Malt Madness Homebrew Competition

This past weekend I headed out to Allentown Brew Works in Allentown, PA to help judge the Malt Madness homebrew competition organized by the Lehigh Valley Homebrewers. The event was a lot of fun and I got to try some real interesting beers, especially because of the categories I judged. In the morning, I judged the Belgian Specialty Ale category, a sort of catch-all for Belgian-style ales that don't fit into one of the more specific categorizations. For example, I had some Belgian barleywines, Belgian IPAs, and oak-aged Belgian ales. In the afternoon, I judged Fruit Beers, which I was admittedly not a huge fan of--I officially hate raspberry now. I had a wheat beer brewed with kumquat, which I've never even heard of before, but from what I can tell belonged to the citrus family based on the flavor. There were two really great peach beers, an American Wheat and a Wit, which ended up being in our top three. The trick with the fruit beers is that you need to strike a balance between the base beer and the fruit. Many brewers struggle with this; the fruit needs to come through in both the aroma and flavor without overshadowing the character of the base beer. For example, some of the raspberry beers were just complete fruit bombs; there was no balance--they almost just tasted like a raspberry soda.

In addition to judging at the competition, I actually entered two of my own beers for the very first time--a Marzen (Oktoberfest) and a Weizen (aka Hefeweizen). Considering this was my first competition, I was happy with the results. I knew my Marzen was a little off style, so I was not surprised that it received a 29.5 consensus score (out of 50), which put me right at the top of the "Good" category ("misses the mark on style and/or minor flaws"). I know that sounds like a bad score, but it's not bad in the scheme of things (I haven't given above a 39 yet to a beer while judging). I was a bit disappointed with the scores on my Weizen, because I thought it was one of the best beers I've brewed yet. I got a 24 consensus score, which is still in the "Good" category, but I felt it deserved better. After reading the judges' comments though, it started to make some sense--here are some of the negative remarks:
--"No clove + banana"
--"low/med carbonation (needs more)"
--"very low aromatics overall for the style"
--"no head. fades fast!"
--"low carbonation affects other areas"
I think the last comment hit the nail on the head. I bottled the beer out of the keg a week before the competition, and although the beer was well-carbonated in the keg, I think it lost it in the bottle. Carbonation is a huge component of a beer, and if it's too low or too high, it could impact all the other components. The low carbonation made the beer seem lifeless and prevented aromatics from being lifted out of the glass. Next time I'll definitely try to bottle the morning of the competition! One thing that did make me feel better is that one judge wrote, "Not quite to style, despite pleasant drinking." So basicaly, I made a great beer, but it just didn't fit the style. That's the tough thing about competitions--with the exception of the specialty categories, it's not just about if the beer is good or not, it's about if you hit the style parameters. I had a good shot, but I missed the bulls-eye.

That's all for now! I'm heading to the Great World Beer Festival in New York City this Sunday, so I'll have details about that after the weekend. Cheers!