The Year Thus Far in One Rambling Paragraph

We've been extremely busy this year. And with the creation of a new homebrew club, The Grain Trust, seems like there is always something hectic going on. Some interesting beers have been brewed. A cotton candy cream ale, a toasted coconut porter, American oaked bourbon RIS, French oaked bourbon RIS, and citra dry hopped Imperial IPA to name a few. And we've been fortunate to score well at the National Homebrew Competition. We received a score of 44 for our Baltic Porter for example. Even better, we won second and third place awards at the recent CA State Fair for the 2009 Spiced Sour Cherry Dubbel and Pumpkin Spiced Barleywine (respectively). We've maxed out keg and fermenter capacity so no brewing in the near future. A saison and black rye IPA will eventually be the next two beers brewed... In the meantime, our attention is focused squarely on the homebrew club. Check it out.

Cheers.

2009 Achievements

Finding the time to update has been difficult as of late. And there's so much to talk about. Homebrew clubs. RRRIS. Upcoming brews. Unfortunately these topics will have to wait.

In the meantime, we're pleased to announce the Raz's Fine Ales 2009 Achievements!

Doug King Memorial Competition - 3rd place (specialty) for Todd's RIS w/ coffee.

Quaff America's Finest City Homebrew Competition - 3rd place for cream ale.

World Cup of Beer - 2nd place for Sourwood Honey Mead (dry).

Sam Adams LongShot Competition - 1st place (Western Region) for traditional bock.

CA State Fair Homebrew Competition - 1st and two 2nd places for RIS, old ale, and cream ale respectively.

MoreBeer Forum Competition - Best of Show for RIS.

And while we didn't place, I'm very proud of the fact that in the first (regional) round of the National Homebrew Competition, three of our beers scored the highest in the categories that they were entered into. The old ale, RIS, and cream ale scored 44, 43 and 40.5 respectively.

Hopefully we will continue to do well in 2010!