NHC 1st Round

I received some incredibly good and unexpected news this weekend. While reading my twitter feed, I noticed that someone posted a link to the results of the first round of the National Homebrew Competition. I thought, what the heck, let me go ahead and check it out – maybe there were only 3 or 4 entries in my category and I might squeak out a third. Low and behold, I look up the results of the Nashville regional and Redneck Alt won the Amber Hybrid category. I’m not well versed in this NHC stuff, but I think that means that it qualifies for the final round out in San Diego. Pretty cool for a first time entrant.

What sucks is that the judging for the region was supposed to be complete in early April, but I’m pretty sure they were still doing judging the last weekend in April. This beer needs to lager for at least a month, so there’s absolutely no chance to re-brew this in order to send fresher bottles to the finals. Another thing is we still don’t have our score sheets. It’s nice to win an award here and there, but the thing I desire the most from entering competitions is constructive, well thought out feedback. Hopefully the score sheets will come soon because both of the beers I submitted to NHC I plan to brew soon to enter into the Dominion Cup and I hope to have feedback that might help me tweak them for the better.

NHC

I mentioned that I missed out on my brewing for the National Homebrew Competition. I entered two beers today, my Redneck Alt (Dusseldorf Alf) and my revised Buck Slobber Brown (American Brown Ale). In mid-March, I’ll need to package them up and ship them off to Rebel Brewer in Nashville. I hope to get some great feedback and who knows, maybe one will qualify for the finals.

3 Month Dry Spell

I haven’t brewed in more than three months and the stores are getting rather low. I had ambitious plans to brew several beers between Christmas and the beginning of March to get a few ready for the National Homebrew Competition. I’ve even made two yeast starters and bought the ingredients only to have to abort both my Barleywine/Special Bitter partigyle and my IPA split batch (one with my normal US05 and the other with Duvel Belgian yeast). If I can find the time to brew in the next couple of weeks, I’ll do the 10 gallon IPA split batch (although I’m thinking about making it a really hoppy pale ale instead), but it certainly won’t be ready for NHC. Oh well, I’ll try not to let life get in the way between now and the Dominion Cup.