National homebrew competition - registration open - ask your questions here!

Tube

The National Homebrew Club is organizing the first national homebrew competition, finals to be held at the Bull & Castle, Dublin, on the 2nd of March 2013. A high standard of judging and prizes will be on offer. More details, press release, etc., will follow. http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/

Mr Benevolent

Count me in. Lots of time to experiment.

Khannie

I might be interested in entering my pear cider since it is so delicious. Will there be a cider category?

Tube

Yes, there is a category for cider and perry.

Tube

Just an update on Cider and Perry. We are pleased to announce David Llewellyn will be judging this category.

Khannie

A proper foodie! He'll be a hard one to please.

BeerNut

Tube wrote: »

We are pleased to announce David Llewellyn will be judging this category.

Quite a coup! Nice one.

Khannie wrote: »

He'll be a hard one to please.

Well here's a way of getting a head start Should be just about ready in time for judging.

Khannie

BeerNut wrote: »

Well here's a way of getting a head start Should be just about ready in time for judging.

Think I might give this a lash alright. I have no access to a press and they're pricey enough. Would love to do up some proper cider. Had intended to this autumn but I am about 2 KM past busy and into "mental" territory.

Khannie

Turns out it's on the 20th so I can't make it. Here are the details of the cider making course in case anyone else is interested.....

Traditional natural cider is a wholesome tasty and healthy beverage. It is simple to make, and is an excellent way to ‘preserve’ apples and their goodness in a low-tech way, which can be enjoyed from Autumn right through the year, until the following autumn provides the new crop for the next vintage of cider. I will outline below the essentail details about attending the course, and if anybody has specific questions for me, you can contact me by phone or email.



Places are limited, and will only be secured on receipt of a €20 deposit, first come first served. If there is adequate demand, I may run an additional course a few weeks later. If for any reason the course has to be cancelled or postponed, deposits will be returned.



DATE: I have just set a date for the course, on Saturday 20th October 2012.



VENUE: Sonairte Ecology Centre in Julianstown/Laytown, 20 minutes drive north of the airport



TIME: 10:30am – 4:30pm. Participants should preferably be there by 10am, especially anyone who needs to pay their balance of the course fee, so that we can start work on time at 10:30. We will take a lunch break at around 1pm. The adjoining ‘Sunflower Café’ have a simple vegetarian lunch menu and they serve tea/coffee and cakes also. Have a look at www.sonairte.ie. It is a quaint location, with a beautiful old courtyard, gardens, and rustic eco-shop.



COST: €75. This includes 9 pints of fresh-pressed cider-apple juice to take home, which will ferment to drinkable cider within 2 weeks. Also included is an educational tasting session of up to 10 different ciders made in different styles.



COURSE CONTENT:

- types of apples suitable for cider-making

- equipment for home cider-making and where to source it

- principles of how juice ferments to cider

- step by step making of cider from apple pressing to bottling

- how to make sparkling cider

- what can go wrong, and how to avoid it

- what to expect and what not to expect with your home-made cider

- tasting cider: participants will be given a guided tasting of different styles of ciders

- practical hands-on demonstration of apple crushing and pressing

- how to handle, store, and preserve cider

- practical demonstration of home-scale bottling

- practical tasting and evaluating of apples for suitability for cider

- brief outline of apple juice and vinegar making

- the course is given in a relaxed informal style, and any questions from participants on other aspects are welcome and will be dealt with, time permitting



Each participant receives a 9 pint fermentation container of fresh-pressed apple juice to take home and experiment with. It can be simply enjoyed as apple juice, or it can be fermented to provide a natural cider within a couple of weeks.

Participants will have the opportunity to purchase additional cider-juice @ €12.50 per 9 pint (5 litre) container.

Participants will also have the opportunity to purchase andrew Lea’s highly recommended book ‘Craft Cider Making’ @ €12.50, (also available on Amazon for same price).



If you would like to join us on the course, please contact me as soon as possible to secure your booking. A deposit of €20 must be sent to the address below. Use a cheque (payable to David Llewellyn), bank draft or postal order (I don’t have a facility for payment by credit card). The balance can be payed on the morning of your arrival for the course. Exact directions to the venue will be posted later.

Lars

God!! For a minute I thought it was this guy:)
(LLewelyn Bowen)

Tube

Press Release issued today. You can read it here. Things are shaping up very nicely

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/press-release-national-brewing-championships-2013/

Tube

Title sponsor confirmed! Sponsorship levels so far have been very encouraging.

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/sayso-ie-confirmed-as-title-sponsor-of-brewing-championships-2013/

Will_D

An update to this thread:

There are just two months left to brew!

All entries are to be received by Feb 15th and the final is to be held in the Bull&Castle, Dublin on March 2nd.

There are major cash prizes and other great goodies to be won.

All types of homebrew are welcomed from the simple "Kit n kilo" all the way to multi-step decoction AG brews.

The categories are grouped along the BJCP style guidlines.

There are also categories for Cider & Perry

To aid with the logistics regional collections will be set up to get the bottles up to Dublin

For the rules and category specs please see:
http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/national-brewing-championships-rules/

For more chat about the competion see:
http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl

See you there

Mashtun

I presume bottles that are being dropped have to be labelled. Is there a template available for doing this or will this work some other way?

Will_D

There will be an on-line registration system that will allow you to enter, pay the modest entry fee and download the labels that you attatch to the bottles.

Full details and the on-line site should be available early January.

Will

Tube

Entry fees are €5 for your first beer/cider and €1 per entry after that. No limit to numbers.

The registration system is the one used by most BJCP sanctioned homebrew competitions across the world. It's installed and currently in test mode on a virtual server in Another9 who sponsor our hosting.

Khannie

Thinking about heading along to this with my pear cider that I made earlier in the year from eater pears. It's lovely stuff and I've a few bottles of it left in the attic.

Is anyone heading along to this? Would be good to put some faces to the (internet) names.

Tube

All entries must be dropped to various drop points around the country, rather than being brought into the Bull & Castle on the day. The window for this opens on the 15th of January and closes on the 15th of February. The list of drop points will be published as soon as we're finished compiling it.

People are of course welcome to attend on the day of the judging, but if you turn up with an entry in hand it might not be accepted!

And do please enter your pear cider! The prizes are really good!

Will_D

Tempus Fugit:

Lads:

We are getting very close to the deadlines. In order to help planning could those who are still a bit TBD please update their entries with the types of beers ( ie categories ) that they MAYBE entering?

Its not definitive on here (that is when 'ye pays 'yer money up front!!)

It just helps with resource allocation

on-line registration opens on Jan 15th

Deadline for entries is Feb 15th

For more information see http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/bre ... pionships/

Tube

Registration System is opening tomorrow, no time set as yet, but we're in good shape

The system we're using is BCOE&M, as recommended by the BJCP, and as used by UK National Homebrew Competition, among lots of others.

We've thoroughly localised it for Ireland and the UK, and JimmyM has fixed several bugs. We hope to supply the code back to the author and to the UK competition organisers.

Tube

Registration now open!

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/homebrew-competition-registration-now-open/

Khannie

Nice one. I'm hoping to have at least one and possibly two entries.

What are the prizes?

Tube

Khannie wrote: »

Nice one. I'm hoping to have at least one and possibly two entries.

What are the prizes?

To be fully confirmed yet, but every category winner gets around €200 worth of stuff.

Things like vouchers for homebrew shops, beer, Trouble Brewing commercialising a batch of the winning beer etc.

Khannie

Nice.

Khannie

Well, I checked and I have enough of my pear cider left (barely) to enter so it's game on. I may submit some of my apple and raspberry too.

Is anyone else entering?

Tube

Khannie wrote: »

Well, I checked and I have enough of my pear cider left (barely) to enter so it's game on. I may submit some of my apple and raspberry too.

Is anyone else entering?

Good stuff!

As Registrar I'm barred from entering...

Khannie

One less to compete with. :pac:

engrish?

I have absolutely no faith in my chances of winning but I am going to enter 5 batches of beer.

1) Christmas Ale
2) Sparkling Ale
3) Rauchbier
4) Sierra Nevada style clone
5) American Style IPA

Tube

engrish? wrote: »

I have absolutely no faith in my chances of winning but I am going to enter 5 batches of beer.

1) Christmas Ale
2) Sparkling Ale
3) Rauchbier
4) Sierra Nevada style clone
5) American Style IPA

You know I was the same at one stage, until I entered 5 beers in a competition and 2 of them won prizes!

What you think is good/bad is not necessarily what judges will think is good/bad.

I look forward to you entries, and thanks for your support.

Khannie

Riddle me this - Does presentation count? I bottled my pear cider a long time ago and in various bottles that still have their labels on. I will _definitely_ not have fancy labels on the bottles. The raspberry and apple (which I must say, with a pat on my back, is phenomenal stuff) is in plain glass bottles, but again there wont be any fancy labels.

Tube

Khannie wrote: »

Riddle me this - Does presentation count? I bottled my pear cider a long time ago and in various bottles that still have their labels on. I will _definitely_ not have fancy labels on the bottles. The raspberry and apple (which I must say, with a pat on my back, is phenomenal stuff) is in plain glass bottles, but again there wont be any fancy labels.

The bottle doesn't matter as you have to apply the competition labels to all bottles, and if that doesn't blot out your label I will be re-labelling all bottles before they go to the judges: I will have a very large label and will just use it to wallpaper over everything else.

The only way presentation matters really is if the beer/cider is supposed to be clear and and it isn't, or it's supposed to have a head and it doesn't etc.