Featured Contributors

The All Grain Brewer

So why should you listen to or trust what the All Grain Brewer is saying? What are his credentials? What is his experience?

I’ve been brewing beer since 1993. I’ve been brewing first-rate, award-winning beer since 2002, which is when I switched from partial mash extract brewing to all grain brewing. Although I have not kept a log of the number of batches that I have made, I would say that I am in the 75 batch area. Additionally I’ve been a certified beer judge through the BJCP judging program since 2007.

Brewing

I started brewing in the Southwestern US, and became a member of a really high quality homebrew club. Joining this club took my skills from more or less a novice to the All Grain Brewer that I am today. Since then I have now located to the Midwestern US, where I’m an active member of my local home brew club, yet again. Looking back a couple of years I was all into brewing hoppy IPAs, however I have now moved to lots of the Belgian style beers including sours. I brew with real simple equipment: one 36 quart stainless steel brew pot, one hot liquor pot, and one 10 cooler for my mash / sparge tun. I let gravity and my muscles do the rest. I always ferment in glass carboys, and I generally keg my beers. I took a quick look around my brewery, and I count about 45 medals and ribbons from various competitions all since 2005, which is when I started competing with my homebrew. I have won two AHA National Homebrew Medals. One was gold and the other was silver. I was a silver medalist in the Master’s Championship of Amateur Brewing competition in 2010.

Judging

One excellent way to increase your home brewing skills is to better understand the different beer styles that you are trying to brew. Did you know there are 23 different beer categories with many different subcategories in each of them? I have never even brewed beer in seven of the categories. Then there are another three categories for mead, of which I have brewed all three, and two categories for cider and perry. Thus there is a lot to learn about beer. To become a judge did take time and effort. It was a grueling 10 week course on Saturday from 9 am until noon where we talked about beer, and judging, and drank beer for correct interpretation – hard days work. Then came the three hour essay test with three beer tastings thrown in as well. While I’ve judged in countless competitions, the more important ones that I have judged in are four AHA (American Homebrewers Association) regional competitions, and one AHA National competition.

Goal

My goal of this blog is to inform the reader how I went from a home brewer with problematic beers to beers that now win awards on a common basis.