Yesterday morning four of us from MUGZ went up to UKG's Drunk Monk Challenge http://knaves.org/DMC/ to judge homebrewed beer for the day. It was a long day we left at 5AM and were back to home around 10:30 PM. Even though it was long it was a great day. I believe we all enjoyed the day of judging and the camaraderie as well. The contest had about 800 entries, needless to say that is a lot of beer. Some judging categories had 40 entries meaning that there were multiple flights within a category. So most categories had a mini- BOS for the category.
Our first session of judging began at 9 AM and was over by 11:30 AM. I first judged Scottish and Irish Ales overall the beer were average but we had some really outstanding beers. The beer that won was a Scottish 60, it was a wonderful balance beer that was malty, low in hops and being low in alcohol it would make a great session beer. After the morning session we had a lunch break and then began the second session at 1 PM. In this session I judged small stouts, Dry, Sweet and Oatmeal Stouts. We had three beers that were easily the top 3 in the mini-BOS and all quite enjoyable. After the second session was finished we then had to wait for the Best of Show (BOS) judging round. Once that was over the contest organizers drew for door prizes and the announced the medal winners. For each category the top three places were awarded medals, also the top three finishers in BOS were awarded. MUGZ had three brewers win four medals overall, unfortunately for me I was not one of them.
The returning trip home was uneventful but laugh filled. I know for myself since I awoke at 3:30 AM yesterday I found just about anything funny. It was a fun judging day and I enjoyed the opportunity to do on of the things I greatly love doing. I look forward to my next opportunity to judge which will probably be April 9th at the Midwest Regional for the first round of NHC.
America's brewpub is located in Aurora, IL http://rh34.com/ . It is in a very unique building a restored train roundhouse. The original project was spearheaded by Walter Payton, yes that Walter Payton. While he was alive he was active in ownership and is name was all over the building. Over the last year or so there has been some changes involving the removing of Walter's name and some of his memorabilia has been removed as well. Looks like there has been a parting of ways between the ownership and the Payton family, I feel this is very unfortunate.
They make some very good beers noted by the multiple awards they have won over the years. They have won my wife's biggest award her love for the chocolate blonde beer. Mike Rybinski the brewer at the brewpub is a very nice and accommodating man. He is always experimenting with beer, such as pizza beer and on he had on tap to try yesterday Bacon Beer. Yes a beer that had cooked bacon "dry hopped" in it. It definitely tasted like bacon, but not something that I would want to drink a full pint of. Also they had Sweetness Stout, Payton Pilsner, Honey Wheat, Amber Ale, and Blueberry beers on tap.
They are more than accommodating with their space and time to help make Drunk Monk a success. I thank them for their help in assisting the UKG club to pull off another successful event.
QC Beerguy
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