Great Canadian Homebrew Competition - My Results

This past Saturday I attended the Great Canadian Homebrew Conference, hosted by The Rhino. The day was filled with the GCHC medal ceremony, great guest speakers, many pints of beer and a hour or so of homebrew tastings from the attendees. The guest speaker topics included an in depth discussion about the mashing process as well as a presentation about hop farms, breweries and barrel aging on the west-coast with Zack Weinberg of Toronto Brewing, and finally a synopsis of what went into writing Ian Coutts' book "The Perfect Keg". The whole event was very interesting, but also a very humbling experience. As far as the homebrew competition, I went home empty handed, while some of the competitors had multiple medals around their necks. When talking to other competitors, I really got a feeling of the amount of experience and knowledge in the room. Having only brewed all-grain for 6 months now, this experience has really motivated me to continue learning and brewing.

Even though my three entries did not place, I received some good feedback from the many BJCP judges. Since it's difficult to read the scanned scoresheets, I'm just going to provide one for format reference. I'll spend the rest of the blog summarizing the feedback and what I took away from it.

Huron County Saison: Scores 33/32/24 out of 50
This was the beer I was most confident entering and for the most part the judges agreed with my thoughts. It was described as very light in malt aroma, no sourness and slight phenolic character, though one judge noted boiled egg and cooked whitefish. The appearance was scored strongly by all judges, straw yellow, clear with good head retention. The flavour scoring was mixed, mentioning light malt/bread, medium to sharp bitterness, light spiciness with one judge mentioning lemon-like fruit esters. The mouthfeel was primarily described as medium carbonation, low/no creaminess, light body with a dry finish.

What I took away from this feedback is that I should consider fermenting at a higher temperature to get more fruity esters, phenolic/spicy character and tartness. I could perhaps use another grain in my grain bill to provide a more malty background or aim for a higher final gravity, but I personally prefer Saisons to be refreshing and dry, so I was pretty happy with the final gravity.

Curmudgeon IPA: Scores 20/22/24 out of 50
When I entered this beer, I already knew there were flaws. I knew that the original gravity was higher than I wanted, causing the ABV to be too high and thus out of style. As a result, the coordinators moved my entry into the Double IPA category. I also knew that with the higher ABV my hop bitterness and aroma were too subtle.

I got killed on aroma, scoring less than 50% by all three judges. One judged mentioned that a oxidized (papery) aroma dominated the malt character. The other two described green apple, little grassy and low esters, but being very low on hop bitterness/aroma. Similar to the Saison, I scored nearly perfect across the board on appearance, with the judges describing a golden/copper colour, with great clarity and a foamy white head with good retention. As for flavour, they all agreed I fell short on hop flavour and bitterness and that it finished much too sweet. For the mouthfeel, they felt it had a medium finish and medium to light carbonation. Overall they agreed it was much too soft in hop bitterness. Aside from adding more hops, they feel I could increase the bitterness and reduce off flavours by lowering my fermenting temperature.

Breakfast of Champions - Oatmeal Coffee Stout: Scores 29/32 out of 50
Both judges seemed to enjoy the aroma, emphasizing the strong coffee notes and roasted malts, but one judge did mention slight acidity. Appearance scored well, as being very dark/black with a tan head. The flavour was very roast forward, missing some balance and having a bit of a harsh aftertaste. Mouthfeel was light-medium body, no carbonation, thin, missing the creaminess of a typical Oatmeal Stout. Overall they felt the beer could use a thicker body and to be a little less harsh on the roasted malts.

One recommendation was to increase the mash temperature, which I would agree with and will definitely try with my next stout. This would reduce the fermentability of the wort, increase the final gravity and hopefully provide a more full bodied beer. They didn't provide a recommendation to reduce the acidity, which I felt was an issue prior to entering the beer. I'm pretty sure it was caused by the whole coffee beans added in the secondary. Next time I will try the recipe without adding any coffee beans or coffee at all and see what difference it makes.

In summary, I'm happy with how the competition went. It was a bit of a humbling experience, but I got some good feedback, met some great home brewers and picked up some brewing/fermenting techniques.

Thanks for reading!