Competition Corner – September 2017
OK, folks, we are coming down to short strokes here. If you haven’t noticed, the bottle delivery window for the 
2017 Pacific Brewers Cup is now open and runs through Friday, September 15th. As I scan through the database, I see that many of you haven’t entered yet! Now is the time! The on-line registration page is up and running at http://comp.pacificgravity.com/. If you can’t make it to the Culver City shop, the full list of sites you can drop off entries at any of the homebrew shops listed here. Please check the closing time for the other shops. Each entry requires 2 bottles, and has an entry fee of $8.00.
Also NOW! Volunteer to Judge or Steward! The very same registration page has a sign-up space for both. We are looking to have 60 judges and 30 stewards and as of the moment we are only half-way there. Signing up now will let us know if we need to run preliminary judging sessions.
Along the way, we have plenty of other tasks where we can use your assistance:
Saturday, September 16th, Noon(ish)Bottle Pick-up day. Volunteers Needed! We need someone to cover the Woodland Hills drop-off site. Then, bring them over the to organizing session on the 17th.
Sunday September 17th, 11AM at Los Angeles Ale Works
Bottle Organizing day. Many volunteers needed! We need to borrow just about every ice chest this club can come up with. Make sure they are well labeled. We need about a dozen folks to come by LAAW to help sift through the hundreds of bottles and arrange them by category, and put them into the coolers until judging.
Sept 18th – Sept 29th
Preliminary Judging Sessions. Time is TBD with the location being LAAW, so check back for updates. If we are short of judges and we have a lot of entries, there could be a number of these.
Friday, September 29th, 7:00 PM
Beer moving Day. We need a handful of guys with strong backs and couple of folks with trucks to help move the beer from Los Angeles Ale Works over to St. Bede’s Episcopal Church.
Saturday, September 30th, 9:00 AM at St. Bede’s Episcopal Church
Judging Day! We need everybody out to help out on this one. I want to see at least 60 judges and 30 stewards. We will be doing both a morning and afternoon session, with a lunch break in-between. Afterwards, we need help at the end of the day to make sure we pick it all up and leave the Church clean. Many of the coolers will be empty by then. If so, please take yours home.
October 1st – October 14th
Post-judging sessions and Best of Show Judging. Time and locations TBD, so check back for updates. If we are short of judges and we have a lot of entries, there could be a number of these.
Sunday, October 1st
Cooler pick-up day. Come pick up your cooler, which will most likely have a present of several bottles of competition quality beer!
Awards Ceremony
Date TBD.
After all this hullabaloo, we can take a moment to look back at some recent accomplishments. We scored well in the 2017 Los Angeles County Fair; winners listed below. Congratulations especially to Carl Townsend, who captured Best of Show with his American Stout. This is Carl’s second Best of Show at LACF; the first being in 1999. Complete results are available at https://www.maltosefalcons.com/content/los-angeles-county-fair-results.
| Best of Show | Carl Townsend | American Stout | 17.6: American-Style Stout |
| 1st | Carl Townsend | London Smog | 4.3: Strong Bitter and Extra Special Bitter (ESB) |
| 1st | Carl Townsend | American Stout | 17.6: American-Style Stout |
| 2nd | Carl Townsend | American Pale Ale | 5.1: American-Style Pale Ale |
| 3rd | Carl Townsend | Imperial Stout | 14.3: Imperial (“Russian”) Stout |
| 2nd | Craig Corley | 253 Kolsch #14 | 8.1: Kolsch-Style Ale |
| 1st | Parker Waechter | …Only Soul In The World That’s Real | 20.3: Belgian-Style Strong Dark Ale |
| 1st | Parker Waechter | L’Estivale | 26.2: Smoke Beers, Other |
| 3rd | Parker Waechter | Senex | 26.3: Wood-Aged Beer, Whiskey |
| 1st | Reuben Shah | Mojo RIS | 14.3: Imperial (“Russian”) Stout |
| 2nd | Reuben Shah | Hefe-Why-Zen | 18.2: Bavarian-Style Hefeweizen |
| 3rd | Reuben Shah | Dos Mucho | 9.1: Vienna-Style Lager |
With the ribbons in LACF, Carl Townsend takes the lead in the Brewer of the Year, but parker Waechter is just 1 point behind. Things could still take a dramatic turn with just 2 more competitions to go.
2017 Pacific Gravity Brewer of the Year Competition Schedule
Pacific Brewers Cup Activities:
• September 1st – Entry drop off begins
• September 15th – Entry Deadline
• September 16th – Entry pick-up, deliver to LA Ale Works
• September 17th – Entry organizing at LAAW 11:00 AM
• September 18th – 28th Prelim rounds at LAAW (if needed, hopefully not many)
• September 27th – Prelim Session at Woodland Hill, part of BJCP class
• September 29th – Move beers from LAAW to St Bede’s
• September 30th – Judging Day
October California State Homebrew
If you are hard-core competition junkie, there are a bazillion other contests to enter. The AHA has their master list at http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/competitions/aha-bjcp-sanctioned-competition/.
