1. 02 October 2010 · 02:23 AM ·

    It Came From The Cellar Homebrew Competition

    Louisville Craft Beer Week has been upon us and damn am I tired.  I’d like to have been able to particpate more in all of the wonderful festivities, but sadly with school and everything else, I’ve been limited.  

    The one event that I was able to make and help out with, was the It Came From the Cellar competition.  Every home brewer out there has a beer or two that they have been aging.  Perhaps it was one of those concoctions that turned out wrong, so you sent it away in hopes that it would change its dreadfully ways.  Or maybe it was simply a style that needed time to grow into a fabulous beer.  Either way a home brewer can find something to put in this particular competition that they wouldn’t normally put in any other one.  

    The event itself was hosted at the BBC Taproom, and sponsored in part by My Old Kentucky Homebrew and some of the lovely folks from LAGERS.  I was woken up early by Paul asking me to run some last minute errands to get things ready, stickers, labels, paper and the like.  I lugged the cumbersome box of entries, as well as snacks, over to the BBC Taproom around 6 and haphazardly placed it all into the awesome walk in freezer in the brewery.  The event did not officially start until 7:30pm, so Rob poured me a Hell for Certain as I sat in the corner reading statistics about youth delinquency in Chicago.

    7:30 came and it was time for me to pour the beers and pass them out to all of our lovely judges.  25 beers in total, divided into three categories.  As lame as it sounds, there were Light, Dark, and Specialty Beers.  We all know beer is way more complex then that, but for this event which was meant to be more fun then serious, it worked out well enough.  

    Each round was totaled up and the winners of each were re poured and deliberated about in full.  Its strange, in such a small and close knit community, the judges could all quickly figure out who made each beer, but did their best to not say a single thing about it making it as objective as possible.  After the winner was chosen, then the names came out and laughter ensued as to their unique tell tale styles.   The overall winner will be announced at Volksfest, the last day of Louisville Craft Beer Week, so I really shouldn’t tell you but…no I won’t do it.  You’ll just have to attend Volksfest to find out for yourself. 

    I learned a few things today.  How to be a better steward at beer events was one.  More importantly was how much I love the beer community.  The more I am around the LAGERS and other brewers, I find that everyone is very loving about beer and each other.  Not a single bad word was ever spoken about anyones beers, only simple loving critiques.  Despite whatever drama these people may have personally, it is always pushed to the side when it comes to beer.