My second-place swag bag and medal |
For this winter seasonal category (30C), entrants have to declare the base style and what fruits/spices were included. I made the rookie mistake of saying what I put in it rather than what someone is likely to taste. While there is citrus zest and a tiny bit of spice in there, it's not apparent so I hobbled myself by declaring it. That said, the cherry and ginger do come through. Nevertheless, the judges had good feedback (it scored a 35) and I'm already thinking how to tweak this for next year.
So what does one get for placing in a category? I got a 8oz bottle of StarSan, a pound of PBW, a triple-scale hydrometer (whose merits and drawbacks I recently discussed), a bottle of Oskar Blues hot sauce and some random tchotchke. Not too shabby.
Oh, and there's the medal. Shiny!
I also entered my amber ale base beer, which is tough since it's designed to be tinkered with when its finished and wasn't intended to stand on its own. It scored a respectable 32 and the judges raved about its appearance, but it did not place.
BURP put on an event last weekend to award the prizes and - living up to the name - drink up all the leftover free beer. Despite the cool and rainy weather, it was good to meet a new bunch of homebrewers and get some live feedback on my beers. Also a good opportunity to scoop up some empties for later competitions.
Free beer in the rain |
Some empties, and a few leftover entries from Category 11 |
Also, none of my NHC entries advanced out of Austin. The national comp uses a streamlined scoresheet which won't contain any narrative, but I hope to get some useful info.
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