In my state (Washington), a few folks have started the first “Washington Only” beer awards. WE entered our flagship American Amber. It’s the same recipe that I won 1st place (category, not BOS) with in a few local and regional comps.
The judging was last month, and the awards will be handed out this coming Saturday.
I must say, I am going crazy waiting. To think our little brewery’s beer is in the same flight as those from Elysian, Fremont, Red Hook, Hales, Pyramid, and many others is both intimidating and exciting at the same time. I guess I’m just hoping the Amber category wasn’t well entered. LOL.
Good luck! We have a state-wide competition in Florida in the spring called Best Florida Beer Championships and have both a homebrew and a commercial competition, only for Florida brewers. In 2013 we divided the pro competition into two divisions to accomodate the small batch brewers who only make a barrel or two at a time. It’s pretty cool when a brewer like you, only a start-up, gets a best of show trophy. This year a former homebrewer, now brewing for a pizza parlor, won 1st and 2nd best of show Small Batch Brewer.
Sadly no. We have to be in town for some charity events. The wife and and I get quite involved in local things, and once we started a brewery, the folks came knocking. It’s cool though, and get’s our name out there. We have fun with it.
But, when they announce the Ambers, if you wanted to PM me, that would be cool.
Thanks for all the good wishes everyone! The results were announced yesterday, and we did not win any award. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. :-\
I am looking forward to the judging sheets. It will be interesting the differences between what they send for a pro competition vs the BJCP sheets. They did say they were judging to the BA standards.
From what I was told, the forms are similar to the GABF ones but modified to add room for feedback and tasting notes. Feedback was to be focused on best category for the beer, technical flaws, and bottling issues. I found them to be very easy to use and they allowed for quick judging (BOS style).
We got the judging forms in the mail yesterday. Very quick, as the awards were just this past Saturday.
The sheets were different than BJCP. They had each major category, but then a line with each one with “bad” on one side, and “good” on the other, then the judge would place a tick mark on where they felt the beer scored. Almost a 1-10 scale, but not really. Each category line has a “normal” range.
For our Amber, one judge scored it quite well, one really did not enjoy it, and the third was not so bad, but not great either. The comments from two judges indicated diacetyl. I should have kept one bottle from that batch to taste while reading the judging sheets. Looks like I need to work on my fermenting process.
All in all the judging sheets are brief, but informative. No numerical score. We will enter again.
