A Proud Moment

Blacksburg Brew Do (http://www.blacksburgpartnership.org/brewdo/index.html) was a local craft beer festival held on October 30th. They also had a Homebrew Competition with four categories that you could enter beer into: Light, Amber, Dark, & Specialty. The four 1st place winners would then be judged and a Best of Show would be declared. We entered our Russian Imperial Stout, 'Izvinite Babushka' (Russian for 'excuse me Grandma') into the Dark category. It won 1st place. It then won Best of Show as well. We had good competition for Best of Show, 2 of the other 1st place winners in the remaining three categories were fellow Star City Brewers Guild members.
Part of the prize for Best of Show was getting the chance to brew your winning beer at Bull & Bones in Blacksburg. We went up there the morning after Christmas. We had to be there at 7am, giving us a roughly 45 minute drive. And it was snowing. And the windshield wipers decided that they didn't really need to work. And then we nearly ran out of gas. But we made it there, which was the hardest part of it all.

At 7am we were greeted by Bull & Bones' head brewer, Jim Strickland. Jim only had to roll out of bed and make the couple minute drive there from his house. We were a little jealous of this given our ordeal getting up there.

The brew session went well from what we could tell and other than the one boil over there were no problems that we were aware of. In the between times where we would normally sit around and, pardon the pun, shoot the bull we enjoyed some of Jim's beers off of the tap and played pool. Not a bad way to start your morning, or brew in general.

Their system maxes out at 900 lbs of grain so to accommodate that we had to brew a slightly smaller batch to get the target OG (OG = Original Gravity, which along with the Final Gravity will tell you how alcoholic the beer is). I think he said 8 barrels instead of 10. We ended up coming out a little low on the gravity anyway but still hit 23 plato (1.096), which coincidentally I think is what we actually ended up with when we brewed this at home. So assuming this ferments out to about 6 or 7 plato (1.024 – 1.028) we should end up with about a 9 – 9.5% beer.

As far as the actual process of brewing went I thought it seemed easier than what we do at home. All temperatures, pumps, etc. were controlled electronically and all liquid flow was plumbed in stainless steel and controlled with valves…so no tubes to take on and off or switch around. We did have to hook up the CIP (clean in place) pump and a separate tube to pump sanitizer through heat exchanger though. Cleanup was easier too (except for emptying 900 lbs of grain!!) because everything else was just hosed down and flushed out of the system and down the drains in the floor. ~ This was especially nice given the fact that we've had to have our pipes cleaned out as a result of emptying out a minute amount of grain into the kitchen drain here at the house. It stunk. Badly. We learned a lesson.

The spent grain from the brew session was picked up by a local farmer that Jim knows. He feeds it to his cows. We used a modified hoe to scrape out the mash tun, letting the grain fall into trash cans below that we then hauled outside. It was nice to know that the grain was getting re-used and not just going into the landfill.

Naturally Carrie took a lot of photos while we were there. Here is a small selection of them.



~Stirring the mash~

~This is a neat shot because you can see Jim loading the grain into the mill (in the room in the background of the photo), which then travels to the mash tun where I am stirring it~

~A look down inside the boil kettle as it fills with liquid gold ... aka wort~

~The wort boiling. It boiled over almost immediately after this photo was taken.~

~Jim, hosing down things after the boil over. This ability to clean up like this was one of the true perks of getting to brew on a setup like this.~

~Jim beginning to empty the spent grain out of the mash tun~

~The perk of being the head brewer and having someone else up there brewing with you ... letting them empty all the grain!!~


We want to thank Jim for being such a great host and letting us brew along with him. It was a truly wonderful experience. Thank you Jim! Thanks also to the folks at Blacksburg Brew Do for a fun festival and to those who judged for choosing our beer!

Also, our win garnered us a mention in the Salem Times Register. Here is the link to that article: http://ourvalley.org/local-home-brew-declared-best-in-beer-competition/

Decadence takes 1st Place

~Our 1st place trophy from the Star City Brewers Guild's December 2009 "Imperial Anything" Competition. A very proud moment.~

We're members of Roanoke's local homebrewers' guild, Star City Brewers Guild - aka, SCBG, http://www.starcitybrewers.org/. We're proud to be part of such a great group and are grateful for the chance to get to learn from, and drink with, other homebrewers. Unfortunately, the Roanoke Valley is not yet known for it's appreciation of good beer.
Every year the SCBG holds 4 different competitions, spaced out over the course of the year. We don't normally enter them, as we're working towards opening our own brewery and choose to focus on perfecting our own recipes. The general rule has been that if we had a beer that fit the competition, then we could enter it. To date, we've entered 3 competitions with SCBG: Dec. 2008's Porter Competition (we entered an Imperial Vanilla Bourbon Porter ... not exactly to style!), March 2009's Brown Ale Competition (we entered our Back Porch Brown Ale), and then Dec. 2009's "Imperial Anything" Competition. We had yet to be sent up to the final round, much less place.
One thing about competitions, especially ones where you don't have BJCP certified judges, is that they're REALLY subjective. The judges are seeking out flaws, many of which are hard to detect and often flavors that the brewer intended to put in the beer. It's tricky. So, competitions aren't something we put too terribly much stock in.
This past SCBG meeting (which, ironically enough was held Jan. 2, 2010 because of a big snow that hit the weekend it was to be held in December) we weren't holding our breathes. Decadence is a big beer. The name embodies it. We titled it as an "Imperial Bourbon Chocolate Stout." Since this was an "Imperial Anything" competition there were Imperial Pale Ales, Belgian Ales, Pilsners, Stouts, Porters and so on. Titles were required so the judges would know what to base their judging on - and each beer was judged by it's style, not against other beers. At least not till the final round, where the judges pick what they feel is the best beer.
But, like I said, we weren't holding our breathes. We were shocked to find that Decadence had been sent up to the final round, which was a large round due to many entries. When the winners were announced we were blown away to find out that we got 1st place. Our first time placing at all in a competition. A very proud moment. We were especially proud because Decadence is the first beer we really crafted together as a team. And, that particular batch was brewed on a good day, with friends over, good food, and, most importantly, the kids helping out. http://soulonebrewery.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html It was a great day. It is something that confirms to us that we each have our own part to contribute, that this is a family brewery ... even if right now it is a homebrewery.

But there is something that matters much more to us than a trophy, and always has. It is hearing people try our beers and tell us what they think. It is that "oh yea" expression on someone's face. We brew beers that WE like, that we hope YOU like. Competitions, contests, awards, trophies ... all those things are secondary. Nice if you win, a little bit of a bummer when you don't, but nonetheless, secondary.
Driving home that night we were both a little overwhelmed by the win. More overwhelmed by the praises of Decadence's quality and the "THAT'S a good beer!"

Thank you. Thank you all, even those of you who weren't at the meeting. Thank you for drinking our beer. Thank you for liking it. Thank you for asking for refills, and for the praise and smiles.


... and thanks for the trophy. ;)