Quaff 2009 America's Finest City Homebrew Competition

Raz's Fine Ales managed to take third place in the Light Hybrid Beer category with its Cream Ale. It's very exciting given the caliber of brewers entering this difficult competition.

I had high hopes for the Russian Imperial Stout entered as well (that didn't place). In looking at the numbers, there were 37 entries into the Stout category with 13 of those in the Imperial Stout subcategory. The average score of the top three was 41! If I'm not mistaken, the highest score Raz's Fine Ales has received on any entry in any competition has been 42 for the Old Ale on a few occassions (including the Best of Show at the CA State Homebrew Competition). Hopefully the RIS still scored well. I'd totally be happy with mid-30s or up. And maybe the RIS will improve with age as it was brewed a short time ago in mid-November...But even if it doesn't, I still love it.

Quaff 2009 America's Finest City Homebrew Competition Results

Good stuff!

*edit 02/28/09* Just received my scoresheets and medal in the mail. According to what was in the package, my cream ale scored 41.5 and the ribbon was blue. In addition, my old ale scored 40.5. According to the online results, the third place for the strong ale category scored a 39. I've emailed the organizer to get some clarification on whether or not I've received the medal and scoresheets belonging to someone else or to verify if I really placed first and third in two different categories. The RIS scored in the low 30s and I'm somewhat disappointed.

*edit 03/02/09* The short version, according to the organizer, is that medals don't follow scoring. They'll have a group (or groups) of judges initially go through and score entries. Then they'll take the top scorers (don't know how many) and give them to another set of judges and essentially ask them to pick the beer that "they like best" without any regard to scores. So I had the highest scoring beer in the light hybrid category but finished third and I had the third highest score in the strong ale category and didn't place. Bummer. And they apparently made all ribbons blue...Ah well. Hope to do better next year!