Friday night and all day Saturday the homebrew club I belong to held its annual Homebrew Competition called Land Of the Muddy Waters. A very fitting name for our event, since we are a bi-state club that has members from both sides of the Mississippi River, the Muddy Waters itself.
This year we had 325 entries into our competition, which was a sizable jump over last year's number of 276 entries. Thankfully we were able to pull in judges from the Bi-state area of Iowa and Illinois as well as a couple from Milwaukee and even one judge from California. This made sure that all of the entries were judged by at least one Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) ranked judge.
Over all the competition went well with only some minor inconveniences that come up with any event. I know the event organizer and the assistant event organizer, me, were very thankful for that. From my recollection the event was a success. I hope that the judges and stewards felt that way as well at the end of the day.
A big thank you goes out to Dan brewer/owner of Blue Cat Brewpub for allowing us to use the upstairs area for our contest. I would be very difficult to hold a contest without a willing host and a place that has a refrigerated area large enough to handle over 600 bottles of beer. Also a big thank you to all of the sponsors and raffle item donors, again we could not do it without them.
The results are available at http://lotmwhome.brewcompetition.com/index.php; congratulations to all of the winners in each category. Also big congratulations to the best of show winners: Phil Sullivan with an Oktoberfest from Underground Brewers (Detroit, MI) and Rich Harris and Joe Weitlispach with a Sweet Mead from MUGZ, members of the homebrew club I belong to.
Since I was the assistant event organizer, I am learning to run the event in 2013 and 2014. This means I was a jack of all trades. Filling in where needed, I judged in the first round Saturday, running to get this or that, and just making sure everyone present was as happy as possible. Also since I have a loud mouth and a voice that carries, I became the official PA system. I look forward to next year when I will become more familiar with the nuts and bolts of running a successful homebrew competition.
Maybe next year I may even have a beer that will place in the event. For the past couple of years I have entered beers in this and other events and cannot crack into placing at my home event, but have placed in a few other events with the same beer. Someday my luck will change, I hope.
QC Beerguy
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