Fifth Annual BEWBC Variant Brewing Competition:

How far can your brewing abilities take you in creating the best-tasting brew?

Year 5: Work from the Base

We'd like to invite you to join in the Fifth Annual Variant Brew Competition and design the best-tasting beer possible with a limited set of ingredients.  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, priming sugar and bottle caps. 

Select Read More for More Details (if you know you want to participate, you can RSVP and reserve a kit here but please read the rules beforehand)   

This year's Variant focus will be on picking a style from a base malt profile.  The base beer will be of an "amber" nature and it is up to the brewer to aim for a particular style by adding hops and yeast.  Make the beer into an American Amber Ale, California Common, English Special Bitter, Scottish 80/-, Flanders Red Ale, American IPA, English Barleywine (you may need to make a "smaller" batch), Spice Beer, Specialty Beer, or some other style that you think you can work the malt into. 

This year we will also be doing a two-phase judging again.  First there will be a BJCP judging of the beers assessing the technical and stylistic accuracy of the beer.  You must specify what BJCP style you are aiming for (see http://www.bjcp.org/).  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 combined ranking will win the title of Supreme Variant Brew and the brewer will be dubbed Supreme Variant Homebrewer (complete with trophy). 

To enter the competition, please register online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=K6sH7RyJ_2b8_2fiGeG89GBkPw_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 October 20^th (if you really want to participate you may contact Mark afterwards to see if we can get a kit ready).  They will be prepared and available for pickup at Larry's Brewing Supply in Kent, WA.  You will simply need to go to Larry's request a kit for the BEWBC Variant Competition, check your name off, and pay your fee.  There is a $10 entry fee for extract kits or a $5 entry fee for all-grain kits, payable to BEWBC.

Contest Rules

1. All ingredients provided in the ingredient kit must be used in accordance with the recipe.
2. Processing aids such as Irish moss, gelatin, and water treatments may be used.
3. The batch size is 5 gallons. The brewers must provide six brown, unmarked 12 oz bottles.  Entries must be dropped off at Larry's brewing supply by December 3^rd.  The bottles must be capped with caps provided in the ingredient kit and should be labeled with an AHA/BJCP bottle ID (http://www.bjcp.org/SCP_BottleID.pdf). 
4. There are no limitations on brewing techniques provided nothing else is added to the beer.  Any types or amounts of yeast and hops may be added to the beer.
5. Competitors must be registered BEWBC and BEEWBC members (family too).  One entry per person.

In a 5.0 gallon batch, this should yield a color of ~15.5 SRM and an OG of around 1.050

Supplied Ingredients

6.5 lbs Light Malt Extract (Bulk Briess) or 8.0 lbs Gambrinus Pale Malt

0.5 lb Gambrinus 10 L Munich Malt

0.5 lbs 40 L Briess Crystal Malt

0.25 lb 80 L Briess Crystal Malt

0.25 lb Victory Malt

0.125 lb Dark Chocolate Malt

¾ Cup Priming Sugar

60 Bottle Caps