UPDATE: Results are posted here UPDATE #2: All scoresheets for the Cherry Blossom Competition have now been sent out. If you did not receive yours, or are missing any of them, please notify the organizer via the contact form on the competition website. This is our 4th year conducting the Cherry Blossom Homebrew Competition, and this…
This is our 3rd year conducting the Cherry Blossom Homebrew Competition, and this one will be better than ever! We’ve upped the entry limit to 300 (from 250 the first 2 years), and the entries per entrant to 3 (from 2 in previous years). The judging will occur on Mar 26, and prizes and medals…
It’s that time of year again – the AHA is once again sponsoring a Big Brew Day. We will be participating as a club by brewing at 3 Stars Brewing, who have graciously offered to sponsor us for this event. Their homebrew shop will be open, so you can pick up the ingredients for your…
Another DC Homebrewers Oktoberfest meeting has come and gone. As always, a great time was had by all. Our hosts – Martin and Kristan Doczkat – provided the perfect space for us to enjoy all the great beer and great food.
Speaking of food – they also provided 6 chickens slow roasted over charcoal and a couple of smoked pork butts. Plenty of food was provided by the Food Committee and others, including pretzels, rouladen, potato pancakes, pickled red cabbage, brats, and more. We will try to better next time to accommodate the vegetarians in the group, but for those who imbibe in the meats, no one should have been hungry.…
It seems like just a few weeks ago we had our May Meeting. Mark Nicui won the UK Beer Styles club-only competition, with Omar 2nd and Erich 3rd. Our June meeting will be on the 16th (the location has been sent via email). There is no club-only competition, but we will have a German malt…
It’s almost time for our May meeting! Tuesday May 20th we will be meeting at the home of Patrick Coonan, who lives in the U Street/Columbia Heights area. The exact address has been sent via email. The theme for this month’s meeting is “UK Styles”, so bring your milds, your Scottish ales, your ESBs… Or…
UPDATE: Winners listed below!
Our 4th annual Sam Adams / DC Homebrewers homebrew contest is almost upon us! In previous years, the winners have gone to GABF, Oktoberfest, and the Sam Adams brewery in Boston. This year, the winner will be going to the Yakima Valley in Washington for the hop harvest. It must smell amazing.
We had the preliminary judging Tuesday night, and there are 15 winners moving forward to the final round, which is THIS SATURDAY (April 26th), starting at noon at City Tap House near Chinatown (http://www.citytaphousedc.com/). There will be a celebrity panel of judges picking the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes. There will also be a “crowd favorite” prize picked by the attendees, so come taste some wonderful beers and pick your favorite. Winners and awards will be presented at 4:00.
Here are the brewers who made it into the finals:
In case you missed it:
During the recent July meeting, Pete and I led a discussion on Octoberfest/Marzen and Vienna Lager beers to prepare brewers for the September Oktoberfest meeting, which will feature a club-only competition for these styles. We talked about traditional and modern techniques for lager brewing as well as parameters for these particular styles and how to meet them. We also made sure we were familiar with the beers we were discussing by sampling a couple: Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold–close to a modern German Oktoberfest–and Negra Modelo. These two beers represent the extremes of the three styles, which are all very similar to begin with.
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Farmhouse Ales
Farmhouse Ales – by Sean Gugger
There is no style I enjoy drinking and brewing more than Saison. There’s something about the complex flavors of pepper, spice, citrus, fruit, hay, and even some barnyard in a well-crafted saison that make it a unique sensory experience. From the brewing perspective, Saison is truly a blank canvas. A broad style that allows the brewer wide creativity and the ability to push his or her brewing limits. However, before I dive into brewing Saison, let’s backtrack and go over a brief history of these Belgian Farmhouse Ales.
I have to begin by giving credit to the book Farmhouse Ales (Brewers Publications, 2004) by Phil Markowski, the head brewer of Southampton Publick House and one of the pioneers of modern interpretations of the style, as I learned from it a majority of the information I am about to provide. It’s highly recommended for any beer fan that has even the slightest interest in traditional Belgian ales.
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