My Tripel
Wow almost 4 1/2 years since my last post. I think I obsess too much about making each post the perfect post and as a result end up not posting at all.
So for the first time I entered one of my beers into a home brewing competition. I am a member of a Vancouver home brewing club called Vanbrewers and their annual competition happens each year in early May. This being my 2nd year as a member I decided to enter my latest beer, a Belgian Tripel, into the competition, and figured that even if I didn't win I would at least get some constructive feedback on how to improve my brew . However upon personally tasting and assessing the beer I entered I don't believe that I will win anything and in fact I believe the beer will score very low. While I don't think that the beer tastes bad it just doesn't have a number of things that a Tripel should have, and in the way beer competitions are scored that is a bad thing. In competitions you enter your beers into a particular style category, and your beer is judged on how well it represents that style. I don't believe that my Tripel represents what a Tripel should be. In retrospect the notion to brew a Belgian Trappist ale was rather spur of the moment, not well researched, and most likely not something that I should have entered into my local competition.
Now I am really unhappy. I just bottled my recently brewed Belgian Wit, and during the bottling I tried a bit to see how it tasted, and discovered that it is way over spiced. I put some crushed coriander and bitter orange peel into my wort with about 5 min left in the boil. I also added more coriander and bitter orange peel into the secondary fermenter in order to increase the intensity of the spices...what I did not anticipate was how much more intense the flavour of coriander would be. I wanted a little more than just a hint of the spice, and what I ended up with is a beer that may in the end be undrinkable. I'm going to try it in a week or two to see if it has improved in any way, and if it hasn't this may be the first time that I have dumped an entire 5 gal batch of beer down the drain. I also intended entering the Wit into a competition but will not likely do that now due to how it turned out.
So for the first time I entered one of my beers into a home brewing competition. I am a member of a Vancouver home brewing club called Vanbrewers and their annual competition happens each year in early May. This being my 2nd year as a member I decided to enter my latest beer, a Belgian Tripel, into the competition, and figured that even if I didn't win I would at least get some constructive feedback on how to improve my brew . However upon personally tasting and assessing the beer I entered I don't believe that I will win anything and in fact I believe the beer will score very low. While I don't think that the beer tastes bad it just doesn't have a number of things that a Tripel should have, and in the way beer competitions are scored that is a bad thing. In competitions you enter your beers into a particular style category, and your beer is judged on how well it represents that style. I don't believe that my Tripel represents what a Tripel should be. In retrospect the notion to brew a Belgian Trappist ale was rather spur of the moment, not well researched, and most likely not something that I should have entered into my local competition.
Now I am really unhappy. I just bottled my recently brewed Belgian Wit, and during the bottling I tried a bit to see how it tasted, and discovered that it is way over spiced. I put some crushed coriander and bitter orange peel into my wort with about 5 min left in the boil. I also added more coriander and bitter orange peel into the secondary fermenter in order to increase the intensity of the spices...what I did not anticipate was how much more intense the flavour of coriander would be. I wanted a little more than just a hint of the spice, and what I ended up with is a beer that may in the end be undrinkable. I'm going to try it in a week or two to see if it has improved in any way, and if it hasn't this may be the first time that I have dumped an entire 5 gal batch of beer down the drain. I also intended entering the Wit into a competition but will not likely do that now due to how it turned out.
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