E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition 2009

There were 54 entries for this year's competition. Here is a picture of all the entries after they were checked in. The colored dots indicate the judging round (blue-first, red-second and yellow-Best of Show). Of course, what you can't see at this scale are the random numbers assigned each of the entries which are written on the dots.

Pictures of the Judging:

After a five year hiatus Nick Campiglia (right) is once again a judge at the E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition. Such has been the ravages of retirement to the extent that initially I did not even recognize him. Welcome back Nick!
Above: Shown here is judging of the American Ale mini-Best of Show (BOS). Initially the beers of the American Ale category were divided up and judges by two groups of judges. The best three beers from each group then advanced to the mini-BOS. The beers are not scored again but rather the sampled and compared in an effort to determine which most closely fit the style guidelines. Eventually after much discussion and resampling the judges reach a consensus as to which beers should be designated as being 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the American Ale category.
Above: Shown here is the Best of Show judging. So judging is reserved for the most qualified judges.

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The Winners of the 2009 E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition:

Best of Show:

English Pale Ale:

American Ale:

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Porter:

Stout:

The Medals:

	Medals for the E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition: Best of Show - Gold colored medal with a blue and yellow ribbon First Place - Gold colored medal Second Place - Silver colored medal Third Place - Copper colored medal The First, Second and Third Place medals all have dark blue ribbons.
	A more detailed view of a Gold Medal.
The customized medals were produced by the Hermann Werks (http://www.thewerks.net/awards1.html) for a very reasonable cost.

The Battered Bottle Cap Award:

This year's winner of the coveted Battered Bottle Cap Award goes to Eric Himburg's Oatmeal Stout called Colon Blow. We love that Saturday Night Live "commercial". I believe I might be a bit hesitant to sample that particular beer though. It kind of makes you wonder what sort of special ingredients it contains. However, it may explain the strange noises coming out of the bathroom during the competition. Just kidding!

A package from Ron Wright, Chuck Hansen, Paul Simms and Dennis Smith made us chuckle. They included a rubber chicken Mardi Gras necklace with their entries. This is not the first time the Rubber Chicken Mo-Jo was called upon to protect the entries in the E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition but it is the first time since 2007.

The Club Spirit Award: The Club Spirit Award is given to members of homebrew clubs who show their club spirit by entering the E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition. Three or more separate entrants specifying their respective homebrew club will receive this prestigious award. Individuals with five or more entries and, therefore, have plenty of club spirit all by themselves will also receive the Club Spirit Award. Although eight homebrew clubs were represented in this year's competition only two of them met the above criteria. Entrants from the Great Northern Brewers Club and the L.A. Lagers homebrew club will be the only ones to receive this beautiful trophy. Thank you for the support Great Northern Brewers and L.A. Lagers!! The Spirit Award consists of an expertly crafted trophy made of genuine gold colored plastic and is nearly 13 centimeters tall.

Globetrotter Award: The winner of the 2009 Globetrotter Award is Mark Henry of Land-o-Lakes, Florida. The American Brown Ale that he and Mark Wiseman brewed traveled a total of 3,749 miles (6,034 km) as the raven flies (we don't have crows here) from Land-o-Lakes, Florida to Fox, Alaska. The next furthest entries came from Mobile, Alabama which is 3,439 miles/5,534 km away. The distances were determined using the distance calculator at http://www.indo.com/distance. Actually, in this particular case the distance calculator could not find Land-o-Lakes, Florida so I had to used the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) at http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic to determine the latitude and longitude of Land-o-Lakes and then use the standard distance calculator.

The Order of the Bronze Hyphen:

New this year is the Order of the Bronze Hyphen. Hyphen? You ask! Yes, hyphen as in the one which appears in the phrase anal-retentive. This award is given to honor those wonderful entrants who have shown a great attention to detail and have completely filled out all the paperwork with a remarkable degree of legibility. These entrants have also taken measures to prevent and contain breakages without being excessive. The Order of the Bronze Hyphen is awarded to those who present their entries in such a way as to facilitate their speedy and accurate registration, and for which the Registrar is most humbly grateful.

The first inductees into this prestigious order are Eric Himburg and the following L.A. Lagers: Paul Simms, Ron Wright, Dennis Smith and Chuck Hansen. The latter group had a bottle break in transit (despite their wise use of "The Rubber Chicken Mo-Jo") but the mess was contained and their paperwork was intact because their bottles and paper work were in ziplocks and Seal-a-Meal type bags.

Eric Himburg and the Alabama group truly know that there is indeed a hyphen in anal-retentive and their extra attention to detail have made registration of their entries a pleasure. Thank you Most Kindly!

Honorable mentions in this regard also go to Medo Fernandez and Flash Lubitish-White.

Keep up the good work!

Once again we have bottles of Homebrew Hot Sauce as prizes. The bottles of hot sauces with the custom labels were purchased from Mo Hotta Mo Betta (http://www.mohotta.com). We've been rotating in three different hot sauces for this competition. This year's flavor is Cayenne Garlic. This is Chérie's favorite of the three hot sauces we have for the competition. We hope you like it as much as we do.

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We received a total of 54 entries from 13 states. A total of 44% of the entries came from outside of Alaska. The number of entries by state are summarized below:

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We received a total of 54 entries in the 2009 E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition. The number of entries in the judged categories are as follows: Pilsner - 5, English Pale Ale - 7, American Ale - 12, Porter - 4, Stout - 10, India Pale Ale - 6, and Fruit and Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer - 10. Below is a more detailed break down of the number of entries we received of the various beer styles.

Beer Style	No. of Entries
Pilsner	5
German Pilsner	2
Bohemian Pilsner	1
Classic American Pilsner	2
English Pale Ale	7
Standard/Ordinary Bitter	4
Special/Best/Premium Bitter	1
Extra Special/Strong Bitter	2
American Ale	12
American Pale Ale	4
American Amber Ale	3
American Brown Ale	5
Porter	4
Brown Porter	1
Robust Porter	3
Baltic Porter	0
Stout	10
Dry Stout	2
Sweet Stout	2
Oatmeal Stout	3
Foreign Extra Stout	0
American Stout	1
Russian Imperial Stout	2
India Pale Ale (IPA)	6
English IPA	0
American IPA	4
Imperial IPA	2
Fruit/Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer	10
Fruit Beer	6
Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer	4

The Styles for the 2010 E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition will be:

European Amber Lager (3A. Vienna Lager and 3B. Oktoberfest/Märzen)

English Pale Ale (8A. Standard/Ordinary Bitter; 8B. Special/Best/Premium Bitter and 8C. Extra Special/Strong Bitter)

American Ale (10A. American Pale Ale; 10B. American Amber Ale and 10C. American Brown Ale)

Porter (12A. Brown Porter; 12B. Robust Porter and 12C. Baltic Porter)

Stout (13A. Dry Stout; 13B. Sweet Stout; 13C. Oatmeal Stout; 13D. Foreign Extra Stout; 13E. American Stout; and 13F. Russian Imperial Stout)

India Pale Ale (14A. English IPA; 14B. American IPA and 14C. Imperial IPA)

Fruit/Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer (20. Fruit Beer and 21A. Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer)

We'd like to thank the Josh and other good folks at Silver Gulch for all the help.

Not only have they received the entries and allowed us to use their nice walk-in cooler but they also have provided us with a place to hold the competition AND helped us fill our prize cache!!

You folks are the best!!!

We especially would like to thank Glenn Brady for all the help this year and previous years!!!

Your support throughout the years has helped make the E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition a success!!!

Thank You, Glenn!!!

 

We also like to thank the Alaskan Brewing and Bottling Company for their support!

Not only did they donate prizes to the competition but they also provided us with two excellent beer judges to help out with the judging.

Thank you Very much for the help!

Thank you Geoff and Marcy Larson!!!

Prizes for the 2009 E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition were donated by the following organizations and businesses:

Alaskan Brewing and Bottling Company	Kenai River Brewing Company
Allagash Brewing Company	Kodiak Island Brewing Company
American Homebrewers Association	Krogh's Restaurant and Brew Pub
Arctic Brewing Supply	Maui Brewing Company
Belhaven Brewery	Mendocino Brewing Company
Big Sky Brewing Company	Merchand du Vin
Brewers Roundtable	Midnight Sun Brewing Company
Briess Malt & Ingredients Company	Moose's Tooth Brewing Company
Brooklyn Brewery	Mustang Brewing Company
Buckbean Brewing Company	Niko's Homebrew Supplies
Daniel Thwaites Brewery	Odell Brewing Company
Deschutes Brewery	Oggi's Pizza and Brewing Company/Left Coast Brewing Company
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery	Pete's Place/Choco Beer Company
DRAFT Magazine	Pike Brewing Company
Eel River Brewing Company	Port Brewing Company
Firehouse Brewing Company	R.J. Rockers Brewing Company
Flying Dog Brewery	Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery
Founders Brewing Company	Rogue Ales
Fuller, Smith & Turner, PLC	Siebel Institute of Technology
Gold Hill Imported Beers & Fine Wines	Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Great Divide Brewing Company	Silver Gulch Brewing and Bottling Company
Gritty McDuff's Portland Pub and Brewery	Skagway Brewing Company
Harpoon Brewery	Stoudt's Brewing Company
Highland Brewing Company	Summit Brewing Company
Hops Direct/Puterbaugh Farms	Tallgrass Brewing Company
HopUnion	Trout River Brewing Company
III Dachshunds Beer Company	Walnut Brewery
Il Vicino Wood Oven Pizza & Brewery	White Labs
Kassik's Kenai Brew Stop

 

We would very much like to thank to all of the organizations and businesses listed above for their support of the 2009 E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition!!! Their support has made this competition a success!

We would also like to thank our judges! You folks are great! Thank You!!!

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Finally I would like to thank my loving wife, Chérie!

Your support and organizational skills have made this competition a success!!

As the competition time approaches my stress levels go up exponentially and I am not always the best person to be around.

You keep me grounded and put things in perspective.

I am a very lucky man to have you as my wife!!

Thank you for everything!!

Thank you, Sweetie!!!

 

Left: This is a picture of the prize packages before we took them to the Post Office to mail them off. Right: Here is a more detailed view of one of the packages. Sausages? Chérie came across sausage packing tape at Archie McPhee and thought it would be perfect for packing our prize packages. Afterall what goes better with beer than sausages? Unfortunately, we ran out of the tape so we were not able to use it on all of the packages. Bummer.... At any rate, you can get your own sausage tape at: http://www.archiemcphee.com/items/11527.html.

 

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