National Homebrew Club Ireland

Ok so the Nationals are only 4 months away and so here is a thread to contribute to from judges and those that score well to get you thinking how to brew competition winning beers.

Plan plan plan, start early, at least on 4 occasions I have brewed beer which has been too green and not conditioned enough for competitions, I taste them 2 months after the competition and they have fully developed and harshness has softened. It can add 5 points to your score and make a good beer a great beer.

Dont use shit ingredients, if you grain is stale or soft and not crunchy, if you hops don't smell great as soon as you open the packet sling em. would you bake a cake with sour milk or old eggs? Shit ingredients shit beer simple as.

Fermentation temperatures and Hygiene, done to death on this forum as they are the two major reasons I have tasted crap beer in competitions and yet it keeps coming up, the beer gods gave us homebrewers W5, Stansan and heat belts for a reason, use them.

Get a considered opinion, not mammy or the girlfriend or anybody else that doesn't want to offend, meets are great but not everybody can go to meets, pull out the 2015 style guidelines and score your beer objectively, if you think its poor the judges will too.
Bottle 3 taste 1 the week before you enter, if you don't like it or its not to style the judges definitely won't, save yourself the fiver. 

I had 4 beers ready for liffey, they weren't carbonated enough and one of them was an experiment that went wrong, I was gutted as the feckers took ages but I didn't enter as they weren't up to scratch, I'll enjoy them for christmas and they will be in top condition for the nationals.

But I don't know where to start with recipes? don't be afraid to copy or clone, but do something different that will make it your own.

Take one step at a time, 3 new additions on a recipe can be tricky to see what impact each had on the final beer.

Take judges comments, suggestions, and questions seriously but not personally.
Believe it or not they are there to try and help, and a good bjcp judge on the score sheet if you brew a poor beer will give you ideas on recipes and process to help you improve your flavour if its not to style or has a particular flaw.
Personally I try to taste "beyond the flaw" if its safe to do so and sometimes a dirty bottle or poor hygiene can murder what was an amazing beer.

Quote from: CH on October 01, 2015, 11:15:39 PM
Bottle 3 taste 1 the week before you enter, if you don't like it or its not to style the judges definitely won't, save yourself the fiver. 

I think that's fine for club competitions but I seem to remember for the nationals you have to pay upfront

Quote from: Pheeel on October 01, 2015, 11:29:54 PM

Quote from: CH on October 01, 2015, 11:15:39 PM
Bottle 3 taste 1 the week before you enter, if you don't like it or its not to style the judges definitely won't, save yourself the fiver. 

I think that's fine for club competitions but I seem to remember for the nationals you have to pay upfront

Closing date is 1st Feb you can register your entries from probably December this year (tbc) and delete or not pay right up to the 1st of Feb.
If the payment hasn't been received then the entry is not accepted. Thats 3 weeks before Belfast leg same as most local comps and 5 weeks before Dublin leg.

Quote from: CH on October 01, 2015, 11:37:08 PM
Closing date is 1st Feb you can register your entries from probably December this year (tbc) and delete or not pay right up to the 1st of Feb.
If the payment hasn't been received then the entry is not accepted. Thats 3 weeks before Belfast leg same as most local comps and 5 weeks before Dublin leg.

In which case, yes I agree :)

When cleaning your equipment make sure you give it a really good rinse. Have seen some oxi products labled as no rinse when their not.

Enter your beer in the category in which your beer fits best, which is not necessarily the style that was on the original recipe you used.

e.g. if your "Best Bitter" came out a little stronger than intended, maybe enter it as an "ESB" instead. Your "Irish Red" a little roastier than intended? Maybe it would fare better in the porter category.

If you can't decide which category it fits best, seek the opinion of an experienced home brewer (most will be only too happy to evaluate your beer for you) or enter the beer in both categories!

Quote from: CH on October 01, 2015, 11:11:17 PM
Fermentation temperatures and Hygiene, done to death on this forum as they are the two major reasons I have tasted crap beer in competitions and yet it keeps coming up, the beer gods gave us homebrewers W5, Stansan and heat belts for a reason, use them.

Use enough yeast. :'(

Don't use any distinctive markings (labels, writing on the cap) on your bottles. It's against the rules!
Don't use clear bottles!

K-I-S-S - Keep It Simple Stupid  ;D


Some of the best beers I've brewed (and tasted) have often had quite simple grain and hop bills. It's also been my experience of competitions that even a fairly basic beer, well executed, can attract some pretty high scores.

Invite Bren Murph to stay over for a week

Yeah, Kildare is the brewing capital alright.

I judged APAs a couple of years ago, and I feel that hoppy beers are quite popular. If you're brewing a hoppy beer, add plenty of hops. If it's hoppy, the hoppiness is more pronounced when the beer is fresh. Use oxygen-scavenging caps. Keep the beer cold once conditioned. Hardly any of the beers cut the mustard with respect to the hoppy aroma.

Irish Goat is good at getting hops into beer, using the 'never stop adding hops' method. Very effective. Dry hopping in the bottle, too, I think I saw once... (don't do it).

This is an excellent thread, CH.

Understand the style you are making; Research it; seek out and enjoy commercial examples and then be honest with yourself about the flaws in the beer you have brewed.

Many times I have entered a beer in a competition that I have convinced myself is good and when the judges say its isn't and give there reasons I kick myself because I had tasted that and chosen to ignore it. We all need to set ourselves a high standard.   

Of course the competition itself is a great learning experience, so read and understand the judges feedback and do better next time.

Finally and most important. Brew something you like. Better still something you have a passion for. :)

Weigh your ingredients accurately especially for smaller weights, recently discovered that my "brew"kitchen scales was out by 5g :( and invested in one I can calibrate

(http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/10/03/8af26934cbf484ab307143d8adabef7b.jpg)

How did you find that out?

Here's a good strategy for brewing an award-winning beer for the Nationals.

Pick a beer style that enjoy drinking regularly
Make a list of 5 or 6 examples of that beer style. You can use the classic examples section for each beer style in the BJCP guidelines, or you can use websites like RateBeer or BeerAdvocate.
Procure said beers and evaluate each one. Have a crack at scoring each one for aroma, appearance, flavour, mouthfeel and overall impression. Make a note of your favourites, but more importantly, why they're your favourite. Tropical hop flavours? Dry finish? Slight smokiness from the roasted malts?
Do some research on these beers - check out the brewery website for recipe details, then hit the home brew forums for clone recipes. JimsBeerKit is particularly good for English styles, HomeBrewTalk is great for anything American. BYO magazine is a great resource, with lots of useful stuff in its online archive. Ask on this forum for advice on doing a clone. Someone here will have done something similar and will review your recipe and suggest improvements if required.
Brew and ferment the beer (the easy bit, right?)
Taste and critique in a side-by-side comparison with your chosen commercial beer. This is the most important thing. The idea is not necessarily to produce an exact clone, but to produce something of comparable quality.
Make a note of the differences between the two beers. Too bitter? Too much residual sweetness? Too roasty? Not hoppy enough?
Adjust your recipe and brew it again until you're happy with it.

@mrhoppy my old man had an old balance scales with weights I also weighed water in 500ml batches from an accurate graduated cylinder,both gave me the same result,the new scales confirmed it :(

Anyways back on topic...
If you are using a beer gun compensate for the loss of carbonation, I use a beer gun and counter pressure and am coming round to the belief that bottle carbing is the best process for competition entries.
One of the first things a judge does is look at the bottom to see how it's been carbed

Wherever possible try and avoid the use of plastic bottles, they are acceptable but judges don't like them :(

Quote from: CH on October 04, 2015, 10:25:40 AM
@mrhoppy my old man had an old balance scales with weights I also weighed water in 500ml batches from an accurate graduated cylinder,both gave me the same result,the new scales confirmed it :(

Its an interesting problem, not one I have heard about that often.

Learn the rule before you play:

Become intimately familiar with the BJCP guidelines for the style you're making.

Let's keep this going...

Become familiar with which beer styles are best consumed fresh (like hefeweizen, hoppy American ales) and which need a little more age on them (lagers obviously, imperial stout, Belgian quad) and plan your brewing calendar accordingly.

Quote from: Parky on October 02, 2015, 10:01:33 AM
K-I-S-S - Keep It Simple Stupid  ;D


Some of the best beers I've brewed (and tasted) have often had quite simple grain and hop bills. It's also been my experience of competitions that even a fairly basic beer, well executed, can attract some pretty high scores.

I have had the opposite experience, some of the best beers I have tasted have very complex malt bills. If a beer is described as "rich" in the guidelines you wont be getting anywhere with a beer that has a limited amount of malt complexity, especially for styles where the malt is the dominant ingredient. James's winning beer in the Liffey comp would be prime example of this.

Quote from: shiny on November 05, 2015, 10:20:05 AM

Quote from: Parky on October 02, 2015, 10:01:33 AM
K-I-S-S - Keep It Simple Stupid  ;D


Some of the best beers I've brewed (and tasted) have often had quite simple grain and hop bills. It's also been my experience of competitions that even a fairly basic beer, well executed, can attract some pretty high scores.

I have had the opposite experience, some of the best beers I have tasted have very complex malt bills. If a beer is described as "rich" in the guidelines you wont be getting anywhere with a beer that has a limited amount of malt complexity, especially for styles where the malt is the dominant ingredient. James's winning beer in the Liffey comp would be prime example of this.

Completely agree. But it depends on the style of beer. I find that styles like English bitter, pale Belgians etc. benefit from keeping the grain bills simple. Porters and stouts on the other hand can benefit from layering plenty of different types of specialty malts.

Does anyone have the excel doc which shows the entry spread from the last few years? Want to enter in a smaller category for a change this year with one beer.

New BJCP guide this year...Alot of beers have moved category.

Good point. Trying to find a good cat to try that isn't stout or ipa :)

Quote from: molc on November 05, 2015, 11:00:36 AM
Does anyone have the excel doc which shows the entry spread from the last few years? Want to enter in a smaller category for a change this year with one beer.

Is this what you're looking for?

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/index.php/topic,6631.0.html

There was one posted somewhere a few weeks back. I know it's changed but it might give you some idea! Now just to find it ha

edit:bubbles bate me to it!

Quote from: armedcor on November 05, 2015, 01:05:37 PM
There was one posted somewhere a few weeks back. I know it's changed but it might give you some idea! Now just to find it ha

edit:bubbles bate me to it!

Haaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;) ;) 8)

@molc, delzep did some amazing number crunching on last years but as LS says everything has changed, deffo going for Tropical Stout tho as I know an expert who uses pineapple chunks in his beer.

BTW just because you think its a particular style doesn't mean it is, I've seen many beers do well in cats that they were not brewed originally for as hops were not good enough or too much alcohol etc.

I just started a sour mash...dry hopped berliner...Just need to figure out a category :P

Invent one I'm sure it will be a 2020 bjcp cat  :P

Quote from: armedcor on November 05, 2015, 01:08:33 PM
I just started a sour mash...dry hopped berliner...Just need to figure out a category :P

"28B. Mixed-Fermentation Sour Beer"?

if it's got a strong American hop (citrus) character then maybe "34B. Mixed-Style Beer".

Yea might have to be 34B. Gonna have a shed load of Mosaic

That sounds like a nice combination of flavours.

Here's hoping! :P

Quote from: Bubbles on November 05, 2015, 01:05:23 PM

Quote from: molc on November 05, 2015, 11:00:36 AM
Does anyone have the excel doc which shows the entry spread from the last few years? Want to enter in a smaller category for a change this year with one beer.

Is this what you're looking for?

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/index.php/topic,6631.0.html

Exactly what I Was trying to find. Could I feck find it anywhere, even after a 20 min trawl.

Quote from: CH on November 05, 2015, 01:07:07 PM
@molc, delzep did some amazing number crunching on last years but as LS says everything has changed, deffo going for Tropical Stout tho as I know an expert who uses pineapple chunks in his beer.

BTW just because you think its a particular style doesn't mean it is, I've seen many beers do well in cats that they were not brewed originally for as hops were not good enough or too much alcohol etc.

I wasn't given the results etc. for the 2015 comp for some reason so couldn't do any crunching, but 2014 and 2013 should be on the forum somewhere (remember to change any links you may find from .com to .ie and they should still work)

Quote from: CH on November 05, 2015, 01:07:07 PMmany beers do well in cats that they were not brewed originally for

Good point. Plan and execution don't always align and that's not always bad. It's worth tasting with an open mind about where the end result is best suited.

Age your beer.

Just as you have to be patient when fermenting your beer, you have to be patient and let it condition. 1 week for every 10 gravity points is a good rule of thumb (e.g. 4 weeks for 1.040).

Bumpty Bump

I'm looking for some advice regarding the competition!
The first and last time I entered I put the beers in the wring category!
This time rather than brew for the competition I've brewed for myself but would like to enter them into the most appropriate category!
The first one is a single hop fresh/wet hopped pale ale of 4%!
The second is an old( historical) dark Ruby mild of 6.5% that I brewed after some research( help from the durden park beer circle)
I'm pretty sure I am going to enter a lager into the Pilsner category too!
Cheers
Stuart

On the pale ale,what hop did you use.British or US.

Home grown cascade!

I have a real problem with the category for the mild ! It's very defining tell a mild but much stronger than minds of the more modern era!

I'm now thinking my strong Ruby mild eoulc be better In the porter catergory!?!?

Read the guidelines drinking the beer

Quote from: Fatcontro11er on January 07, 2017, 11:59:23 PM
I have a real problem with the category for the mild ! It's very defining tell a mild but much stronger than minds of the more modern era!

Category 34C - Experimental Beer - Imperial Mild! ;)

17b old ale?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'll have a good drink and read through them categories!!!!
Would the wet hopped ale be a special catergory?

There doesn't seem to be a 34cat for experimental beer??? 

Quote from: Fatcontro11er on January 13, 2017, 10:02:25 AM
There doesn't seem to be a 34cat for experimental beer???

Wet hopped ale isn't "special", it's just an ale. The question is what hop characteristic you have and the grist composition. American or British hopping, along with is it more like a bitter or American Pale ale in balance.

You're right I'm just over thinking! I looked through the bjcp  guide and it's a golden ale!

Thanks for everyone's help!
I've got them all entered into appropriate catergories now! I think!!!!!!  :-\

Quote from: Fatcontro11er on January 13, 2017, 10:02:25 AM
There doesn't seem to be a 34cat for experimental beer???

Here it is:
http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf

Quote34C. Experimental Beer

This is explicitly a catch-all category for any beer that does not fit into an existing style description. No beer is ever "out of
style" in this style, unless it fits elsewhere. This is the last resort for any beer entered into a competition.

Overall Impression: Varies, but should be a unique experience.

Aroma: Varies.

Appearance: Varies.

Flavor: Varies.

Mouthfeel: Varies.

Comments: This style is the ultimate in creativity, since it cannot represent a well-known commercial beer (otherwise it would be a clone beer) and cannot fit into any other existing Specialty-Type style (including those within this major category).

Entry Instructions: The entrant must specify the special nature of the experimental beer, including the special ingredients or processes that make it not fit elsewhere in the guidelines. The entrant must provide vital statistics for the beer, and either a brief sensory description or a list of ingredients used in making the beer. Without this information, judges will have no basis for  comparison.

Vital Statistics: OG, FG, IBUs, SRM and ABV will vary depending on the declared beer.

I know in the bjcp guide there is an experimental cat but in this comp I couldn't find that catergory in the entry form!???

AFAIk it was cut for the comp

According to the bjcp a British golden ale can be British or American hops!????

Here's a tip I picked up this weekend. If bottling from a keg for the competition, make sure you do it before inviting friends over and accidentally finishing the whole keg.

A certain member had a Wee Heavy @ 10% and when I asked if he was entering it he said it all gone :D

Oh wow, 10% ! That was some accident  :D

Quote from: BrewDorg on January 16, 2017, 02:15:35 PM
Here's a tip I picked up this weekend. If bottling from a keg for the competition, make sure you do it before inviting friends over and accidentally finishing the whole keg.

Been there, done that  ;)

I'd take that as a compliment and way better than any medal
Give yourself a 40 score

Read this thread and immediately went and bottled the rest  of my keg. Now I can drink easy

Quote from: Fatcontro11er on January 09, 2017, 11:24:42 PM
I'm now thinking my strong Ruby mild eoulc be better In the porter catergory!?!?

How similar is it to Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild? In the 2008 guidelines (though not 2015) it was a commercial example of an Old Ale; that could be a good fit.
Otherwise, there is a provision for entering historical recreations that are not fully described in the guidelines into Category 27. Historical Beer:

Quote"In the case of a style that has changed substantially over the years (such as Porter or Stout), the entrant may specify an existing BJCP style as well as an era (e.g., 1820 English Porter).
When the entrant specifies any style not on the BJCP-supplied list, the entrant must provide a description of the style for the judges in sufficient detail to allow the beer to be judged. If a beer is entered with just a style name and no description, it is very unlikely that judges will understand how to judge it. "

 ;)