More competition questions...

Sacrifice a couple bottles and do both. I just read a post on here the other day about Trinity winning Silver in a Wood Aged comp in the Brett category with a Lacto IPA that contained no Brett at all. Their is now an investigation into the judging as all the judges of that category had stated that they were well suited to judge beers containing Brett... Worst case scenario you lose 6 bottles of beer and get good feedback. Best case scenario you lose 6 bottles of award winning beer and get a couple shiny medals...

 

They did multiple versions and accidentally sent the Lacto only Swingline as the Brett Swingline and it was judged as a Brett beer and scored Silver. Super embarrassing for all involved.

 

A saison is defined almost exclusively by the yeast character. A saison yeast strain makes a Saison. So Brett will be outside of this description. I love "Brett Saisons" and have brewed my share. In competition, the common feedback theme is "this is an awesome beer, but doesn't have the classic Saison yeast character". Score, upper 20s - low 30s. They do much better as specialty Belgians.

 

Lot's of competitions allow you to enter the same beer in different categories. I entered a saison that was bottled with Brett in saison and belgian specialty. Scored a 31 avg in saison and 41 avg in belgian specialty.

 

When in doubt enter twice. If the competition doesn't allow you to enter twice, mail me some of your beer. I'll drink a few and I'll enter it under a second category for you.

 

When u guys enter a competition do u bottle condition or rip off some bottles from a keg and cap them?

 

Both but the only things I bottle condition these days are sours our 2 gallon trial batches. From the keg I use a beer gun. Going from the keg is the only way to submit something like an IPA since the freshness is so important.

 

“I have never had freshness be an issue with bottle conditioned IPAs. in fact most of them hit their stride weeks after they have carbed up.”

That has been my consistent experience as well.

Cheers!