SA National Homebrew Competition

[BeerHolic Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BeerHolic]

I tend to sway to groenspookasems thinking.
I brew beer because I enjoy brewing and the beer itself. Its fun.
I do not brew to sell or compete.
I judge my beers myself (I beleive all of us do).
If I like the beer, that is all that counts, irrelevent of what a BJCP judge panel would score it.

[camsaway Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close camsaway]

Awesome guys. I agree BTW - I brew what I like to drink - not to score points ;->

[BruHaha Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BruHaha]

I think by entering competitions, you could possibly learn new things based on suggestions from the judges.
After all, you don't know what you don't know and it could take you 10s of brews to figure it out by bumbling along.

I guess same could be said by brewing solo vs a group/club thing.

My observation as a new Brewer.

[jannieverjaar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jannieverjaar]

All true. What im hoping as that one of the judges tastes my beer and goes. MmMMMmmm maybe mash lower. Or add some cara amber instead of melanoiden. And the next time i brew that beer its just that little bit better.
I still cant get the flavor retention of devil's peak. Or the standout aroma of afro Caribbean and dont evenget me started on Aeger. Im my view its a combination of 10 or 20 or a hundred small things im not getting spot on. From recipe creation to water treatment to maybe a hop rocket but instead of going by trial and error ill ask an expert.

Sent from my SM-A515F using Tapatalk

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

No, your ingredients and process can only be judged within the margins of the style. If you add roasted barley to your american light lager then that will be ticked as a deviation, the advice would be along the lines of "remove the roasted barley from your recipe for a light lager". If I want to conform to a style, then I'd research the style, check similar recipes, design something that conforms to the guidelines, brew and evaluate comparing against commercial/craft examples. Problem is that many commercial/craft breweries brew for profit and cut quality out of the process, so your beer should always be better if you execute it correctly. I have no desire for the opinions of others on my beers, it literally means nothing to me. Some people like the taste of hefeweizen for instance, I dont particularly enjoy them, so why would I care for an subjective opinion? I have my own.

However, your brewing regime should be spot on and you need to have an understanding of the impact of all the ingredients and how the process would affect the ingredients. Lots of reading, lots of brewing got me to where I am. You could bumble along, but if you dont have a goal then you'd never reach it. In some other hobbies I get frustrated by the unwillingness of people to read and or learn. I guess the instant gratification generation spans across many age ranges. I digress again.

If your goal is to make beer, then that's easily achieved. If your goal is to understand the detail involved in making beer and which tweaks affect which taste aspect then man, have I got a hobby for you. If your goal is to get some pats on the back, then enter a competition. As a bystander you'll repetitively be told of your attaboys when in fact you are judged by how well you can color in-between the lines, by people that apply objective subjectivity, but hey you'd have a medal and "bragging" rights of your gold star achievement. Doesn't really mean much in the greater scheme of things, but in a world of castle lite drinkers you'll be some mythical beer hipster with "exceptional" talents.

[BeerHolic Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BeerHolic]

Ditto. Well said groenspookasem.
95% of thye beers I have brewed are my own recipes.
The first time I brewed an Irish Red I felt it missed something ( it was within style and tasted as such ).
So I made a hoppy Irish Red ( I am a hop head ). I loved it, so I brew what I like some are within style some not.
In fact many beers I brew do not fall in any style, except maybe the speciality style.

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

I rarely brew beers exactly to a style. Usually I just go with what I want to drink, and work out my flavours from there. Often I find out after brewing that those flavours and stuff actually hits a style, but eh. I brew what I like.

[BruHaha Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BruHaha]

Different strokes for different folks

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

"The Southern Subs click" at these comps puts me off

Talking CT specific

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

I think I would be shown the door at one of these comps. I feel there is a place for it but I am just not that kind of brewer. Did consider it previously but I also like to play around to make something I like rather than a restrictive "style" that actually evolved from random environmental conditions rather than proposed ideals.

There are plenty sorts and hobbies I have done in my life which I have analysed to death and that eventually killed it for me and took the fun out of it. (Golf, knifemaking, guitar). I have almost made a conscious decision to try and not get to analytical with my brewing. My nature often gets the better of me and I get intensively into something, but I then drag myself out. For that reason I don't think I could contribute much at a competition or even a homebrewers meeting for that matter.

[AlexBrew Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close AlexBrew]

I think competition and brewing for your own pleasure and taste are different things.
With competition there are rules and guideline one needs to adhere to - else you're OUT.
With brewing for your own satisfaction (and no-one else's approval) you can do what you want - as long as you enjoy what you are doing - end of story.

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Personally I would love to brew a beer to style once, and then enter it into a competition. That beer would be brewed for a specific competition, trying to hit a style though. My purpose would not be to make an enjoyable beer for me, but to see how well my process and understanding of beer brewing is, and how well I can apply what I think I know into making something "like it should be" according to the smart people. That would literally be it.

I think it'll be something like a blonde ale, pale ale or even a stout. I have experience there, albeit not much, and would love to see how well my thinking works.

For the rest, I brew for myself.

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

Personally I would love to brew a beer to style once, and then enter it into a competition. That beer would be brewed for a specific competition, trying to hit a style though. My purpose would not be to make an enjoyable beer for me, but to see how well my process and understanding of beer brewing is, and how well I can apply what I think I know into making something "like it should be" according to the smart people. That would literally be it.

I think it'll be something like a blonde ale, pale ale or even a stout. I have experience there, albeit not much, and would love to see how well my thinking works.

For the rest, I brew for myself.

Why enter a competition? It's an exercise in subjective "objectivity" limiting your creativity to think and taste in accordance to the perception of 30 people nationally.

Why would you make a beer that's not enjoyable? Just drink your own kool-aid, there's no need to drink into the "bjcp kool-aid competition clique" I suppose the exceptions could be that you
1. Cant read or watch videos
2. Brew atrociously
3. Need training wheels and all the help you can get, can't form opinions on your own, can't note difference in techniques and being spoon fed is your way of life.

I keep on giving people the benefit of the doubt, I should stop. People are idiots, a person may be smart, but collectively...idiots (I'm not saying you're an idiot - it's my vast generalization that seems to be ringing true way to often these days)

The standards in brewing are a bit of a joke, ibu is a measurement standard - fair enough right? It has multiple methods to calculate it, so your bjcp ibu range entertains which standard? The variance can be quite noticeable and can easily push your beer out of style. Do yourself a favor, read the introduction to the 2015 style guide. It's wishy washy at best, generally speaking taste is quite varied amongst the population of the world, hence the near on flavorless american light lager being such a success.

edit: this bit added;

someone here brewed a 60 ish ibu with a high bu:gu beer yesterday, on paper i might not enjoy this beer, but in a glass it might be fantastic. your perception of bitterness, flavor, aroma is subjective to you and so is your brewing practices. if you wish to know if your brewing practices are correct then reevaluate those against the non existent brewing standards. i brew differently than you do, i have changed my approach several times since i started, have i improved. yes for sure. have i improved from some other blokes perception? couldn't care less.

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

Hoor Hoor

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

I think I want to enter a competition too now, to be honest.

Mainly cos I want to get a shiny medal so I can post a pic of it here and see how much more I can upset Spook!

You need to just relax and let competition people be competition people before a vein explodes in your head