The art of good home brew
While it would be fair to say that I’ve tasted more than my fair share of dodgy home brews over the years, I’d also be quick to point out that some of the best beers that have ever passed my lips have been created in someone’s garage.
Having judged many home brew competitions, locally and nationally, I’m convinced there are two types of people who brew at home; those who wish to make a sweetish, malt-derived alcoholic beverage as cheaply as possible, and those who revel in the art and science of the brewing process and whose main objective is to create something better, or in a different style, than what’s commercially available. Thankfully, it’s that second group of home brewers who tend to enter their beers into the National Homebrew Competition.
Run annually by New Zealand’s beer consumer group, the Society of Beer Advocates (Soba), this year’s NHC was judged in Auckland on Saturday November 5. This year’s contest, the 10th, attracted 711 entries – up 172, representing an impressive 32 per cent increase on last year.
To assess such a large number of beers in under eight hours, the judging panel was divided into 13 teams, each working simultaneously at separate tables. With respected commercial brewers such as David Nicholls (of Moa Brewing), Kelly Ryan (Fork Brewing), Soren Eriksen (8 Wired Brewing), Sam Williamson (Sawmill Brewery), Ben Middlemiss (Ben Middlemiss Brewing), Jason Bathgate (Mcleod’s Brewing), and Kieran Haslettmoore (North End Brewing) in charge of the tables, judging BEER proceeded at the necessary pace.
To help grow New Zealand’s pool of beer judging talent, each table had a trainee judge as well as two experienced judges. Each table also has a steward, whose job is to deliver the beers, compile the judges’ notes then despatch the score sheets for processing.
It is at this point that Soba’s system varies from every other beer competition with which I’ve been involved. For the NHC, Soba employs computer software to immediately process the score sheets and stream the results live over the internet. Created by Soba member Phil Murray, this purpose-designed software processes a scanned image of each score sheet within minutes of a beer being judged, before publicly tweeting all medal-winning beers so everyone who’s following the competition online can see who’s winning the medals.
This year’s entries were judged against the current Beer Judge Certification Program style guidelines, which classify beers according to 34 beer style categories. Each beer is judged out of a possible 50 points. Entries scoring 30 to 37 points receive a bronze medal and those scoring 38 to 44 a silver. The coveted gold medals go to world-class beers achieving a score of 45 to 50.
This year, the judges awarded 182 medals, comprising 16 golds, 69 silvers, and 97 bronzes.
This year’s champion beer award went to a perennial medalwinning brewer, Dunedin’s Jamie Mcquillan, whose Berliner Weiss with Brettanomyces and Greengage Plums scored a near perfect 49 points. Several of Jamie’s other beers also won medals, and contributed to him winning the competition’s other major award, Champion Brewer. It is the first time in the competition’s history that one brewer has collected both top prizes.
Other regular NHC medallists include Paul Fraser, whose rauchbock (smoked bock) took this year’s Champion Lager award, and Brett Houliston, whose heady (10.3 per cent) Tonka bean-spiced imperial stout won him the Champion Ale award.
With the NHC the largest and most-respected home-brewing competition in New Zealand, Soba president Maree Shaw noted the growth in entries reflects the growing interest in quality beer. ‘‘Soba itself turns 10 this year, and the constantly growing fascination with good beer all over New Zealand is exciting to be a part of. It’s also very pleasing that both top prizes in our 10th National Homebrew Competition have been taken out by one talented brewer.’’
Meanwhile, Jamie Mcquillan’s double award has earned him the opportunity to help brew commercial batches of two of his winning brews – one at Hallertau Brewery in northwest Auckland, and another at Brewaucracy Brewing in Hamilton. Congratulations, Jamie. I hope I get the chance to try them. Cheers!
Full results of the 2016 SOBA NHC are posted online at https:/ /nhc.soba.org.nz/results/2016