Brewer of the Year

Past, present, and upcoming competitions, as well as award winners!
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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by jacinthebox » Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:01 pm

It's eric...but he doesn't know yet. That will teach him to win it last year

It was supposed to be a virgin...but the convo got weird so I'm not really sure it will work
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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by jeffsmith » Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:16 pm

:lol: :lol: :lol:

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Mon Sep 28, 2015 6:58 pm

:lol: :lol:

......................

BOTY site was updated today. I think Brewnosers could make it to #3.
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-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by mumblecrunch » Mon Sep 28, 2015 7:13 pm

Help us out Mark, what competitions are left to enter and by when? We're obviously a pretty sedate lot, but I'm sure we could grab a few more medals if we're led by the hand a little ;)

(Also, you are killing it as far as I'm concerned and then I look and see Carlberg's score is two points shy of double his next two nearest competitors. I have some conception of the time, effort and money you're putting into this, let alone the brewing skill. He's terrifying.)

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Mon Sep 28, 2015 7:18 pm

Thanks Aaron, I hope you can help out. I'm posting the remaining competitions in separate threads apart from the last one in Nov (5 Paddles Brew to the Death Brew Off) 'cause details aren't out yet.

Jared has a big operation for sure, and he's a great brewer. He's going pro at the moment in Winnipeg with some other great brewers. They are getting all excited about it. It's called Torque Brewing.
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Sat Oct 03, 2015 4:38 pm

Results from two national competitions coming out tomorrow. I can't stand the suspense. I wonder if Brewnosers will make it to number three club nationally or if I will take a dive.
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by CorneliusAlphonse » Sat Oct 03, 2015 9:24 pm

good luck mark! :cheers:
planning: beer for my cousin's wedding
Fermenting: black ipa
Conditioning:
Kegged: barrel barleywine from 2014 - i think i still have this somewhere

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Sat Oct 03, 2015 10:04 pm

CorneliusAlphonse wrote:good luck mark! :cheers:
Thanks Liam!
:cheers:
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Sun Oct 04, 2015 6:38 pm

Got my results (should help), 20 points ahead of #3 now. Quite a disparity between the two competitions for some reason. I sent the same beers to both. 79 awards now.

Congratulations to Brewnosers Mark McGraw and Dave Martin with Co-Brewer Kent Brooks who also got gold medals today. :cheers2:

GTA Brews - Brew Slam 2015
69. Bronze, Irish Red Ale, “Red
70. Bronze, Best Bitter, “Brit Bit Secial”
71. Bronze, English Barley Wine, “Brummy”

MoB & Beau's Oktoberfest Homebrewing Competition 2015
72. Best Of Show, English Mild, “Working Man”
73. Silver, Bohemian Pils, “Pilsner Myquell”
74. Gold, English Mild, “Working Man”
75. HM. Northern English Brown, “Newky Brun”
77. Gold, DIPA, “Lemony Swiggit”
78. Gold, Ordinary Bitter, “Brit Bit”
79. Silver, American Wheat, “Snow”
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by mcgster » Tue Oct 13, 2015 2:19 pm

We are a solid 3rd place now. They finally updated my club.
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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Tue Oct 13, 2015 3:21 pm

Great! Thanks for sorting that out Mark. I think we can hold it there now 'till the end of the year, now there are a few Brewnosers competing.
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by mcgster » Tue Oct 13, 2015 3:23 pm

I was hoping to break the top ten this year but i'm only sending in a handful of beer into the remaining comps which really makes me doubt i'll see any positive movement on the list. I only have four quality beer left that i would consider sending. Brewing the small 2.5 gal batches only leaves a handful to send in!

You look like you have solidified 2nd, congrats.

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Tue Oct 13, 2015 4:54 pm

Yes, Thanks. I have 105 points now and there are 3 more competitions to go. There is only one person who has scored that many annual points in the history of BOTY and that's the "Evil Goat" as he calls himself ...and he's Evil! :D
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Tue Oct 13, 2015 6:37 pm

They are twittering now about how Brewnosers has bumped ALES out of third place. That's pretty big!

Chris Nowlan has taken a big jump to #3

http://www.breweroftheyear.com/results/2015-year/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Tue Oct 13, 2015 7:01 pm

Just noticed ALES club favorited the Tweet about Brewnoser's bumping them out of third place. It's very friendly and supportive competition on the BOTY.
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Wed Oct 14, 2015 8:53 am

mcgster wrote:I was hoping to break the top ten this year but i'm only sending in a handful of beer into the remaining comps which really makes me doubt i'll see any positive movement on the list. I only have four quality beer left that i would consider sending. Brewing the small 2.5 gal batches only leaves a handful to send in!
2.5 Gal is no good Mark. Each batch needs to be minimum 10 gal, One keg for drinking, 1/2 keg for competitions, and the other 1/2 keg because inevitably, someone gets into the second keg before you have a chance to bottle from it.

Send in everything you have and don't pre-judge what's going to win and what won't (never works).

I think you will actually make it into the to top 10. I was just looking at it.

:cheers2:
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Tue Oct 27, 2015 4:44 pm

Latest update; http://www.breweroftheyear.com/competitions/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by LeafMan66_67 » Tue Oct 27, 2015 6:15 pm

So, how much do you need to brew, and how many entries are required to score 196 points?
"He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Wed Oct 28, 2015 6:32 am

LeafMan66_67 wrote:So, how much do you need to brew, and how many entries are required to score 196 points?
I think Jared told me a few months ago he's designed and brewed 33 medal winning beers, he probably has more now. I now have 27 (details here: http://www.brewnosers.org/forums/viewto ... 29#p130829" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ), although I started the year with only 9 . He started the year I think at full pelt. I started by sending in 6-8 roughly and did well, so I thought I'd have a go and see how far I got. Geof Traill, last year's #3, told me to stand a chance I'd need to send 10 entries to each competition, and I thought to myself, that's doable.

This year with Jared competing, 10 just wouldn't do. As the year went along I worked up to 12, I just had enough beers to send the limit of 15 to the Brewnosers comp when it came along. Gradually I worked up to 20. I now have 25 beers to send to the final competition next month. That's my story. Jared doesn't say exactly how many he sends along. I'd hazard a guess of 25-30 maybe. The latest competition (Winnipeg Pro-Am) had an entry limit of 8 beers and I won 10 points for my 8 beers. I picked out eight of what I thought were the best from my collection. The next one coming up has an entry limit of 5, and the final one, has no entry limit.

How much do you have to brew? I'd say to seriously have a go at this, start brewing about 4 months ahead of the first competition and brew every 1- 2 weeks. If you could have 20 ready for the first competition you'd have it made and have a head start. I suspect a lot of people start brewing for it at the beginning of the year and brew more and more as the year goes on. Store your beer cold so it will last longer, and continue brewing every 2 weeks. Also you need to have some high ABV beers brewed ahead of time, ageing in the cellar. You probably need to have some lagers, and definitely need to be able to brew a wide diversity of styles.

I hope that answers your questions.

Last year Jared didn't enter and Chris Bourdages won first place with 91 points only. I picked a rough year to get into this.
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by mcgster » Wed Oct 28, 2015 7:35 am

I think the more interesting question is how much would it cost. Looking at the medals in each category i would guess that until this year, Jared was the only competitor that sent entries en masse to competitions. Mark did well to get up there with him for # of entries starting around the Brewnosers comp, but the other competitors tend to medal with the same brews "inconsistently" from comp to comp.

A rough underestimate of cost on what it would take to get 20 entries to each comp based on this year's circuit.

Cost
Brewing Costs (35$/batch*20 batches) 700
Bottles (20 batches*2/entry*15competitions*0.80/ea) 480
Shipping (10entries/box@62.50/box*2boxes*15comps) 1875
$3,055.00
Time Brewing (4hrs/batch*20batches) 80
Time Bottling (1hr/batch*20batches) 20
Time Packing (1.5hrs/comp*15comps) 22.5
122.50 hrs

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Wed Oct 28, 2015 8:14 am

I reckon it has cost me $5,000 - 6,000. But I considered at the beginning that's how much it would be and thought it would be worth it for the learning experience (with brewing and beer), which is tremendous. I also now have some recognition as a brewer, which might help me to move into commercial brewing, and that's also very valuable. A bit like taking a taking brewing course.

Also. I only send about 1/3 of the beer I brewed to competitions. The rest of it was available for entertaining, household use. During this past year we have bought next to zero alcohol from the NSLC, or anywhere else. If we visit we take beer. So I would argue that the net cost is zero. In years prior to my brewing hobby, we would have easily spent $5,000 at the NSLC during the year.

I am trying to provide good information in case any other Brewnosers consider going for this. Forewarned is forearmed. I wish I had known what I was getting into ....but then again, If I had known, maybe I wouldn't have tried.

:cheers2:
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by mcgster » Wed Oct 28, 2015 8:37 am

Good points Mark, i was thinking it would be in the 5000 range but i figured a barebones estimate based on 5 gal batches would be fairly close.

Anyone thinking about making a press for it should know what they are in for!

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by CorneliusAlphonse » Wed Oct 28, 2015 8:58 am

Shipping cost and time are the big killers there. Serious commitment for both. Impressive
planning: beer for my cousin's wedding
Fermenting: black ipa
Conditioning:
Kegged: barrel barleywine from 2014 - i think i still have this somewhere

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by GuingesRock » Wed Oct 28, 2015 9:21 am

Thanks. My estimate included shipping and entry fees, but it's a rough estimate. I haven't kept track.
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server

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Re: Brewer of the Year

Post by mcgster » Wed Oct 28, 2015 9:57 am

One of the benefits (or drawbacks) of brewing small 2.5 gal batches is that i was able to send in a ton of different recipes to competitions this year. Of course you can only send one batch of beer to a handful of competitions when you factor in you are only getting 24 bottles and drinking most of them.

My goal this year was to get feedback to improve my brewing so it worked out great for me. Of course when you get a winning beer and run out of it after only three comps it kind of sucks if you are going for points, but if you are going for feedback its fine.

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