Hope you got your entries in

I got word today that unless you are from Canada, they aren't accepting any more registrants for the 2011 National Homebrew Comp. Wow, that filled up fast. I'm glad I got my entries in earlier this week. In the US, that's 6,750 brews entered into the competition. Apparently a new record!

-Holz

Its that time of year again

You probably think I'm talking about the NCAA tournament, but you are sadly mistaken. I'm talking about the National Homebrew Competition. I scoured the brew closet this weekend and found 5 worthy entrants. A new snag on this year's competition is that you choose which regional location to enter your brew in. In years past your were assigned a region. Despite this change, I basically just picked the closest shipping location, Nashville, TN.

I've entered a 1) Saison, 2)Golden Strong Belgian Ale, 3)Altbier (kind of), 4)American Sout, and a 5)Wood-Aged Beer. We'll see how they do. Last year I got lucky and one of the three brews I entered got 1st in the region and moved on to the national competition. We'll see if lady luck shines my way again. Regardless, its nice to get feedback on your brews from at least 2 certified beer judges.

If you've got any brews laying around, send them in! Entries are due by March 30th.

Unfortunately, I haven't had any time to brew lately. The weekends have been filled with work and studying, but I've got some new brew ideas so one of these days there will be a brew explosion coming from the HolzBrew kitchen.

Keep brewing,

Holz

PS- I also understand that Sam Adams is holding a DC local homebrew competition. Something to consider.

Apparently wanting more

So few weeks back I posted about designing a lower gravity house blonde ale. Well I should have known that I couldn't go small. Do to my less than precise methods I wound up using far less water than I should have and thus brewed a beer with greater strength. As I mentioned before I split the batch and fermented half with a Belgian golden ale strain and I brewed the other half with a German ale strain. Megan and I bottled them last week and they should be ready for initial tasting next week. They both came out in 6% abv range, I believe the Belgian was slightly higher in alcohol than the German. So the Belgian ale probably classifies as a Belgian blonde according to the BJCP guidelines, but the German is classless by any standard style guidelines (who cares?). Perhaps the German could be considered an imperial kolsch? I'll update you once I do a side by side tasting.

Holz