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Monterey Autumn Brewer's Comp and Fest: A Beer Charity to benefit Wounded Warriors

One of my recent beer goals was to become a Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), beer judge. While there are many paths to take in earning this certification, I believe some of the best opportunities for learning are through teaching. This interest in teaching others about the BJCP and beer judging in general lead me to want helping or organizing a sanctioned competition. With the help of a friend of mine, Marc, who had been a longtime homebrewer also in the Coast Guard, we thought the Monterey area could use the excitement of a major homebrew event like a competition. Along with the Bottoms Up homebrew shop owner, Duane, the team set out to create something that would be great for both homebrewers and the community-at-large.


Through several weeknight planning sessions and brewdays we had settled on the idea of a BJCP sanctioned homebrew competition and a homebrew festival to top it off and announce the winners. The festival would have to be a non-profit affair because of alcohol public serving laws; so we thought of creative solutions to this requirement. Charity seemed a natural fit to help the community. The proximity of Veteran's Day made the choice of charity fairly easy; Wounded Warriors is the benefactor of the festival which will take place next Saturday!

On a personal note, I also recently received my BJCP Tasting exam scores and have become a Recognized Certified Beer Judge!

This post is dedicated to all the volunteers for these great events and more importantly every American Veteran out there. Happy Veterans' Day!

Blast from the Past! Zekimus IPA (Original Extract Recipe_Feb09)

 

At the request of Zekimus himself, I dug through the archives and found the original recipe. By my current standards it's a bit crude as far as documentation but for anyone who wants to try it, you've got the gist. I used to steep for about a half hour around 150-160F. Hops were combined and slowly added for last 15 min. Yeast was English 002 as well.

Check out Zekimus' earlier post about this beer, it's fairly legendary and continues to inspire many of my all-grain IPAs.

Update: Just passed my Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) Entrance Exam last night...200questions in 60 min...it was not easy! I'll keep you posted after the upcoming tasting exam in June.

Cheers!