Competition Corner – October, 2010

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Entries are due at the Culver City shop no later than Saturday, October 9th for the last major competition of the season, the California State Homebrew Competition.  This is one of the key competitions that are considered for the California brew club of the year awarded sponsored by Anchor Brewing, so we need a good showing.  Complete rules and entry forms can be found at  http://www.nchfinfo.org/state-comp .  Since this is a remote competition, your entries must be packaged for shipping by UPS.  Read more →

Competition Corner – August 2010

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Lift up you taster cup and raise a toast to Craig Corley, Best of Show winner for the 2010 Los Angeles County Fair Homebrew competition!.  His Saison took top honors.  Also honoring the club was Carl Townsend, whose English Porter pulled in the second runner-up best of show.  Altogether, ten different Pacific Gravity brewers pulled in 27 awards, Read more →

Competition Corner – July 2010

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The summer months are here and if you’ve planned ahead, you have your cool weather ales in the cellar and your lagers in the fridge.  Perhaps you even have a wheat beer or a Belgian style in the fermenter. Well, get them ready, because a couple of competitions are upon us. Read more →

Competition Corner – April 2010

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Here we are in the rapidly-warming month of April and we are in the thick of the homebrew competition season.  Coming up this Saturday, April 10th is the due date for Maltose Falcon’s Mayfaire competition.  We are collecting entries for this at the Culver City shop.  On-line sign up is here:    http://maltosefalcons.com/comps/2010Mayfaire Note that the Falcons use their own style guidelines, which you can find here:  http://www.maltosefalcons.com/comps/styles/2010-falcons-style-guidelines . The entry fee is $7.00 and you need 3 bottles for each entry.  This is a local competition and they’ll need lots of judges.  We will do a preliminary round on Read more →

AHA Competition Entries Due This Friday 3-26

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Entries for the world’s largest homebrew competition are due by this Friday, March 26th:  the American Homebrewers Association’s National Homebrew Competition.  Entries for this event must be registered on-line at http://www.brewingcompetition.com/NHC/nhc.php .  You only need to submit one bottle per entry for this round, but if you beer advances to the finals, you need to have three more, which will be due in early June.  Cost for each entry is $9.00 for AHA members or $14.00 for non-members, and must be paid with the on-line site.  Make sure you are registering for the Southwest region.  Bring your bottles to the Culver City shop by this Friday, March 26th and we’ll transport them down to San Diego for you.

Technically, you can register your beers up through April 1st at 5:00 PM Pacific time, but you’ll be on your own to ship them down the San Diego.

Competition Corner – March 2010

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For many beer drinkers, March is associated with the consumption of mass quantities of Guinness Stout, or, all too often, fizzy yellow beer that has been colored to make it green.  For those of us in homebrew clubs, however, March is the warm-up month for homebrew competition season. Read more →

Special Vote for Brewer of the Year Rules

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On Thursday, February 18th at the Club meeting, we will hold a special vote for the Brewer of the Year Rules.  The ballot language is included below.  Please review the issue now, so that you are prepared to vote. Voting at the club meeting will be conducted by written ballots at approximately 8:15 PM and results will be announced by 9:30 PM.  If you cannot attend the meeting, you have the option of voting on-line.   You can vote at any time by sending an e-mail to elections@pacificgravity.com .  Place the word “Vote” in the Subject line and either “Yes” or “No” in the body of the text.  On-line ballots must be submitted by 7:30 PM on Thursday February 18th.  If you vote on-line, you cannot vote at the meeting. Read more →

Competition Corner – January 2010

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Ahh, the cool days of January are here and it is time to get some beer fermenting. We have a fresh slate of competitions to enter in 2010, and now is the time to prepare.

First up on the docket is the Club-Only competition for English Brown Ales, BJCP Cat #11. We will judge these at the January club meeting on Thursday, January 21st. Bring three 12 oz. bottles to the meeting and Read more →

Competition Corner – 2010 Preview

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Raise your beer mug and give a toast to Chris Simental, the winner of the 2009 Pacific Gravity Homebrewer of the Year Award.  Chris was honored at the Holiday Party on December 12th and presented with an engraved trophy mug.  He was the run-away winner for the second year in a row, having garnered a record 39 points.  His total completely blew away the rest of the field, let by second-place brewer Craig Corley, who had 21 points.  Way to go Chris, and keep up the good work!

The final Club-Only Competition spot this year went to Jon Porter, for a wonderful Belgian Strong Golden Ale. Jon picked up a score of 40 points in the club judging, and 35.5 at the national level.  Alas, it didn’t place in the top 3.

Looking ahead into 2010, Read more →

Beer Tasting Schedule for 2010

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The beer tasting schedule for 2010 club meeting has now been released.  The list has three sets of beer to keep in mind.  The most important is the club meeting homebrew keg styles of the month.  Kegs of homebrew are the basic fuel that keeps our club meetings running, so we need several every month.  Take a look at the list now to see what you can brew for the club this year.   Each keg of beer brought to the monthly meeting in this set of styles will be eligible for “Best Beer of the Meeting” award.  We’ll have a voice vote just before the raffle.  The winner gets a gift certificate from the Culver City Home Brewing Supply Company.   Note that we don’t have a keg style of the month for the summer party (which will be in August this year) or the Holiday Party in December.  The reason for this, of source, is that we need kegs from everybody of all styles.

PACIFIC GRAVITY HOMEBREW CLUB

Styles of the Month 2010

Month Homebrew Kegs Styles
of the Month		 Judging of
Club-Only
Competition Entries		 Commercial Styles
of the Month		 Leader of
Commercial
Tasting
January
2010		 English Pale Ales
and Scottish/Irish Ales		 English Brown Ales
(BJCP Cat. #11)		 English Pale Ales
and Scottish/Irish Ales
(BJCP Cats. #8-9)		 Reed & Mike
February
2010		 Belgian and French Ales N/A Belgian and French Ales
(BJCP Cat. #16)		 Jon Porter
March
2010		 American Ales
and Stouts		 American Ales
(BJCP Cat. #10)		 American Ales
and Stouts
(BJCP Cats. #10, 13)		 Ian Fraser
April
2010		 Extract Beers
(all categories)		 Extract Beers
(all categories)		 Smoke-Flavored/
Wood-Aged Beers,
and Specialty Beers
(BJCP Cats. #22, 23)		 Nathalie Caldwell
May
2010		 Lager Beers N/A Pilsners and Bocks
(BJCP Cats. #2, 5)		 Peggy Robinson
June
2010		 Fruit Beers,
Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beers,
Smoke-Flavored/
Wood-Aged Beers,
and Specialty Beers		 N/A Fruit Beers and
Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beers
(BJCP Cats. #20, 21)		 Need a volunteer
July
2010		 German Wheat/Rye Beers and Mead Mead
(BJCP Cats. #24-26)		 German Wheat/Rye Beers and Mead
(BJCP Cats. #15, 24-26)		 Need a volunteer
August
2010*		 N/A Sour Ales
(BJCP Cat. #17)		 N/A N/A
September
2010		 India Pale Ales N/A India Pale Ales
(BJCP Cat. #14)		 Need a volunteer
October
2010		 Strong Ales Strong Ales
(BJCP Cat. #19)		 Strong Ales
(BJCP Cat. #19)		 Need a volunteer
November
2010		 Hybrid Beers N/A Hybrid Beers
(BJCP Cats. #6,7)		 Need a volunteer
December 2010** N/A English Pale Ales
(BJCP Cat. #8)		 N/A N/A

*The club’s summer party will be held in August 2010. No styles of the month will be designated.
**The club’s holiday party will be held in December 2010. No styles of the month will be designated.

The next column shows the Club-only Competition entries that will be judged each month.   We will run a small judging panel with BJCP judges to select the best beer to send on to the national level.   Quite often, this is the same list as one of the kegs of the month.  If this is the case, you can use your keg to supply samples for the evening judging, but you’ll need to have at least 2 twelve-ounce bottles that can be shipped off.   Bring 3 bottles if you don’t have a keg.   Let the Competition Coordinator Carl Townsend know that you brought an entry.  If you can, please remember to fill out the entry forms before the meeting, which you can download from the AHA website at: http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/pdf/entry_recipe.pdf.  The club picks up the entry fees and shipping for this one, so it is free to you.

The third column in the schedule shows the commercial style tasting that we’ll do at the club meeting.  We are actively looking for volunteers to lead the monthly tasting sessions.  The session volunteer gets to select which beers to buy and gets to espouse his or her knowledge of the styles during the pouring.  The club has a budget set aside to buy the beers.  Based on past experience, it is a good idea to go buy the beers a couple of weeks in advance.  And of course, the more rare and exotic you commercial selections are, the better.  Dean Sussman is our Style Tasting Coordinator, so drop him a line if you are interested in volunteering.