After fermenting with an American Ale strain (Safale US-05) and racked to secondary I realized the heat wasn't where I wanted it to be so I created a red chili pepper tincture in vodka to boost the heat. The beer was dry hopped with two ounces of Horizon hops and keg'd. At which point I added the chili pepper tincture adding the heat to this hoppy red ale. After force carbonating I used a blichmann beer gun to bottle.
You can listen to the tasting of the championship round here, but long story short, I won! The Championship round had some really excellent beers, especially Jim Lavin with a chocolatey chili pepper ale and Jonathan Moxey with a delicious Red Chili IPA. After winning all I could say was "my jaw is dropped". It felt great to be recognized by my peers to have brewed the best beer that day. Looking forward to defending my title in the Championship Round of Batch #2.
8/28/11 Update: With the prize winning money from winning batch #1 of Iron Brewer I built a five tap home brew draft setup. Nice to be done with cobra party taps at home and pour a pint from a stainless steel faucet. There were a few bottles leftover of this batch so I decided to enter this beer into the Delaware State Fair Home Brew Competition. There was a little age on the batch (5 months) but I thought why not, it fits into category 21a Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer.
Judging
Aroma
#1- Fresh herbal American hop nose. Pepper is a secondary aroma. Malt as well in the background with some caramel malt to support.
#2- Great classic amber ale aroma with hints of pepper hanging out.
Appearace
#1- Dark reddish-amber color. Creamy off white head with good retention.
#2- Color is deep amber. Great head retention.
Flavor
#1- Malt up front followed by hops and a bit of chili pepper at the finish. Some berry like fruity esters add a layer of complexity. Balance swings from malt to pepper spicy to hoppy.
#2- Sweet malt up front that fades as you wait for the slow creep of heat.
Mouthfeel
#1- Medium body and carbonation. Carbonation adds fullness to mouthfeel. No alcohol warmth, but capsaicin warms the finish. Some creaminess. No astringency
#2- Carbonation is great. Hot on the finish.
Overall Impression

#2- I like the blend of malt and chili peppers. I just can't help but wish it had more hop character.
#1- Grand Master III 36/50
#2- Professional Brewer 37/50
Overall 37/50---Very Good (30-37)
First place in category winning Best in Style
Congrats! Your beer was world class! I was really impressed with all the beer from all the rounds. Everyone took this competition seriously and brew some insanely unique beers. Looking forward to trying your Batch 2 Championship round beer in 6months or so.
ReplyDeleteI think batch2 will be even more challenging as the ingredients get a bit more... interesting in a single beer. The first round is Cardamon, White Wheat, and Liberty Hops. I'm going to attempt a beer for each round as well.
BTW, Enjoy your new homedraft set up! :)
Congrats! That sounds like a kickass competition. I'm going to have to keep my eye on that one for the interesting recipes that get published.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff. Perlicks on the kegerator at the Federal?
ReplyDeleteCongrats!!
ReplyDelete