Had one of my DIPAs last night and the hop aroma is almost completely gone. I'm actually amazed at how fast it went, I thought I might be getting a cold or something. I'll have to time my next one to be at prime hoppiness for competition.
This is interesting. I've been thinking about developing a more deliberate approach to preparing for competitions. There are many, many beers that improve with age (to a point), whilst others (like IPAs and heffeweissen) that peak much sooner.
Too often, if I have 22Lt in my FV this really equates to a full corny of clean beer - and I don't bottle any.
I think that I need to have the discipline of bottling 10-15 of every brew. Over time this should mean that I always have available beers to easily offer, and across a range of styles.
Dunno if it might be worth having a thread on competition approaches? split off from here? What do you think @Chippy_Tea
MArtin