Judging beer

I helped steward a beer judging session with the Red Earth Brewers home brewing club here in Oklahoma City. It was a lot of fun!

Christine made snacks, which was chips and salsa and these chicken fingers. I ate way too many of those! The beer bottles are numbered by style and nobody knows who made what. The colors of the stickers on top of the bottles had no meaning.

I had to photograph the food first of course.

Each style has a certain color, flavor, and mouthfeel. There were two judges per style. Our club is fairly small so we had to group some beers together that aren't normally grouped together.

This is the score sheet and I was responsible for making sure it was filled out and put together with the judges comments.

Everyone takes it very seriously and the pairs of judges discussed the scores to make sure that everything was in line and made sense. After about 9pm, I was tired and the judging was pretty much done. I think there might have been one more flight but I let the other stewards and judges handle that. I wouldn't mind learning to actually judge and apparently it is allowed in our club with out any form of certification. I would take it very seriously of course.

In other news, my beer is still fermenting. The yeast is still doing its thing. I hope it wraps up tomorrow. I wanted to move it this weekend. If not, I will save it for another day. In ankle news, the swelling is down but the injury is not healed. I have been resting it more, icing it at night, and nothing seems to work. Obviously, it's going to take some time. But there is a half marathon that I promised I would do. How will this work if the ankle is less than 100%? The $64,000 question, with no answer. Hmph.