April 20th, 2022

Last week, Mike and I got the results back from our first homebrew contests with BJCP judging. We sent Basic Bitch Brown and Mouth Mittens to the SODZ  British Beer Fest in Ohio and Haleiwa Island Lager and Pippy Hopstocking Cold IPA to Cascade Brewers Society 's KLCC Homebrew Competition in Oregon. 
A few firsts for us:

1. First time bottling our beer.
   
2. First time shipping our beer.
   
3. First time entering our beer into an official BJCP competition.
   
4. First time getting feedback from certified judges on our beers.
   

We wanted to share the feedback we received and how we feel about the feedback. Constructive criticism can be a double edged sword–on the one hand, you receive feedback to improve. In this case, the feedback is from people we do not know and have never met before. On the other hand, an initial score and brutal honesty can hurt your ego for a hot minute. Like all feedback, you can ignore it, get upset, embrace it,  pick and choose what you want to use, and determine your next steps. A quick note, I did block out any personal information on the judges. While they did agree to send us feedback, we didn’t feel it was appropriate to share their name and email address on our blog without permission. Also, we entered beers into contests that we had on hand and were not specifically brewed for a competition…more on that in a bit.

So here you go. For each beer, you have a bit of the beer's background, the judges' scoresheets, and our thoughts on the judges' feedback.

Basic Bitch BRown

When we brewed BBB, we knew we under attenuated the beer as we kegged the beer after only 7 days of fermentation. What can I say? We had friends coming over who wanted a brown beer, so we rushed it a bit. We knew that was one thing we would change for batch number 2. Also, our first version of BBB was a complete and utter disaster as someone (yep…I’m that someone) accidentally quadrupled the caramel malts and made the beer too sweet; in my defense, it was my first time upping a recipe for our one barrel system, and I completely messed up in every way possible. So, for this version I wanted to go lighter on the sweetness. I was not sure the balance was right on this beer and wanted to change something in the recipe, but I could never figure out what exactly I wanted to change. I did not want a traditional sweet brown beer that most Americans prefer to drink. Instead, I was trying to brew a less sweet and dryer brown like I had the pleasure of drinking in the local pubs we visited while in England.

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I was actually pleased with a 30/50 for a beer I was not really 100 percent confident in. I feel 30/50 is a strong score for any beer and especially an incomplete version of a beer. I definitely agree with the judges that the beer is under attenuated. We knew that going into the contest. Mike and I didn’t taste any astringency, so we disagreed with that comment from one of the judges. We were happy that the beer received 3/3 for appearance and good comments on carbonation (always good to hear that as feedback!). The judges suggested balancing the hops and malt. However, I disagree that BBB needs more sweetness. However, BBB has 25 IBUs, so we could try upping the hops a little. Also, it comes in at 6.1%, so we can back off the base malt just a tad to balance things out more. If we back off the base malt, we’ll also get a tad more sweetness without adding in any more caramel malt. Overall, the feedback from the judges has helped Mike and I find a direction for the next version of BBB that we hope will be more balanced. However, we are still turning in this version to the NHC to receive more feedback before we brew this again. I'm super pleased with the score and excited to (fingers crossed) try and make this beer even better!

Mouth MIttens Irish Red Ale

This was the first time we brewed this version of MM. We were unhappy with the color and profile of the first version, so we overhauled the recipe to focus on the perfect red color. We served this beer at Craft Beer LB Homebrew Invitational and received some great reviews from people. In fact, this was one of our favorite beers as it really is a nice balance between a malty English style beer and a hoppier IPA. It sort of has a little bit of everything for everyone. In fact, when we sent this in, we were hoping it had a shot to medal as we think it is one of our best beers.

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When we received the judges' scores of 25/50, we were shocked. I’m not going to lie, that hurt a bit. However, after we read the judges’ score sheets, we actually felt better about the beer. When reading the comments, we had to take a step back and realize that the scores and comments are directly linked to the style and not how tasty the overall beer is. We were happy to see that we received great reviews on the color and carbonation. I worked hard on getting the color correct, so that was awesome to see noted by the judges. Also, the fact that both judges said the beer was a good, flavorful beer helped us to not go down the "we are bad brewers" road. Our ego took a jab versus a haymaker. We kept getting stuck on the fact the judges said MM was “too hoppy” as that wasn’t how we would describe the flavor. So, back to the recipe I went. And, well, guess what? Yup. MM happens to be quite hoppy at 67 IBUs! Huh? How’d that happen? Well, rather than change the beer (we love MM as it is), we decided to change the category! So, Mouth Mittens Red IPA was born. We are entering MM as a Red IPA at the NHC, so we hope to receive better scores. We’re excited to see how MM does in the Red IPA category...we're hoping that is the correct category for her. 

Haleiwa Island Lager

We came up with the idea for Haleiwa while eating sushi. We were drinking Asahis and said, “What would happen if we made a rice lager that was more heavily hopped?” We decided to make Haleiwa with jasmine rice and add Sorachi Ace and other hops to give the beer a brighter taste. We received a lot of great feedback on Haleiwa at Craft Beer LB, and we find ourselves drinking this beer a lot in the summer. Haleiwa is really refreshing and has such a unique flavor profile. This is the beer I am most proud of as a brewer. I really love the flavor of the jasmine rice and have been so happy to be able to reproduce this beer over and over again. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to duplicate the flavors produced from the rice, but I am! We were sure this would do well in the competition.

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When he saw the score of 25/50, we both thought something must have happened when we bottled our beer. After all, we had never bottled or shipped beer before. We thought that maybe there was some oxidation that happened during travel. However, we were surprised to find that, once again,  our beer was too hoppy for the category. One judge stated he tasted DMS and astringency, but we disagree. However, we realized the “pepper” flavor the judges initially tasted comes from the jasmine rice. We didn’t state in our tasting notes that this was brewed with jasmine rice, so that could be a little bit surprising for judges. We love the comments that the beer is clear; let's be honest, all homebrewers strive for a super clear beer! Both judges thought the beer was overall a good beer. I was surprised to read that one judge would have scored this in the mid 30s if it was in the cold IPA category. As a cold IPA never crossed my mind, I went back to the recipe and well, wouldn’t ya know? Yup. It’s an IPA with 76 IBUs! Since we love the beer as is, we are not going to be making any changes to this beer. Instead, Haleiwa is now officially Haleiwa IPA and entered into the NHC under the specialty IPA category. In the notes, I did state that this is a jasmine rice beer that is lager fermented to make sure the judges are aware of the flavors in our beer. We will see how she does in the competition in a new category.

Pippy Hopstocking Cold IPA

Mike and I had no idea what a cold IPA was when we brewed Pippy. We brewed Pippy to be a hoppy lager (Who knew that a hoppy lager was actually another name for a cold IPA? We thought we started a new trend!). We also wanted to push the limits of IBUs while still maintaining a drinkable beer. This is by far Mike’s favorite beer that we make and one of the most requested beers from our IPA loving friends. We were sure this would be a medal winning beer.

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The judges scored Pippy a 34/50 and a 35/50. When I entered this beer, I specifically said that Pippy is heavily hopped and has 130 IBUs. I was surprised to see comments about Pippy being too hoppy and out of style for a Specialty IPA. I mean, the category is literally for beers that don't fit into any set style. Pippy is too low ABV for a double;  she's not an IPA;  she is a cold IPA; but, she is what she is described as...a heavily hopped power punch of IBUs cold IPA. I guess she doesn’t really fit into a category….she’s like the unicorn of beer. She is hopped and tastes like a double IPA, but she has lower alcohol at only 6.9%. Pippy is sort of a session Double IPA (I just made that up!),  a regular IPA, with the IBUs of a DIPA, and fermented with lager yeast. One judge said Pippy is “out of balance” while the other said “nice hops to malt balance.” However, I don’t know where the “yeasty” flavor one judge tasted comes from as neither of us or any of our friends have noticed a “yeasty” character to the beer. We decided to throw that comment out. We were most impressed with how tasty the judges thought the beer was. We actually think that Pippy would win most contests, but we were told this particular contest had 4 IPAs that scored over 40 points. Overall, we are super happy to have a beer earn 34 points on it's first beer contest. We decided to put Pippy into the NHC under Cold IPA and see what happens. We are hoping it scores a bit better there. 

Our Takewaways

The biggest thing we took from the competitions is that the category your beer is in makes a huge difference. Since we didn’t brew these beers specifically for a competition, we were happy to receive feedback that helps us place these beers into better categories. So what did we take away from the experience?

1. We make tasty beers. The contests gave us more confidence in our brewing. Mike and I are really stumbling our way through the process of beer contests, and we learn a lot after each brewing contest.
2. We make creative beers. Mike and I think outside the category a bit which we like. However, to win contests you need to fit your beer within a specific style with little wiggle room. Honestly, we might need to brew two versions of beers…a beer that can win a contest (and, honestly, can be a bit boring) and a hopped up TJBC style for our tasting pleasure.
3. ​We can ship beer! We were worried about sending beers out for competitions and having the quality of the beer degrade. However, the beers held up well through shipping. Also, I'm a rule follower; I was super happy that we didn't have any problems with shipping. The process went smoothly and was less difficult than I thought it would be. 
4. ​Our brewing process has improved. Every time we brew our beers, we are honing in on parts of the brew process. All of these beers were brewed without checking the pH since our pH meter broke. We also moved to an EasyDens to monitor specific gravity and fermentation. Since using the Easy Dens, we have found that our hydrometer and refractometer readings were not very reliable. Having a calibrated system that gives you reliable readings every time will only help us to recreate recipes.
5. ​​​Don’t focus on scores. The feedback the judges wrote was the most important and valuable to us. We didn’t agree with all of the feedback, but we did get the feedback we needed to move forward with each brew. Also, the feedback really made us appreciate the work we have put into our brewing.
6. ​We can see the benefit of a homebrew club. Mike and I are not members of a homebrew club. We did create a homebrew club, but we don’t have the membership or expertise to get the kind of feedback long running clubs can give. If we had shared these beers at a homebrew club, we would have known that our beers were being entered into the wrong category and received feedback in the proper category.
7. On the homebrew club front, I do feel that contests put on by homebrew clubs are a bit skewed in the results. I don't think clubs mean to have bias in the results, but if you hold a contest and almost every winner in every category is from your club, it could be because the judges' palates are honed in to the tastes of certain beers. Also, if you are a member of a homebrew club that puts on a competition, you can have the judges sample your beer and provide feedback prior to the final judging. This gives you a bit of an advantage as you know what the judges are looking for. We are hoping that the NHC judging has less of these factors present. 
8. We want to keep entering contests. This process has helped us realize that we want to perfect our recipes as much as possible and take home some medals. We may never win a medal, but we are sure going to keep entering contests, trying to make even better beers, and enjoy the process. 

Cheers! 
2JBC