The Spring Thing competition, judges comments.

[dennisking]

Interested to here the judges assessment of the beers at the Spring Thing. By Sharing any faults listed other people may be able to help ironing out any faults. I only entered 1 beer in the bitter to 1040 class. Although reasonable pleased with a mark of 45/60 it was noted the beer had a musty taste. The beer was bottled from a polypin a week before and I agree after sampling some it did have a musty taste that was not there when drank draught, any ideas why.
Be good to here what others thought of the judges comments.

 

[unclepumble]

MUSTY, IS PROBABLY SLIGHT OXIDATION WHEN IT WAS BOTTLED.

A Fault I have suffered from a lot, I don't like bottling, I have fecked up plenty of great beers by doing so, :? :cry:


UP

 

[dennisking]

MUSTY, IS PROBABLY SLIGHT OXIDATION WHEN IT WAS BOTTLED.

A Fault I have suffered from a lot, I don't like bottling, I have fecked up plenty of great beers by doing so, :? :cry:


UP

I was thinking on the same lines. Never had any musty taste with any draught beers. I also hate bottling a real pain in the ****.

 

[Dunfie]

I think it was me that picked that up with Bill. I was stewarding with Bill and we definitely had a couple with a slight mustiness. It certainly points to a slight oxidation similar to the cardboard aroma you can get sometimes.

It was mentioned before and I am trying to work out if it would be practical next year. It would be good if we could "highlight" the beers that the judges have detected faults in so that they could be used to educate everyone on what the faults actually smell and taste like. I know that in the light bitter class we had oxidation, astringency, dms etc. If we could anonymise the bottles but put them on a separate table it could be an excellent chance to learn. :hmm:

 

[dennisking]

Cheers Calum, the more we can pinpoint faults the easier it will be to improve. A lot of my beers I tend to think could be better but after a few you get used to it.

 

[prolix]

Bland, the only reason I knew it was a stout was the colour.

 

[robsan77]

how about perculier flavour? and perculiar nose in my APA . . . . :shock:

 

[Aleman]

Bitter to 1.040 (111)
Musty (Stale, Musty or Mouldy)
Oxidised (Paper, Cardboard, Sherry)

Aroma - Oxidised Nose (Cardboard)
Flavour - Oxidised and Stale

29/60

Still having difficulty working out the comments here The beer was bottled on the Thursday before the comp, having had 17 days in the Conical FV, the last 7 of which were at 2C, and it had been fined 24 hours earlier. I ran the beer into a purged corny then gassed it up and carbonated it before bottling with the beer gun into purged bottles and capping on the foam.

So where did the oxidation come from? I certainly can't detect it. There is a 'harsh' bitterness - to be expected considering the BU:GU ratio of 0.95, and the age of the beer. I'm wondering if this is going to be flavours that would dissipate with time and bottle conditioning (ie the yeast cleaning up after itself during carbonation and conditioning) I do have some more of the beer so will possibly do a transfer and bottle condition some and see if that makes a difference.

Lesson Learned : Brew your beer in plenty of time for the competition and give it time to be at it's best.

As for the other beers it's difficult to see just what can be learned from the comments

My wheat beer (50/60) lacked 'complexity' and the grain flavour was lacking . ."Thin on Taste" . . .

Possibly try some Munich malt the next time I brew, and swap some of the wheat malt for raw wheat or wheat flakes . . . Don't really know as I like the beer and think it's pretty damned close to a good German Hefe, which is a summer quaffing beer. Aleds was good too, although (IMO) I felt was a bit too 'complex' to be a really good quaffing beer . . . perhaps starting to get into the realm of a 'Bock' Wheat . . . Damned nice and satisfying though.

Also this was bottled from Keg and I suspect that had I bottled and naturally conditioned from the FV, it would have been a much better beer, wheat beers do age better in bottle.

Things that let me down with the lager (52/60)

Low head and condition (-4) - Bottled from Corny, plus I like my lagers less carbonated than 'traditional'.
Grainy and Slight Hop Aroma (-2) - :hmm: :wha: Hop aroma could be more pronounced, again an old beer . . . might try some of Robs Hop Aroma Oils next time I order :whistle:

 

[alikocho]

Bitter to 1.040 (111)
Musty (Stale, Musty or Mouldy)
Oxidised (Paper, Cardboard, Sherry)

Aroma - Oxidised Nose (Cardboard)
Flavour - Oxidised and Stale

29/60

This isn't helpful feedback, not least as it makes no suggestions for improvement.

FWIW - musty does not necessarily mean that the beer is oxidised. In my experience, mustiness can be an issue with conditioning, particularly if the yeast hasn't finished clean up. I had this with an ESB recently where I had a distinct mustiness which went when the beer came into condition.

Further - judges comment is just that. The best way to iron out issues is to enter the same beer in several competitions. There's this one - http://www.nationalhomebrewcompetition.org.uk - that will give you detailed feedback.

 

[dennisking]

The other comment he made was lack of hop flavour, yet in the class description under the flavour profile it stated may or may not have hop flavour. :wha: