My local homebrew club, the San Joaquin Worthogs, hosts a competition where members submit beers of predetermined styles every quarter, which are judged by National ranked BJCP judges, then the person with the most points by the end of the year wins Worthog of the Year (WotY). Now, I don’t enter many competitions, usually just those that help support my club, and even then, I don’t really take it all too seriously. It just so happened The Great Trub exBEERiment brew day coincided with the day I needed to brew for this competition, hence my choice to make a Cream Ale. Following the results of the exBEERiment, I though it would be cool to see how these highly respected judges, both of whom have been doing this shit for decades, rated the beer. Well, as luck would have it…
Truby took first place!! Not only that, but this is the best score I’ve received on a competition beer. I’m pretty shocked with these results for myriad reasons:
– Truby was fermented with a literal fuck-ton of trub, which tradition dictates is a bad idea.
– There were no hop additions during the boil, just FWH and flameout (w/ 15 min stand).
– The hops used, Australian Summer, are nowhere near traditional for the style.
– I fermented it with Nottingham, an inexpensive dry ale yeast.
These results and the judges comments, I believe, contribute to the notion that kettle trub making it into carboy is not only something not worthy of worry, but may actually benefit the finished beer.
This victory puts me in third place overall as far as WotY standings, with only one beer left to submit, a style I’ve score well with in past comps: Märzen. I just tapped a keg of my (m)Oktoberfest, it’s pretty damn good, I plan to bottle off a 6 pack and let them “bottle lager” until the submission date. Until then, cheers!
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6 thoughts on “Truby Competition Results :: Drum Roll Please…..”
Those guys are both national judges? Those scoresheets are very empty and poorly done. Both of these judges would totally fail the exam… I know it’s tough to fill out the sheet completely when you have 11 other beers in front of you, but that’s what the $6 entry fee is paying for….
No entry fee. Perhaps I should have clarified more clearly this is a free comp for club members only.
Perhaps it’s just that I am a green judge that hasn’t judged many competitions. Though, if I’m filling out a scoresheet I would rather do it all the way or not at all. Every scoresheet you fill out puts your reputation on the line.
All that aside, congrats on the 41! That is a really great score! I first heard about more trub = good on Basic Brewing Radio a year ago and have been glad to have that confirmed. I’ve been putting as much trub as needed into my fermenter to make sure I hit volume, glad that seems to only help the beer.
Having absolutely no interest in becoming a judge (or really even competing regularly), my perspective is definitely biased as well. No biggie. These guys are well respected in our brewing community provide very thorough feedback on the larger (paid) competitions they judge for. Cheers!
So are you going to start leaving all your trub in your beers now? Maybe adjusting hop levels since you said at one point the trubby beer ended up having a bit more hop flavour?
I don’t think I’ll invest too much energy in coaxing the kettle trub into the fermentor, but I’m certainly not going to worry about letting the that shit settle out before racking to carboys. What I’ve gleaned from this and similar experiences is that truby fermentations tend to benefit the finished beer.