Brew Bros Hops and Sprockets Totally Biased Homebrew Competition 2019.

Holy Cow. What a mouthful (that’s what she said)!

March 12th and 16th was the first annual Totally Biased Homebrew Competition where we don’t care about style guidelines, only that the beer tastes good. For being just our first year, it was a real success! Overall, there were 31 beers entered and it was not an easy task objectively scoring the beers when there were so many great ones to choose from.

Luckily, we had a really great group of people to help bring everything together!

• Aaron Thornton – Brew Bro
• Clint Mcallister – Brew Bro
• Clint Armstrong – Pro Brewer at 15-24 Brew House
• Brandon Gunn – Beer Industry Professional
• Dane Jasperson – Homebrewer and beer afficionado
• Kenna Jasperson – Experienced beer comp organizer
• Matt McRoberts – Homebrewer and pot sniffer

Beginning at 9:00 am on March 12th, we all sat down to begin familiarizing ourselves with the process. Being that this was not a BJCP sanctioned competition (or even remotely close to it), the judging criteria was a bit more relaxed and meant to focus on beers that just flat out taste good. A perfect score still remains 50 points, but the judging categories were a bit different than a standard homebrew competition.

• Beer Name Creativity (3 pts): Up to 3 points can be earned literally for having a creative name.
• Color, Clarity, Carbonation (5 pts): How does the beer look? Is it clear? Is it an attractive color? Does it have an appropriate amount of bubbles?
• Aroma (10 pts): How does it smell? Are the hops well defined of muddied?
• Flavor (20 pts): My favorite category! Since this competition was totally biased based on our personal palates, this category holds the most weight. Was the beer a muddy hoppy mess? Clean and fruity? Lots of yeast character?
• Biased Opinion (12 pts): Overall, what was the judge’s personal opinion of the beer. Was it unbelievably delicious? Was it a mess of off flavors? Would you chug a 12 pack or was just a sip enough?
• Style (0 pts): No points could be earned based on how well it fit style guidelines, but if you’re into that kind of thing, we gave our best shot at how well it fits the guidelines it was entered under. A bit of creative criticism never hurt anyone.

After 5 long hours of judging beers and all the dust had settled, we finally made it to the Best of Show judging. 6 beers were chosen for this final round of judging and it was not an easy thing to decide on a final winner. Clint, Clint and Aaron worked backwards by first eliminating the 3 beers that fell just a bit short and then began the long deliberation on placing the last 3 in order.

1st Place and Best of Show: Portlandia, brewed by Eric Ross
2nd Place: Orangeman, brewed by Joel Gulker
3rd Place: Space Cadet, brewed by Fletcher Raleigh

The judging didn’t end there though. We still had a TON of awards to give out!

Judge’s Choice Awards:
Clint McAllister chose The Raven, brewed by Eric Ross
Clint Armstrong chose The Duchess, brewed by Jeremy Rott
Matt McRoberts chose Space Cadet, brewed by Fletcher Raleigh
Brandon and Dane chose Joey Rott’s hoppy wheat
Aaron chose Hoppy Field IPA, brewed by Cody Rietcheck

Other Miscellaneous Awards:
Taylor Ochs won Shawn Howard’s “Tight” drawing
Craig Ackerman won the Biggest Drunk Award

And last, but not least:
Kenna Jasperson was awarded the “Bootie Prize” for brewing a total sulfur bomb and making us judge a beer with our noses plugged. Frickin Sweet.

All in all, the beer judging day went better than anyone could have expected. We got to drink some really fantastic beers, some not so great beers and had a great time overall. We learned a ton for next year and the BBHSTBHC 2020 will be back better than ever!