Wish me luck.

Judging takes place on Aug. 20th and 21st with winners announced at 5:30pm on the 21st at the Bayou. Feel free to stop by and say hello at the awards ceremony. I'll be stewarding again this year and if you're interested in participating in that please contact me.

This year I submitted eight beers into ten categories.

YES (Young's Extra Special) - category 11C British Strong Bitter
This is an English style pale ale. My favorite beer. I brew this about 65% of the time I make beer.
6.6%abv IBUs 40.8 O.G. 1.065 F.G. 1.015 SRM 9.5

Bitter Exit - category 11B British Best Bitter
Similar to YES, but with a lower alcohol percentage.
4.7%abv IBUs 44.7 O.G. 1.045 F.G. 1.009 SRM 6.7

Worker Bee Bitter - category 11A British Ordinary Bitter
Similar again but with a very low alcohol percentage, intended for consumption over a long drinking session.
3.4%abv IBUs 38.9 O.G. 1.033 F.G. 1.006 SRM 5.7

Third Cousin - category 14C Scottish Export Ale
This is a malty beer that while dark amber in color is very light bodied and extremely easy to drink.
4.7%abv IBUs 20.1 O.G. 1.046 F.G 1.010 SRM 14.9

Pistol Porter - category 13C English Porter
Your standard English porter. Dark color, some chocolate flavors, not roasty like a stout with a lot of body.
4.7%abv IBUs 23.8 O.G. 1.056 F.G 1.020 SRM 27

Stormborn - category 12A British Golden Ale
A very light colored beer similar to a bitter but slightly less hoppy and no caramel flavors.
4.4%abv IBUs 36.8 O.G. 1.041 F.G. 1.007 SRM 3.6

Underway IPA - category 12C English IPA
Also entered in category 17A British Strong Ale
An English style IPA, more malt character than an American IPA and using English hops (primarily EKG) which have more of an earthy/floral character as compared to the citrus and pine hops found in most American IPAs
7%abv IBUs 65 O.G. 1.070 F.G. 1.017 SRM 8.6

Bounty Hunter Rye IPA - category 21B Specialty IPA - RYE
Also entered in category 22B American Strong Ale
This is an American style IPA with a considerable amount of Rye malt and flaked rye in the malt bill. Huge contribution of citrus hops, including Citra, Amarillo and Cascade.
7.2%abv IBUs 79.1 O.G. 1.069 F.G 1.015 SRM 6.4

https://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf

 

[Gameface]

Probably didn't need its own thread, but I wanted to anyway,

I feel really good about my beers this year.

The last several months I've been brewing for competition. Most of the time I brew to have beer that I like, but I take a different approach when it comes to brewing for competition. For instance, I make YES more than I make any other beer, by a lot. But I use a different recipe for the batch that I intend to enter for competition. And the Bitter Exit and Worker Bee Bitter, I only make those for competition.

A little story. in 2012 I entered the Beehive Brew Off for the first time and YES took first place in the British Bitter category (It was category 8 then, now it's category 11). In 2013 I entered two beers in the Beehive Brew Off, YES and Brigham's Best, both in the British bitter category (you can enter a category more than once, but only one entry per subcategory) and I took 1st with YES and 3rd with Brigham's Best. In 2014 I entered several beers and had an entry for each subcategory of British Bitter. That year Worker Bee Bitter took 1st and that was the only beer that placed. In 2015 there was a new set of BJCP guidelines. A brand new category was British Commonwealth Beers (category 12) that included British Golden Ale, English IPA and Australian Sparkling Ale. They combined the British Bitter category with the British Commonwealth Beers category because there weren't enough entries of British Commonwealth Beers to judge it by itself. So an Australian Sparkling Ale took 1st place and a British Golden ale took 3rd place in my beloved British Bitter category, and I got skunked! So this year I have three beers in the British Bitter category, YES, Bitter Exit and Worker Bee Bitter, and two beers in the British Commonwealth category, Stormborn Golden Ale and Underway IPA. My hope is that they split the categories up this year, but I'm doubting that because it looks like there will be even less entries in the Brew Off overall again this year (entries peaked in 2014).

Anyway, all that said, my goal is to sweep the British Bitter/British Commonwealth category. No one has ever taken 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the same category in the Beehive Brew Off. I'm still pissed that I didn't even place in the category I'd taken 1st in three years running. So just getting back on top of that category is not enough. I need to own that category.

 

[Gameface]

Oh and wanted to throw out a mini-meetup possibility at the Bayou at 5:30 on Aug 21st for the awards ceremony. The awards announcement only takes 15min or so, but The Bayou has a huge beer selection and a full bar, so it'll be an awesome place to get together and contemplate how fun the Jazz are gonna be this season.

@Broncster, you're still on for stewarding? I talked to Jamie and she said the more help the better. Pretty much just show up at the Bayou at 9am on Sat. Aug. 20th.

 

[Ron Mexico]

Oh and wanted to throw out a mini-meetup possibility at the Bayou at 5:30 on Aug 21st for the awards ceremony. The awards announcement only takes 15min or so, but The Bayou has a huge beer selection and a full bar, so it'll be an awesome place to get together and contemplate how fun the Jazz are gonna be this season.

@Broncster, you're still on for stewarding? I talked to Jamie and she said the more help the better. Pretty much just show up at the Bayou at 9am on Sat. Aug. 20th.

Yes, I still plan on stewarding. I sent in a submission to help but I'll just plan on that, since I never heard back.

 

[Stoked]

I do stuff like this if I didn't live in BFE.

 

[fishonjazz]

Oh and wanted to throw out a mini-meetup possibility at the Bayou at 5:30 on Aug 21st for the awards ceremony. The awards announcement only takes 15min or so, but The Bayou has a huge beer selection and a full bar, so it'll be an awesome place to get together and contemplate how fun the Jazz are gonna be this season.

@Broncster, you're still on for stewarding? I talked to Jamie and she said the more help the better. Pretty much just show up at the Bayou at 9am on Sat. Aug. 20th.

I would like to go to that mini meet up on Sunday the 21st, but..... You probably know how busy the next few weeks are at work (I hear we should be setting a couple of volume records) and I will be working 12 hour shifts tomorrow and the next Saturday (plus a couple of mid week 12's) so that I have little time off right now.
Not sure how the wife would feel about me going to that.
I will still have the discussion with her but she is doing most all of the baby duties while I'm working so much so she might want family time.

I will see what I can do to attend.

 

[Gameface]

Judging starts bright and early tomorrow morning! I'll be there. If anyone is interested in participating just show up at The Bayou at 9am (there will be some coffee, doughnuts and bagels provided) and help out. It's an interesting experience and many from the core of Utah's homebrew and micro craft breweries will be there.

If you'd like to cheer me on at the awards ceremony that is Sunday eve around 5pm, also at The Bayou.

 

[Siro]

Good luck Gameface!

 

[addictionary]

Brew'em All!..

 

[Gameface]

So for anyone interested, I'm going to try to get to the Bayou just before they open at 5 so that I can get a table. If you let me know you'll be there I'll try to get a table big enough to fit as many people as want to go.

I'm pretty excited. I'll leave it at that until after the awards are official.

 

[Ron Mexico]

So for anyone interested, I'm going to try to get to the Bayou just before they open at 5 so that I can get a table. If you let me know you'll be there I'll try to get a table big enough to fit as many people as want to go.

I'm pretty excited. I'll leave it at that until after the awards are official.

My wife and I plan on coming. It's been pretty fun watching the process and tasting all the beers.

 

[Gameface]

My wife and I plan on coming. It's been pretty fun watching the process and tasting all the beers.

Okay, I'll try to get a table for four.

 

[JazzForLifee]

good luck!


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[Gameface]

good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using JazzFanz mobile app

Thanks!

 

[Gameface]

Broncster, I've got a table

 

[Scat]

It's now 7. How did you do?

 

[Gameface]

It's now 7. How did you do?

I did well... I'll be home soon. I don't want to post from my phone but YES win in the bitter category and took third place best of show out of 409 entries.

 

[Gameface]

Okay, more complete report.

So yesterday I got a little confused as far as what was being judged where and thought none of my British Bitter beers even placed. Turns out I was on eavesdropping the wrong table.

So my goal was to take 1st, 2nd and 3rd in that category. I missed. I only got 1st and 3rd. My most brewed beer, YES (Young's Extra Special), took first and Bitter Exit, a Best Bitter, took third. Worker Bee Bitter, a 1st place beer two years ago, didn''t place. Then my Stormborn British Golden Ale took 2nd in the British Commonwealth category. Pistol Porter took 1st in the British Brown Ale category. YES took 3rd in the British Strong Ale category, but I actually didn't have enough YES bottled so I subbed in Underway IPA but didn't change the info online, so it's listed as YES. So that means 5 out of my 10 entries got a medal. But YES and Pistol Porter went to the best of show round. It was funny because I saw my entry number for YES on the table but thought that beer didn't even place in its category. Long story short on that, they went through the 18 BOS beers and eliminated them one by one. They were down to four beers left and Pistol Porter and YES were still on the table. One guy raised the question if they should keep YES or Pistol Porter (they don't have the beer names, they were calling them by their entry number). It was pretty unanimous YES would be in the top three. They debated the order of the top 3 for a good 20 minutes. A few made some strong arguments to move YES up but the other two entries were basically higher difficulty beers (I've said many times ESB is not a BOS style of beer for that reason). So ultimately they picked YES 3rd, but gave it compliments for standing out against the more complex styles in the top 3.

Pretty blown away. After thinking none of my Bitter beers made it yesterday to finding out I got two medals in that category and that YES got a best of show medal I'm beyond happy with the results.

The Underway English IPA got amazing scores, but it was one of two English IPAs in a 20+ beer American IPA group. I'm very happy with that.

My Scottish ale didn't place. That's one of my favorite beers. It got second in the category last year and I felt like this one was just as good. That just means a few other people made scottish ales that were even better, so I'm not disappointed.

My Rye IPA, Bounty Hunter, didn't medal in another big category, the Specialty IPAs, but I was watching that table and I know it was eliminated in 4th place. So for a style out of my wheel house I'm very happy with that. The scores were good and the comments were positive.

 

[Gameface]

Here are the posted results from the Brew Off

https://utahbeer.blogspot.com/2016/08/2016-beehive-brewoff-results.html?m=1

This is the official comp website, but once entry opens next year you can't fins the standings anymore. The one above will stay.
https://www.beernut.com/beercomp/

1st Place British Bitter --- 3rd Place Best Of Show
YES (Young's Extra Special) - category 11C British Strong Bitter
This is an English style pale ale. My favorite beer. I brew this about 65% of the time I make beer.
6.6%abv IBUs 40.8 O.G. 1.065 F.G. 1.015 SRM 9.5

3rd Place British Bitter
Bitter Exit - category 11B British Best Bitter
Similar to YES, but with a lower alcohol percentage.
4.7%abv IBUs 44.7 O.G. 1.045 F.G. 1.009 SRM 6.7

Worker Bee Bitter - category 11A British Ordinary Bitter
Similar again but with a very low alcohol percentage, intended for consumption over a long drinking session.
3.4%abv IBUs 38.9 O.G. 1.033 F.G. 1.006 SRM 5.7

Third Cousin - category 14C Scottish Export Ale
This is a malty beer that while dark amber in color is very light bodied and extremely easy to drink.
4.7%abv IBUs 20.1 O.G. 1.046 F.G 1.010 SRM 14

1st Place English Porter
Pistol Porter - category 13C English Porter
Your standard English porter. Dark color, some chocolate flavors, not roasty like a stout with a lot of body.
4.7%abv IBUs 23.8 O.G. 1.056 F.G 1.020 SRM 27

2nd Place British Golden Ale
Stormborn - category 12A British Golden Ale
A very light colored beer similar to a bitter but slightly less hoppy and no caramel flavors.
4.4%abv IBUs 36.8 O.G. 1.041 F.G. 1.007 SRM 3.6

3rd Place British Strong Ale
Underway IPA - category 12C English IPA
Also entered in category 17A British Strong Ale
An English style IPA, more malt character than an American IPA and using English hops (primarily EKG) which have more of an earthy/floral character as compared to the citrus and pine hops found in most American IPAs
7%abv IBUs 65 O.G. 1.070 F.G. 1.017 SRM 8.6

Bounty Hunter Rye IPA - category 21B Specialty IPA - RYE
Also entered in category 22B American Strong Ale
This is an American style IPA with a considerable amount of Rye malt and flaked rye in the malt bill. Huge contribution of citrus hops, including Citra, Amarillo and Cascade.
7.2%abv IBUs 79.1 O.G. 1.069 F.G 1.015 SRM 6.4

 

[Ron Mexico]

Congrats again [MENTION=26]Gameface[/MENTION], you cleaned up the awards. Also thanks for letting me know about this i had a fun time and learned as bunch. Pretty sure I tried about 200 to 300 beers and lot of them were styles I've never had. Btw they said leftovers were available at the beer nut for stewards if you want any today.

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