This year's Variant Homebrewing Competition will be orchestrated around the Winter Social and will focus on process. For those unfamiliar, the Variant Homebrewing Competition is an event which focuses on allowing changes around one particular aspect of the beer to see how significantly different and tasty of beers we can come up with. Since we at Boeing are adept at making small improvements to our line of aircraft, we should be able to do the same for our beers. In this contest, competitors will be given a kit of ingredients, all of which must be used in the brew. The kits will include malt extract or base malt (brewer's choice), specialty grains, hops, yeast, priming sugar and bottle caps. This year, everyone must brew the same exact recipe and the variable is your brewing process. How clean is your operation? How vigorous is your boil? How do you add your hops? All of these things (and many more) affect how the same recipe will come out and we'll see who can do the best with what they have.
So, what do you need to do to participate? Well, first, let us know that you want a kit. To enter the competition, please register online at:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=PE0Cnt9SFWXCg3GYH0NcyQ_3d_3d
or contact Mark Emiley (206-251-1344 or markemiley @earthlink.net) to register and receive your ingredient kit. Requests must be made by September 30th. They will be prepared and available for pickup at Larry's Brewing Supply in Kent, WA. CLICK READ MORE FOR MORE DETAILS
We'll collect the "orders" and the kits will be available for pick-up starting in October (there will be a $10 entry fee for extract kits and a $5 entry fee for all-grain kits, but think of it this way, you are getting a 5 gallon batch of beer for $5/10). Once you get your kit, you can brew it at your leisure, aiming to have it in the best shape for the Winter Social. You will need to save 6 brown bottles for evaluation. Entries will need to be labeled with a bottle id and dropped off at Larry's Brewing Supply before 5:00 pm the day before the Winter Social. You can drop them off early, don't worry. You can also bring properly labeled and chilled bottles to the event itself AS LONG AS YOU GET THERE BEFORE THE SOCIAL OFFICIALLY STARTS. You can find all of the rules on the club website or in the Press.
This year we will also be doing a two-phase judging. First, there will be a BJCP judging of the beers assessing the technical and stylistic accuracy of the beer. Then there will be a "tasters favorite" vote at the Winter Social where the attendees will taste all entries and vote for the beer that they enjoy the most, regardless of style or technical merit. The brew with the highest average score will win the title of Supreme Variant Brew and the brewer will be dubbed Supreme Variant Homebrewer (complete with trophy).
The base recipe is an English Mild, a very nice and easy drinking session beer. You can learn more about the style at http://www.bjcp.org/. BEWBC and BEEWBC members are welcome to enter.
Once again, for all details, check the BEWBC website. Good luck!