Congratulations to Tim Snider of GEBL who not only took first place with his Tripel, but als won the grand prize and is having his beer brewed by Diamond Knot!
Here are the top 12 beers for which we gave prizes.
Photos from Homebrew Fair 2008 are now available!
Despite a fairly significant drop off in fair attendance, it went fairly smoothly. Being able to have a brewing demonstration and share beers with each other was a big plus, as was the catering. The lectures were really well attended and people hung on Nick Templeton's every word at the demonstration. I think this more than offset the attendance drop. A special thanks to him for sharing his passion for teaching.
It was great to have Diamond Knot on hand and the folks from Beer Essentials and all of the other people who stepped up to solicit and give prizes gave us probably our greatest swag haul to date. A really special thanks to Mark and Allison Shaeffer-Joy who hand-blew the trophies for 1st-3rd place.
As always the judges were the best of the best and I tried to talk to every attendee I could. People were resoundingly excited about the whole experience. I'm always amazed at how many of the people come that do not belong to clubs and otherwise don't have this kind of feedback about their mostly excellent beers.
And people like Valerie Oliver and Gordon Legg spent a significant amount of time mentoring new judges to make sure other brewers will have similar quality experiences in the future. Eric Wilson showed up and handled all of the BJCP paperwork as if it was the easiest thing in the world, but I certainly couldn't have done it!
Of course, the folks at Larry's were unbelievable, as they always are. I cannot thank them enough not just for the event, but for everything they do for the hobby, and for my personal beermaking. I always feel more like I'm visiting a friend's house than a store there. Larry was even twisting my arm to do a few more fairs down there. Also thanks to Laura Beck and John Gilbert for working the gate out in the blistering sun.
I want to make a special thanks to Bernard Hymmen who made it all work through his wrangling, who taught me to (finally) make some decent beers, and who has to listen to my constant bitching. Also to Darryl Pernat and John Gilbert who not only inspired the whole idea of the fair, but who finally let somebody else win (because they only brought their "problem" beers).
If I've forgotten anybody, I'm sorry, there are just so many people who come together for this event that sometimes it's hard to keep track of them all!
Thanks again, it was a great run. I think the time has come for others to take this over. Please support their future efforts as kindly and patiently as you have ours.
Prost! Jon Tobey & Bernard Hymmen
This year brings a lot of change to the Fair. We're moving on from the Phinney Ridge venue. The venue and people were great, but issues with cost, timing, consumption, and demonstrations limited us there. This year we will be having the Fair at Larry's Brewing Supply. Not only has Larry been one of our biggest sponsors in the past, but now we can have actual brewing demos and hopefully bring new people into the hobby, long a goal of the Fair.
10 AM Full Grain Brewing with Nick Templeton
2 PM Extract Brewing with Nick Templeton
We've also formed an alliance with the Washington Homebrew Association (WAHA). WAHA's goals are so closely aligned to the Fair's that it is a natural fit. In fact after this year, they will take over the Fair. We hope this means more events, more support, and continued growth. Imagine someday an event like the Fathers' Day Brewfest, except all homebrew!
The Beer Essentials continues to sponsor and support our efforts, but we have a new sponsor Diamond Knot Brewery who will be supporting our prizes. This brewery started out homebrewing like the rest of us, and it's a good fit. This year you could get your beer brewed by Diamond Knot! They will choose a beer from the BOS round that fits their line up and brew it.
As always the Greater Everett Brewers' League (GEBL) is there with their deep brewing, evaluating, educational, and competition expertise.
It's going to be a great year, get brewing!
Photos from Homebrew Fair 2007 are now available!
The Homebrew Fair is a unique educational beer event, pairing homebrewers directly with BJCP (Beer Judges Certification Program) judges, professional brewers, award-winning brewers, homebrew shop employees, and beer literati to evaluate their beers .
Homebrew competitions are generally based on styles, these are well-defined objective criteria the judges use to evaluate entries. However, these can be very evasive for homebrewers. The average homebrewer, not having a great understanding of styles, is apt to enter into whatever category seems correct, without understanding all of the subtleties involved. Judges find it very distressing to have to write comments such as "This Pale Ale would've scored much higher had it been entered as a Special Bitter," and can only imagine how opaque such comments are to the typical homebrewer.
Instead, how about a "Homebrew Fair" where the individual brewers can bring in a host of beverages and sit down with an expert who can evaluate and help troubleshoot the beer/mead? This has tremendous advantages because the judge would have access to the recipe and techniques used, which we do not typically have at competition, so we can prescribe very precise remedies.
There is an additional benefit to this: the evaluators get feedback on their feedback, something that the whole judging program is sorely lacking and has no mechanism to provide. So we train both the brewers and the judges.
In addition to having one-on-one tasting and troubleshooting, the fair provides basic information on brewing. All of the local homebrew clubs will have tables to inform and recruit new members, as will the local shops. While the brewers are waiting to get their score sheets, local brewers and other style experts will be giving lectures on style and technique.
Even if you don't brew (yet) the fair will be entertaining. Learning about brewing will help you appreciate beer the way learning about art history helps to appreciate art. And if you're on the fence about brewing, come and meet your local brewing community: every major brewing club and homebrew store in the area will have representatives at the fair.