The Great Quintessential Ales Competition

[nigel_c]

Clubs?

[Ciaran]

Clubs?

Nigel, embarrassingly everyone who placed was from the north, I'll leave it to the judges to justify themselves lol

Cheers John. Those beers you're talking about were for the same competition last year when you were up to give us a bit of a pep talk in preparing for competitions. I think i had about 4 brews in a row which all had the same astringency problems and it got a bit disheartening if im honest. I put the issue down to grain husks getting into the boil, bought a better false bottom which seems to have fixed the problem.  pH and water chemistry wouldn't be my strong point but I've been digging into that recently as I'm sure a lot of ones on here are since the meter group buy.  Different recipes this year but I'd wager any improvement is down to tweaks in process rather than better recipes but could be a bit of both. Maybe the lyles golden syrup made the difference

[redshift]

Well done Ciaran, great result there!

[Acott]

Congratulations to the Belfast lads on organising another brilliant competition. My bottles literally arrived mid competition and the lads managed to squeeze them in, a huge thank you to Bazza and Mrs.Bazza for all their help!

Well done guys, I'm already plotting and planning for next year!

[Dr Brown Ale]

Are the score sheets available?

[Bazza]

Hey All,

Meant to weigh in with a comment yesterday but between hangovers, kids' birthday parties leading to amplified hangover, I'm only getting round to this now.

First of all, a huge congratulations to Ciaran on his excellent gold and silver, and to Larry Murray on a bronze with his first ever interaction with the Belfast club. All thoroughly deserved.

Big thanks also to all our judges who took the time and expense to come down to Brewbot and lend their wealth of knowledge and expertise to the proceedings. Special mention to Rich (Slugtrap) as well for keeping the judges and the scoresheets in order. Invaluable help there.

Thanks also to all the guys from the club who came down to help out with stewarding, banner hanging, tidying, arranging the chips and dips in an artistically appealing formation, and for generally helping the day run like clockwork. It was definitely a much less stressful day than our first go last year.

Thanks to Brewbot for being excellent hosts and for all their support leading up to, and on, the day. Marie and Pearse couldn't do enough for us. Our club looks to have developed a great relationship with them and long may it continue.

Huge thanks to our prize sponsors. Geterbrewed's offer of a professional brew of the gold winner is one hell of a prize and, given that one of our lads will be the recipient of this offer, our next club trip has pretty much arranged itself 
Thanks also to Boundary Brewing for their very generous prize of a case of beer. Party at Ciaran's next weekend 

Ambrosia Italian for the food. The pizzas went down a storm and we managed to get through almost all the chips    Ambrosia's one of those rare places where both daddies and kids like going to. I'm a sucker for colouring in.

So, who does that leave - ah yes, An Post. What can we say other than they got there in the end. And as yer man MeatBat or BatLoaf said, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. CH's delivery record is much better, 100% success rate, in fact. Cheers, man. Much appreciated and thanks to James for doing Dublin collection point.

All in all a really successful day. The old 'I can only do things when the pressure's really on' work ethic paid off again. And I actually managed to get through the whole of yesterday without needing to recharge my phone due to Whatsapp killing the battery.

Great event, great day out, great work, great standard and roll on next year!

Keep 'er quintessential!

Cheers,

-Barry

[Paddy]

Fair play Ciaran! Congratulations on your results and Larry too!

[sub82]

Are the score sheets available?

All score sheets should have been emailed. Let me know if there are any problems!

[Roo]

Just had a look at my score sheet and although I wasn't a winner I have had some detailed comments as feedback and am very encouraged. I had an idea of the beers problems but in the main it was a good effort. Thanks to all the judges and fellow club members for a well organised great days learning experience. Just like my school report...."could do better"

[Roo]

To clear up any potential ambiguity. The school report refers to my beer and not the event.....obviously.

[Simon_]

First time I've been able to read every word of both scoresheets. Northern handwriting > Mexican
Thanks for getting the scores out so promptly and running the comp in general.

Thanks to James and John for arranging delivery