NYC Homebrew Competition Results

This past Sunday was the NYC Homebrewers Guild "Homebrew Alley 4", their fourth annual homebrewing competition. As I stated in the previous post, we entered 5 of our beers.

In our testing of the beers the night before dropping them off for entry, we determined that our Number 2 English Barleywine and our Smoke Ale were our best attempts, and we hoped we would maybe place with one of them.



Well, I'll be! Above: (from L to R) Tim Bullock, Jeff Quinn and myself, John Kleinchester. Award-winning homebrew team! We were honored to receive First Place for our "Smokey Smoke" in the Smoke Ale category. We also took home Second Place for our "Number 2" English Barleywine in the Strong Ale category. At that point we were already more than happy with the results. But that wasn't enough! At the end of the ceremony, competition organizer Vlad Kowalyk announced that our Smoke Ale actually won Third Place Best of Show (out of 370 entries)! This was the crowning achievement.

Not only did we get to take home those awesome ribbons, but we also got PRIZES too. For the first two awards we got to select prizes from a table of wonderful choices from various charitable beer-related donations. In the end we took home a 50lb bag of grain (to make more homebrew of course) and a bottle of StarSan (a homebrew equipment cleaner, not cheap).



Before leaving we were able to get some score sheets for all of our entries, so hopefully for the ones that didn't do as well, we may be able to pinpoint where we went wrong and improve the recipes for the next time around. We split a cab back to Brooklyn (its hard to bring a 50lb bag of grain from Chelsea to Williamsburg) and celebrated our surprising victories with the very beers that got us there.



We also were delighted to learn that our Third Place Best of Show win actually garnered us an additional prize... a $50 Gift Card to Brooklyn Brew Shop. A timely prize as we're going to be expanding our homebrewing to 3 separate micro-nano-breweries instead of just two.



All in all, it was a great night and we're really glad we decided to enter. Thanks to the NYC Homebrewers Guild and all the BJCP judges AND thanks to those who came out to show their support for the Ten Dudes Brew Team: Heather, Cinzia, Jared, Pat, Charlie, Gille, Amy and Mike.

For a complete list of winners, check out the Homebrew Alley website.

NYC Homebrew Competition: This Sunday 1/31 at Chelsea Brewing

Hey all! This coming Sunday afternoon, homebrewers and onlookers will converge upon Chelsea Brewing Company in Manhattan for "Homebrew Alley 4", the NYC Homebrew Competition presented by the New York City Homebrewers Guild. The beers in the photo above are the ones my brewing team and I (Ten Dudes Brewing) submitted:

"Number 2" - an English Barleywine that has been bottle-conditioned for 15 months
"Smokey Smoke" - a smoke ale brewed with weyermann and cherrywood smoked malt
"Wedding Wit" - a witbier created for fellow brewmate Tim's wedding
"Kölsch It" - an (unfortunately cloudy) kölsch
"Depressed Umpire IPA" - an American IPA that was just bottled the day before entry

It was $7 per entry with no limit, but since we were splitting the costs three ways we just picked 5 of our homebrews that we enjoy. We were required to submit 2 bottles (12 or 22oz) of each entry which was difficult because we only had a few remaining bottles of the likes of "Number 2" and the "Wedding Wit".

As for our chances? Eh. We could get lucky and place. Our Kölsch turned out too cloudy to win that category. I think our best chances are with our "Number 2" barleywine and "Smokey Smoke Ale". The "Depressed Umpire" could be the dark horse, but having bottled it the day before the dropoff, there's no telling for sure how that will turn out. Even without any wins, it should be a fun time. Hopefully we'll at least get some feedback to improve our future brews.

PS: Don't worry, the homebrews did not stay exposed to the light of that window for more than a few minutes!

Trap Rock Brewery & Restaurant, Berkeley Heights, NJ

Last weekend I visited the Trap Rock Brewery & Restaurant in Berkeley Heights, NJ. Here's how their website describes them:

Located in Berkeley Heights, NJ, Trap Rock Restaurant & Brewery opened its doors in 1997 and combines seasonal craft brews with seasonal, American food. Our reputation was shaped early by an “Excellent” rating by the New York Times in October of 1997. Designed by Morris Nathanson, Trap Rock Restaurant offers a working microbrewery and a comfortable European ski lodge atmosphere. Trap Rock Restaurant & Brewery was the first of six current and successful northern New Jersey restaurants run by Harvest Restaurants.

When I realized that they are the brewers behind the beers at Tabor Road Tavern (a new restaurant right down the street from where I grew up), I was disappointed, based on my one-time experience there. But thankfully, Trap Rock was a different story.



I decided to go with the sampler, which provided six 8oz pours of their brews. As I learned from our server, not every beer is made on site, as they have a somewhat limited capacity there. Some of it is contract brewed, although I failed to find out where. In the sampler was the Ghost Pony Helles Lager, Hathor Red, JP Pilsner, Folky Bob's Session Ale, Thorny Rye Pale Ale and Kestrel IPA.



None of the beers were A+s, but all of them were solid Bs. I'd be curious to see them try something a bit more adventurous, but I left wondering if beer was a bit more of a novelty to them. Not meant as an insult, but I just didn't get the feel that they were beer geeks.



All of their brewing is done in a relatively small room with glass windows. We came in on a Saturday so no actual brewing was going on. As a sidenote, the food was excellent. I would definitely go back if I was in the area, but I don't believe its worth a special trip.

Smuttynose Night at Barcade

I've been falling a bit behind on my postings lately, so I'll just briefly share these few photos from Thursday January 14th, Smuttynose Night at Barcade in Brooklyn, NY.



Here was the beer list that eve:

Baltic Porter - 8.7% ABV - Baltic style Porter
"oak aged" Big A IPA - 9.2% - Imperial IPA, aged in oak at brewery
Farmhouse Ale - 7.5% - Belgian style Farmhouse Ale
Imperial Stout - 10.0% - Russian style Imperial Stout
IPA - 6.9% - "finest kind", served on cask
Maibock - 6.2% - German style Helles Bock
Strawberry Weisse - 3.0% - German Berliner Weissbier
Terminator G-Bock 2008 - 9.5% - Doppelbock, aged one year
"oak aged" Terminator G-Bock 2008 - 9.5% - Doppelbock, aged in oak at the brewery
Tripel - 9.0% - Belgian style Tripel
Wheat Wine - 10.7% - strong Ale brewed with wheat
Woodward Ale - 5.0% - crisp Ale with hints of Curacao orange



The first and by far most interesting beer I had was the Oak Aged Terminator G-Bock from 2008. I don't think I'd ever had a oak aged doppelbock before, but the oak added a perfect woodiness to what was already a very good beer.



And of course, I left behind a few of my "business cards" aka pieces of thin cardboard i printed a few words on. They're super-informative aren't they? Don't they just want to make you make beertography your home page? heh.

Shocker: Goose Island Bourbon County Stout is Awesome

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Goose Island Night at Rattle'n'Hum. I've had (and loved) GI's wonderful Bourbon County Stout from the bottle numerous times, but I believe this is the first time I've had the chance to try it on tap. And yep, you guessed it, it's even better.



This beer actually makes me want to start trying all different types of Bourbon, which I didn't know until recently that I love. At 13% ABV, its certainly a sipper, or perhaps one you should split with a friend. But the 2009 bottled version is now available in 22oz bombers, although I haven't seen any in the NYC area yet. If anyone in the area is interested, you can still pick up 12oz bottles of the 2008 at New Beer Distributors on Chrystie St. in Manhattan. Be advised, they close at 6pm on weekdays and are not open on Sundays.

21st Amendment Monk's Blood

21st Amendment Monk's Blood. Described as a Belgian Dark Strong Ale. In a can. IN A CAN! I love love love that canned beer is becoming "cool" for craft beer lovers. There are already SO many great canned craft beers. 21st Amendment has Monk's Blood and Brew Free or Die IPA, Oskar Blues has Dale's Pale Ale, Ten FIDY, Gordon and more...not to mention all of the wonderfulness that Surly Brewing Company cans (which I wish I could get my hands on more of).

While 21st Amendment didn't quite knock this out of the park, they certainly at least doubled. At 8.5% ABV, this does live up to the description of Strong Ale, but you'd never know it. Its sweet, its spicy and its pretty dangerously delicious. Its far too easy to throw back the entire 4 pack.

For my first Belgian in a can, its quite good. But, I feel it can be done better. I think I've just spoiled myself with other dark belgians like Brooklyn Local 2.

1st Williamsburg Cask Ale Festival

This past weekend, cask ale master Alex Hall aka The Gotham Imbiber brought his patented real ales to the Brooklyn borough of Williamsburg. The location this time was DBA Brooklyn. I stopped in for Saturday afternoon's session and had a few unfiltered, unpasteurized beers.



Here's the list:

Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA (a blend of 60 and 90)
BrüRm @ BAR 'Aberdeen Ale'
BrüRm @ BAR 'Chocolate Porter'
Erie 'Railbender Ale'
Honest Town 'Capall Dorche Stout'
Honest Town 'IPA'
Olde Burnside 'Ten Penny Ale'
Ridgeway 'Reindeer Droppings'
Sauer Rossdorf 'Rossdorfer Urbräu'
Shawnee 'Vienna Lager'
Shawnee 'Bourbon Barrel-Aged Entire'
Stone 'Sublimely Self Righteous Ale'



The best offering was definitely the Chocolate Porter from BrüRm @ BAR. I had never heard of this before, but apparently its from a brewpub/nightclub in New Haven, CT. Some good reviews on beeradvocate as well.