Sunday, May 26, 2013

3rd Place!

In competition with 10 other meads my Cranberry & Spice mead took 3rd place in this weekend's competition.

My average score between 3 judges was 36.66/50, scored according to the American Homebrewer's Association score sheet. While not an AHA/BJCP sanctioned competition, one of the 3 judges was a BJCP qualified judge, and his score of my mead was 40/50.

Overall, I'm quite pleased. I got some valuable feedback and picked up a few hints and new ideas.

The mead that I liked the best was a Birch Mead that placed second in the competition. It had a very pleasant minty flavour to it.


Given that this was only the second batch I had ever brewed and there was some good competition, I was quite happy to have placed 3rd.

Some of the comments from the judges were:
"nice colour, nice sweetness"
"Clean, very drinkable"
"Well balanced Mead, it is very drinkable, and interesting throughout"

My first brewing competition, a success!

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Mid-May Update

Wow, looks like I've neglected to write anything to this blog in a while.

I currently have a batch of regular honey mead oak ageing ...with oak chips in the carboy. I can't be bothered with properly cleaning and caring for a cask when I'm so early in my brewing journey that there's likely to be no noticeable difference between casked and chipped. I also have take 2 of my Acerglyn (maple mead) going. It is just over a week in and going much, much better than the failed batch.

I have tomorrow off work, so I will be racking the mead off the oak chips, it's been a little over a week with the oak and it's quite nice right now. I don't want the oak flavour to over power it.

The reason I have tomorrow off is to pack the car for Wellspring, where this whole adventure started last year. I intend to enter my cranberry mead into the Brewers competition there. I don't expect to win anything, but the feedback will be nice and I kind of feel obligated to give something back.
This year is the Grand Symbel, there will be home brew in several varieties from several of the Guild Brewers to sample and enjoy. I am really looking forward to it.

Two weeks later is 3 Rivers Festival, where I will enter more of that same batch into the competition there.