2012 Beehive Brew off results

Another Beehive brew off is in the books. I was hoping to help judge and or steward this year, but I ended up being out of town so I could not even attend the awards ceremony.

I was super stoked to hear that we placed with 3 of the beers entered. Again, I was not able to attend so I have not even seen the score sheets yet. Tim, my brother in law and co-brewer attended and picked them up.

1st Place - Imperial Stout (Sesquac, Russian Imperial Stout)
This beer has always been amazing even at a young age. It was brewed last September so it was about a year old at the time of judging. We called this thing a bunch of different names, but I settled on Sesquac, a version of the word Sasquatch. You can see a full post on this beer along with the recipe in a previous blog post. It uses the traditional RIS ingredients, and out of style yeast. The yeast we used was French Saison. Yes, kind of out there, but it works sooo well. Everyone that has ever tried this beer has enjoyed it. There is something about that yeast that just takes the dark and strong RIS character and tames it.

I was worried this beer might do terrible. This beer went on a crazy journey. It was kegged, then bottled into 22's with a beer gun. I really wanted to enter it, but 22's are not accepted. So Tim and I poured a couple of bottles back into a keg and rebottled it into 12oz bottles. SO it went Keg>bottle>keg>bottle>DRINK

3rd place - Belgian Specialty (Oaked Belgian Stout)
This beer received the highest score of any of our beers, but with the high number of entries in this category it wasn't enough to place higher. This is another sort of out of the box beer. I mean when was the last time you had a Belgian stout? I like coming up with names for my beers, but with this one I felt the name should just equal the beer style as to not confuse anyone on what it is supposed to be.

3rd place - Meads (Behemothic Braggot)
The last beer I had place was this project I started over two years ago. This was a brew that turned into 3 different beers. The version I entered used the Old Ale yeast blend. Into the kettle I added meadow sweet and chamomile. 6 months into secondary another pound of honey was added for the brett, and it sat on oak for quite a while as well. I bottled it up about a year ago. This stuff is very strong, my guess is about 15%. I struggle to drink this, but have found that it is pretty nice when cut with a lighter beer. I also have a blog post on this brew.

Judge comments to come...

Time to start thinking about next year!