Medals. As competitive home-brewers, we covet these babies. A medal is a symbol of competence. Despite the popular misconception that homebrew “tastes like piss”, your friends can know that you are, indeed, someone who can produce great beer. In addition to showing off your brewing talent, winning medals can make you a better brewer. Competition motivates brewers to get better and better. Home brewing clubs compete against one another, and therefore the sharing of brewing knowledge is key to a club’s success. No matter how you look at it, clubs and competitions make home brewers better at what they do. Let’s face it, this is a rewarding hobby, and we all want to make impressive beer.

Some brewers plan out their brews weeks in advance with careful thought regarding the ingredients, brewing process, and yeast selection. The idea is to produce a beer that fits the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) parameters. Other brewers brew without a style in mind, and then enter what they have in a category that best fits the beer and hope for the best. Some brewers take competition very seriously, with a goal to win as many medals as possible for the club, and some just want some genuine feedback. Either way, competing brings out a flavor of camaraderie, anticipation, and often pride.

To be perfectly honest, I am not a very experienced competitor, and therefore have much less advice to offer than could many other members in the guild. However, I have learned a few things from competing.

Don’t ever take this too seriously

This is a fun hobby. The goal is to make great beer, share it, and enjoy it. If competition is taking the joy away by stressing you out, then you have the wrong mindset. Competing gives you the spark you may need to move forward in the hobby and try something new.

Start with beers that are easier, and work your way up to harder styles

The whole idea here, I presume, is to make better beer. In order to improve, I’ve found it’s best to take baby steps. As an illustration, your first beer should not be an all grain Munich Helles. Start with a simple ale such as an American pale or British bitter. Minor flaws are less detectable in beers with plenty of hop flavor, fruit, or spices. Also, these beers are much easier to brew to style.

Research the style before you brew the beer

Zymurgy, Brew Your Own, and the Brewing Techniques Archive are magazines that contain a wealth of information from experienced brewers on how to brew specific styles of beer. Often these articles include recipes that can be copied directly, or used as a guideline to help you design your own version. In the back of every issue of Zymurgy is a list of recipes that have medaled at a prior National Level home brewing competition. If you really want to know a lot about a style, inquire about a set of books called the Classic Beer Style Series. Each book focuses on a particular style and will tell you absolutely everything about it. Many other books exist as well, such as Designing Great Beers and Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide and Greg Noonan’s Brewing Lager Beer. I tend to take any information on the internet with a grain of salt, but some sites offer a lot of useful information. Ask Guild members if they have any good recipes or suggestions. Finally, check out the BJCP style guideline. The judge of your beer will be using that as the guideline, so the beer you make needs to look, smell and taste the way the BJCP says it should. I realize that style guidelines can sometimes place limitations on your creativity. However, if you want to be creative, then do so! You can enter your beer under several creative categories. Examples include the Belgian styles, experimental, spice/herb/vegetable beer, etc.

Don’t get too attached to the style

Even the greatest beer ever made will do poorly if it is entered in the wrong style. Many brewers, experienced or no, set out to brew a specific style of beer but unintentionally end up with a final product that misses the target completely. This “mistake” is NOT a problem! Look through the BJCP guide to see if your beer fits anywhere else. If you are still unsure, bring it to a meeting and ask as many people as you can to try and fit the beer to a BJCP style. If in doubt over two styles, enter the beer in both. You would be hard pressed to find a brewer who has never had to switch styles after the beer was made.

Reserve 12 bottles of your beer

Competition probably isn’t the reason that you entered this fine hobby. Most likely, you just happen to be someone who loves beer and everything having to do with beer – including making it yourself. Use competition as a tool to learn the craft better. The sacrifice is that you will need to put away some bottles from every batch you make. If you feel like you are just paying money to have some stranger drink your beer, then think of it this way instead: You are paying for unbiased, honest evaluation of your beer. If the beer does well, then you will actually save money by winning prizes that will be used to make more beer. You brewing will just keep getting better every time. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Don’t ever take this too seriously

When you get the judge sheets back, remember something Roxy told me; it’s important to keep in mind that “sometimes the judges don’t know shit”. Last year I entered my American Brown Ale into several different competitions under the same class and had a range of scores from 28 to 43! It is this reason especially that you should try to enter the same brew more than once. One bad score certainly doesn’t mean that the beer lacks quality. Even though a judge is BJCP qualified, he or she may still be learning about that style of beer. Consistency is the key.

It’s kind of like the “circle of life” except that it’s really the “circle of great beer”. If you join a club that consists of extremely talented home brewers, you will quickly learn to make better beer. If you make beer and compete, you will get feedback and initiative to improve. Every member’s small improvement then increases the value of the club to other brewers. New brewers join (and taste fantastic beer at the meetings) and the quality of beer just gets better and better. Let’s get those beers going for this year’s competitions and win a ton of medals! We belong to easily one of the best clubs in North America, so let’s do the EHG proud. Oh yeah, and be sure to raise a glass of your finest home brew when you win a medal, and drink that beer with pride.