Beer Forum

Hello my old friends,

I've been away from the board for a long time (you know, life and stuff), but I'm hoping you all can help me. Every year, my local club holds our annual family picnic in May and one of the components is a "by popular vote" intra-club competition with a twist. What are some of the fun twists you guys (and gals) have added to challenge yourselves in your clubs? We've done stuff like picking adjuncts from a hat, everyone brewing with a special ingredient, brewing historical styles, etc.

Thanks a lot,

The Todd

Man, if I had a nickel for every time there were flaked oats in my hat...

I'd say a weird ingredient brew theme. Everyone uses the same type of ingredient, but gets to pick their own variety. Breakfast cereal, hard candy, something from the Asian aisle, etc.

Welcome back man! Glad to see you are still kickin' around.

I have seen some clubs do IRON BREWER sort of competition styles too.

There are a ton of things you can do:

Iron Brewer- Buy the same exact ingredients and split them into "Kits".

Iron Mr. Beer competition - everybody gets the same Mr. Beer kits (2 kits will make a 5 gal batch) and everybody brews/ferments starting with the same one (twists = additional ingredients allowed or not allowed)

Same yeast = pick a not-so-common strain and everybody brews with that
(youy may need help from your LHBS for this)

Weird Ingredient brew as above

Low gravity comp - everything must start with OG < 1.040

Pick a style, any style = everybody brews a Bavarian Hefe, for instance

Pick a country - everybody brews an English beer or Irish beer, etc

Pick a color - same color beer (the beer should be between X and Y SRM

If you have access to a local pro who can help brew a big batch of wort you can do a "same wort" batch
where the wort is split and everybody ferments that using their own yeast, temp control, etc.

A 'can you brew it'. Select a pro beer and have everyone try to clone it.

Arrogant Bastard. Just sayin'.

Ozwald wrote:Arrogant Bastard. Just sayin'.

Oh yeah! Thats a good one!

+1 - Our club has done all of these in the last 2 years. Doing a dry hop club experiment in two months. Session beer competition soon after that and then Iron Brewer. Keep brewing!

BDawg wrote:There are a ton of things you can do:

Iron Brewer- Buy the same exact ingredients and split them into "Kits".

Iron Mr. Beer competition - everybody gets the same Mr. Beer kits (2 kits will make a 5 gal batch) and everybody brews/ferments starting with the same one (twists = additional ingredients allowed or not allowed)

Same yeast = pick a not-so-common strain and everybody brews with that
(youy may need help from your LHBS for this)

Weird Ingredient brew as above

Low gravity comp - everything must start with OG < 1.040

Pick a style, any style = everybody brews a Bavarian Hefe, for instance

Pick a country - everybody brews an English beer or Irish beer, etc

Pick a color - same color beer (the beer should be between X and Y SRM

If you have access to a local pro who can help brew a big batch of wort you can do a "same wort" batch
where the wort is split and everybody ferments that using their own yeast, temp control, etc.