National Homebrew Club Ireland

Capital brewers are running the annual Summer Session beer competition again this year in Dublin. It is not a BJCP categorized competition so the tag line is 'Summer Session Beers of <4%'. The beer should reflect the following -  Summer in a glass. Light, refreshing, medium body, thirst quenching, balanced beer of low ABV (a lawnmower beer). Something to enjoy on those two days of summer we get every year.

-   The idea is to run it at club level at the local meet ups for members only.
-   Each member gets a vote as to the best beer on the night.
-   Entrants can bring brew sheets to show how their beer was made, very important if sub 3%ABV or funk involvement.
-   Two beers get selected at the meet up and will be sent through to a national final.
-   The final will take place in mid August.

Prizes and entry fee (likely to be €5) are to be announced but it is time to get brewing.

Tips to brewing a low ABV beer -

   - Be careful not to mash too low and end up with a very dry & light bodied beer.
   - Use different malts to build body
   - Be careful to balance hop bitterness with the lighter body.
   - Attenuation of a beer like this is key so choose your yeast carefully

More details to follow but the format is going to be very similar to previous years.  One difference is going to be the amount of information that the judges get about the beer. I'm hoping that they will be provided with ABV, style and yeast used to allow them to judge the beer more effectively. This is important for beers that might be sub 3%,  beers with funky yeasts or speciality ingredients.

Once your club has selected the top two beers to go through, get them to either me, Ronan or Kavanagh's on dorset street before the 15th with the following information on each bottle:

QuoteFirst name
Surname
NHC forum nickname
BJCP Category
Beer name
Summer session Competition Judge (y/n)
Phone Number
Email
Planning to attend on the day (y/n/maybe)

If you are giving the bottles to Ronan or myself personally then include the fiver with the entry sheet on the bottle, if you are handing it in to Kavanagh's then we will sort it out with paypal.

How do we enter. Is there an entry form for this, or do we just attach our own info on the bottles and drop our beers at a drop-off point?

Each club has their own mini competition, select's the top two beers and gets them to Dublin before the 15th. Some clubs are doing their selections this week and some next week.

Who is your local club?

Wee County Brewers. We have our beers picked, I was just unsure whether they needed specific labels attached to them or anything

I'll get them down to you next week sometime. Sweetmans, yeah?

The competition is in Kavanagh's on Dorset street, I will update the OP to include the following information, same info the Liffey lads used for their comp. If you can attach the following information to each bottle please:

First name
Surname
NHC forum nickname
BJCP Category
Beer name
Summer session Competition Judge (y/n)
Phone Number
Email
Planning to attend on the day (y/n/maybe)

In terms of the fiver for entry, it depends on who you are giving it to. If you are giving it to me or Ronan (Beerfly) then attach the fiver to the bottles, if you are dropping it in somewhere then we will arrange transfer though paypal.

QuoteSummer session Competition Judge (y/n)

what does this mean?

on the day/night you mean?

On the day of the final only, those judges have already been picked.  We will be double checking that on the day anyway.

Have the drop points been finalised yet?

Hey delzep, we only have one dedicated drop point in Dublin (Kavanagh's). In previous years we have relied on the NHC express to get the beers up to Dublin from the other clubs as the competition is too small to justify drop points around the country. It has been down to the wire several times using this approach but usually we get most of the beers in on time.

How many do you have?

I'm in Dublin so its no bother getting to Kavanaghs, just wanted to know where I could drop them off. Means I can grab a pint or two while I'm there  O0.

Will the barman know what the craic is when I leave them off?

There is the main barman and the manager (who is often between the off-licence and the pub), both of them should know the score.

Quote from: delzep on August 04, 2015, 11:39:55 AM
Will the barman know what the craic is when I leave them off?

Quote from: danger_zone on July 30, 2015, 06:15:09 PM
I'll get them down to you next week sometime. Sweetmans, yeah?

Depends on when your dropping them off, have not confirmed that with them yet but it was ok for the nationals.
I'll hopefully have it confirmed later, i can also meet people around the city center too.

You can drop them in to kavanaghs. If it's early in the day you can also drop them into the off licence.
Between there and the bar someone should know about it.

Sound  O0

Is this using the 2015 BJCP categories?

Its not a BJCP based competition. Judges will be able to use the guidelines if they want but both this and the winter warmer competition are a theme based competition. Judges and staff will still get points if they want though as I have registered it.

Quote from: shiny on August 10, 2015, 11:45:07 AM
Its not a BJCP based competition. Judges will be able to use the guidelines if they want but both this and the winter warmer competition are a theme based competition. Judges and staff will still get points if they want though as I have registered it.

Is there any special process to collect the points?

I will be filling out a competition report after the competition is over. I will add all of the judges and staff at that point.

Entry form states a bjcp category

That is to give the judges some sort of guideline as to what they are judging.
i.e. Is this infected? No its a sour... etc

Quote from: pdb on August 10, 2015, 11:46:15 AM

Quote from: shiny on August 10, 2015, 11:45:07 AM
Its not a BJCP based competition. Judges will be able to use the guidelines if they want but both this and the winter warmer competition are a theme based competition. Judges and staff will still get points if they want though as I have registered it.

Is there any special process to collect the points?

I've filled a couple of these now, its important to get your points you give your BJCP registration no. to Shiny or you spell your full name as per the one you intend to register with the BJCP, there are a lot of Bobs in the BJCP.

Results are in
1st. Bren Murphy
2nd. Cahalbrua
3rd. Bren Murphy
Well done lads!

Congrats!

Well done Bren^2 (& Cathal).

What styles were they?

Well done guys, any chance you could publish recipes would love to have a proper go at a low abv beer?

Theres a lot of benefit to keeping alc low.

1. you can drink a bit more
2. your friends can pop in for a beer and not fear driving home
3. your liver will thanks you in the med-long term
4. lower alcohol beers can help hydrate and have a place in sports nutrition
5. it devellops your skill at brewing
6. High alcohol beverages damage your gut flora and reduce immune function

Some ideas for brewing low abv beers are as follows, keep in mind the prob with lower alcohol is we use less malt so less malt = less malt flavour. Therefore to boost malt flavour there are some tricks that may work. In ways these are basic things found in some homebrew books

*Use great ( fresh) malts with flavour. Munich, vienna, pilsner or maybe maris otter.
*Do very little sparging as this can help the maltiness versus grainyness from sparging too much
*Use flavourful hops but limit them so they dont take over.
*Use long boil and or decoction can help build malty flavour and caramelisation
*Hard boil builds flavour a bit more but may affect head retention.
*Use calcium chloride to enhance malt. ( calcium sulphate can increase hop flavours)
*Some yeasts can boost/ enhance maltiness look them up. Our favorite is mauribrew lager yeast at  ale temps but there are others so go looking up websites.
*Use higher mash temp which gives less alcohol and more sweetness so you can balance out sweetness with salt and other minerals and PH adjustment.

Our lowest beer was 1.9% and 2.2%. Both of them tasted at and around summer sessions last year. Good examples of flavourful beers brewed naturally ( versus distilled)
I recomend a target of 3 to 3.5%  as this is easier to acheive using 3-4kg malt for a homebrew batch and play with some of above tricks. If you push too low you can end up with a slightly watery beer.

Happy Low ABV brewing give it a go!

I take it thats a no then ;)

Quote from: Ciderhead on August 17, 2015, 05:25:23 PM
I take it thats a no then ;)

You can sort out your radon problem with an inline filter surely?

Recipe posted already earlier today!!!

apologies I'm only at No 25 in "recent posts" :-[

Btw when are we getting the results Mr Barfly?

Quote from: Ciderhead on August 18, 2015, 09:36:50 AM
Btw when are we getting the results Mr Barfly?

All here, with pics (http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/wordpress/2015/08/17/capital-brewers-summer-session-competition-2015/)

The results were as follows:

• 1st Bren Murphy, with a blonde IPA
• 2nd Cahalbrua, with a beer that contained ginger and lime
• 3rd Bren Murphy, with a fruity red

The winners received these generous prizes:

1st – 25kg malt from The Mottly Brew, Vintage malt bag, T-shirt and Hat from Minch Malt and a €50 voucher for The Homebrewing Company.

2nd – 5kg malt and T-shirt and hat from Minch Malt, 6kg malt from The Mottly Brew

3rd – 6kg malt from The Mottly Brew and a T-shirt from Minch Malt

I think it's scoresheets, like myself, that he's after ...

Quote from: Ciderhead on August 18, 2015, 09:36:50 AM
Btw when are we getting the results Mr Barfly?

Quote from: fishjam45 on August 18, 2015, 10:26:41 AM
I think it's scoresheets, like myself, that he's after ...

I have the score sheets, I will get to them eventually.

Cheers Shiny

Ah ok,  it's just cos I'm so used to getting them quickly like the GCB comp  :P

Quote from: Ciderhead on August 16, 2015, 10:02:40 PM
Well done guys, any chance you could publish recipes would love to have a proper go at a low abv beer?

Recipes would be great

Posted yesterday

As requested heres it is.

this was brewed on our kit at Fisherstown trad fest. We brewed for 3 days on our full kit so in practice what happened was the mash was about 2 hours and the boil quite long as well. We hadnt enough power via the extension lead the gave us so boil strength was poor ( this sometimes can lead to a hazy beer with a BETTER head. If ye note cold sparging yes we did a cold sparge with RO water simply because our power could not supply our 3kw water kettle so we just went cold sparge. The event was to demo brewing and it would have been a bonus if the beer was goo because we were constantly busy at our stand showing brewing from the barley ( yes barley plant on the table) all the way to beer samples.

Kellie claims some credit for this brew as her and gonky minded the mash and boil while i was entertaining enthusuiast festgoers and radio and tv inter viewers.

Recipe was simple as it was only designed as a demo not really to make a good beer here goes:

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com (http://www.beersmith.com)
Recipe: fisherstown galaxy smash
Brewer: Brendan
Asst Brewer:
Style: German Pilsner (Pils)
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 29.41 l
Post Boil Volume: 27.04 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 25.00 l   
Bottling Volume: 24.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.039 SG
Estimated Color: 5.9 EBC
Estimated IBU: 43.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 76.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 76.0 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Water RO water

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
3.00 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   1        -             
3.00 g                Lactic Acid (Mash 60.0 mins)             Water Agent   2        -             
1.00 g                Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent   3        -             
4.25 kg               Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (3.9 EBC)            Grain         4        100.0 %       
15.00 g               Topaz [17.00 %] - First Wort 70.0 min    Hop           5        32.5 IBUs     
10.00 g               Amarillo [9.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min        Hop           6        3.7 IBUs     
10.00 g               Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min         Hop           7        5.7 IBUs     
10.00 g               Amarillo [9.20 %] - Boil 1.0 min         Hop           8        0.4 IBUs     
10.00 g               Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min          Hop           9        0.7 IBUs     
 
12g mauribrew lager yeast rehydrated and pitched at 18 c, fermented 16-18c 2 weeks and lagered for 3 weeks at 8c




Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, COLD Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 4.25 kg
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Mash In           Add 11.08 l of water at 72.4 C          66.0 C        60 min       

Sparge: Batch sparge with 1 steps of 18.0 C water
Notes:
------
edit... lager yeast is Mauribrew lager ( our house lager yeast) 

Are the rest of us getting feedback sheets/scores?

When I'm filling out the competition report I will do the lot together.

Any word on the score sheets lads?

Quote from: fishjam45 on September 11, 2015, 10:45:35 AM
Any word on the score sheets lads?

I'm quoting myself here lads....
Part of entering a competition is getting feedback on what you may have done wrong and how to improve it.

I haven't forgotten about them. I will get to them at some stage and will update the thread when that happens.

Whats the craic with the scoresheets for this? Its been 2 months since the competition

Its 100% my fault and I have no excuses left.

Quote from: shiny on October 11, 2015, 10:07:05 PM
Its 100% my fault and I have no excuses left.

Just snapshot them with your phone and post to a public drive like Liffey did? Would seem the handiest.

I will get them done this week.

Thanks for the results great and honest feedback about faults like poor carbonation, nice to get them confirmed and certainly something to work on for next years comp  :)

Disappointed in the legibility of some of the results as I was trying to see how others fared and what impressed judges the most in a comp I am struggling with, see below.
Is it a BJCP prerequisite that you write in block capitals if your normal standard or writing resembles a pissed spider just climbed out of an inkwell?

Quote from: CH on October 12, 2015, 08:42:35 PM
Is it a BJCP prerequisite that you write in block capitals if your normal standard or writing resembles a pissed spider just climbed out of an inkwell?

a couple of scoresheets I got in the nationals last year were illegible, and I've heard a few people say the same. Definitely something we can improve on in 2016.

Quote from: CH on October 12, 2015, 08:42:35 PM
Thanks for the results great and honest feedback about faults like poor carbonation, nice to get them confirmed and certainly something to work on for next years comp  :)

Disappointed in the legibility of some of the results as I was trying to see how others fared and what impressed judges the most in a comp I am struggling with, see below.
Is it a BJCP prerequisite that you write in block capitals if your normal standard or writing resembles a pissed spider just climbed out of an inkwell?

? ?, ? med ?, head. ? sweet grainy(?), aroma .
Body decent, some ? sweet (?) grainy(?), liquorice(?) flavour, hint of spice. Finish is ?  earthy ? cloying(?). Bitterness well balanced. Not v. refreshing.

Easy!

Are you a pharmacist or GP ;)

Were some beers entered without an ABV given as part of the entry?

Some of the scoresheets say "no abv" ???

Actually I'm confused now, are the sheets up somewhere?

(http://i.imgur.com/heFrNYh.png)

Quote from: pdb on October 12, 2015, 09:04:15 PM
Actually I'm confused now, are the sheets up somewhere?

Yep, will send you a pm now.

As a judge I will respond to this in the morning when sobber!

I know from doing the bjcp course, my writing gets worse as the day goes on, both from drink and agony in my hand from writing. :)

Unfortunately not everyone has copper plate handwriting. Mine in particular has been getting worse over time so I try to print the comments.

As Colm says after a while we do get a bit tired and the writing gets a bit hard to read.

Also for most of us this is the only time we use handwriting!

Anyways point taken, in future we will ask the judges at the briefing to try to print the comments.

What about there not being an ABV on a lot of the scoresheets?

This is explained in the opening post.