Competitions

My first competition was kind of unintentional.  I was at the LHBS picking up some stuff and the owner mentioned a local lagers only competition coming up soon.  At first I wasn’t interested at all, but he talked me into it.  I’m not really a big lager fan, but happened to have an IPL on tap.  I think February of 2022 I registered for my first competition.  I filled two bottles to enter and tried to fill a third when the keg blew.  My entries were literally the bottom of the keg and by the time it came to judging, it was a four month old IPL.  My expectations were low, very low.  But to my surprise, the feedback was actually pretty decent.  Next competition, I had a BBA Imperial Stout on tap that everyone seemed to like, so I bottled some up and shipped it to Missouri.  This was the second competition I entered, getting gold, scoring 47.  Wow, no way!  This beer was actually amazing though and was a collaboration with two other home brewers.  We’ve entered it into 5 different competitions, it’s got 3 golds and a silver.  Two of the gold entries were mine.  Another local competition, I entered a Belgian Dubbel just looking for feedback, I wasn’t really too impressed by it.  It won bronze.  Major surprise.  Then I shipped my Orange Creamsicle Milkshake IPA to a competition in Arizona where it won gold.  I thought it was pretty good, but not gold worthy.  Still super stoked about it though.  So yeah, within my first year of entering competitions, I’ve won 4 medals.  I pretty much send everything now, some just for feedback, some with the hopes that it will do well.  January 2023 I decided to become an AHA member, so now I can play in the big leagues.