5 contest-winning tips from Waterloo Region homebrewers
Experts say the best way to get better at brewing beer is to enter competitions
People are brewing beer in their own homes like never before thanks to the surge in popularity of craft beer.
Rob Hern and his wife Kat Rogers-Hern run Short Finger Brewing Company, a homebrew supply store, out of their Waterloo home, but will move to a storefront in Kitchener later this summer. Their new digs will include a nano brewery, where they will teach people how to brew at home.
They've started hosting homebrew hangouts, where local homebrewers can get together at pubs and bars in Waterloo Region to discuss their hobby and, occasionally, put their talents to the test.
Their latest contest, affectionately called the War of 1812, will take place in July, and will pit American beer styles against British beer styles.
Missed out on the fun at the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SFBCSubZero?src=hash">#SFBCSubZero</a> awards at <a href="https://twitter.com/jane_bond005">@jane_bond005</a>? We'll be mailing out judges' feedback tonight! <a href="https://t.co/ooXyrRbKfw">pic.twitter.com/ooXyrRbKfw</a>
—@shortfingerbeerJamie Fowler runs the Kitchener-Waterloo Craft Beer Club, a local group dedicated to craft beer and homebrew. He has won previous Short Finger Brewing competitions and has even served as a judge.
Here's what the three homebrewers had to say about winning a competition:
1. Pick a style
The couple recommend reading through the Beer Judge Certification Program's style guide so you understand what you are brewing.
"The biggest question, hands down, that we both get is what category should I put my beer into, which, unfortunately, is the only question that we really can't answer," Rogers-Hern said. "Part of entering a competition is picking the correct category to put your beer in. So we get asked that a lot, definitely."
Fowler said people should have a little fun getting to know the many styles of beer before brewing.
"It helps a lot to study the beer styles a little bit, taste well-known examples of them … and make note of the defining characteristics of it," he said, "and then you need to be able to be able to taste your own beer critically as well."
2. Understand your ingredients
Hops need to be stored well and homebrewers should ensure they're using fresh hops.
Hern also said homebrewers have to understand how the yeast they're using will affect the style of their beer.
"You can make the exact same base beer and then inoculate it with two different yeasts and come out with two completely separate beers that taste nothing alike," he said.
3. Know your system
"I've been brewing for many years now," Hern said. "I'm really comfortable with my system, so I know how to tailor my recipes to get the ideal end product out of it."
"Even if you're new to brewing – this goes back trying your recipe before you actually submit it – it's a good idea to look at your equipment and understand how the malt bill is going to work in your mash tun."
4. Use clean equipment
"A lot of perfectly good batches of beer have been ruined by poor sanitation," Fowler said, adding that sanitation is key "to avoid really bad beer."
5. Be deadline driven
"If you're going to brew an IPA that you want to be fresh for the competition, then you're going to look at brewing it five to six weeks before – if you're bottle conditioning – so that when the judges actually have that beer, it's optimally fresh, there's lots of hops still in it, it hasn't gotten old," Hern said.
"Same thing if you're doing a sour ale or an English beer that needed more time: you want to play out your brews so that it's actually optimal for when the judges will actually taste it."
All that said …
Even if you're new to home brewing, Hern, Rogers-Hern and Fowler all agree that entering a competition can provide you with constructive criticism to help you improve.
"Frankly, even if you know you're entering a bad beer, the good thing about being judged by certified judges … [is] they're going to give you super objective feedback," Rogers-Hern said.
"I'm sure that your family and friends have great palettes, but, at a certain point, they're still going to tell you what you want to hear, which isn't necessarily going to help you improve," she said.
"If you give it to a blind panel, they don't know who you are, they don't know how many times you've brewed or what you've put into it, and they're going to be brutally honest with you, which, if the end game is to get better, is the best thing that they can possibly do."