With the Titletown Open about a month away, its time to start deciding what beers and what categories.
Seems like it should be easy to do. If I brewed a Pale ale, put it in pale ale. Well of course it dont work like that. One of the most important decisions in a homebrew contest is to get the right category and sub category. And even that has little tricks, or nuances. You need to play to the judges. You need to see a judging first hand to get the full meaning of that.
My Betazoid stout for example. I brewed this to be a dry stout. And I think it would fit perfectly here, except its 7.5%. Thats extremely high for a dry. So this might fall into the Foreign extra slot. The only reason I am considering Foreign is because of the alc. I'm gonna need some feed back on this one for sure before I decide.
My strong ale is another. I originally brewed as a barley wine, and I think it still could pass as that, but its nearly two years old now, and is really making a case for old ale. I only have 4 bottles left of this and its been 8 months or so since I had one. Even then the Hops were starting to drop out and the beers was really hitting its stride. I really do hope this one scores well. I like this beer alot. Dont wanna see those last 4 go.
And the I have some tougher ones to place. The porter, is it really a porter? The Valhelsing, American brown, amber? Are these ESBs really ESBs?
Plus I gotta decide which of the 20p beers I wanna use. Our special category this year for the 20th anniversary. My have a starting OG of 20p or more. I made a brown last April just for this and it is fantastic, but I got that Double Alt that sure wants to be in it if it can clean it self up a little in a month.
This year I dont feel I have any clear winners. Sad to say,, but thats the way it is. I do have some good solid beers going in, just nothing that stand out so to say.
9stripe Brewing 