[MKOB] Club Only Competitions ... bring em back?

[Russ Clayton]

Fellow cerveza-heads ...

    Several years ago MKOB stopped doing club-only competitions.  For 
those of you unfamiliar with this term ... it basically meant that the 
club decided on a style of beer to brew.  Then at the appointed meeting, 
those who brewed for that occasion would have their beers judged by 3 or 
4 people who volunteered to be judges.  This served a few functions.

    First off, it was fun...in my opinion.  Secondly, it helped to 
improve our brewing techniques.  Thirdly, it added a "learning" 
component to our meetings.

    When these were going on, I was pretty new to brewing, so I only 
entered in a few (I joined in 96.)  Even though I was brewing from a can 
at that time, I learned a lot from tasting and listening to the guys who 
knew about the various styles.

    I would like to bring these competitions back.  I would even go so 
far as to volunteer to be the club events coordinator , a position which 
handled this and our parties etc ... but went away a few years ago.

    I propose that if everyone is interested, we would start these at 
the beginning of next year in January on a monthly basis.  I would get a 
list of popular beer styles together and we could vote on them, 1 per 
month.  Now, this doesn't mean you have to brew one each month, but 
there would be a year schedule so you could pick out the months you 
wanted to brew for way ahead of time, especially for the heavier styles 
to let them age a bit.

    If this sounds like a good idea to you, please just email me and 
tell me 5 beer styles that you would like to see on the list.

    If this sounds like a bad idea to you, also let me know so I can 
tally up the votes on either side and make it fair.

    Also, let me know in your email if you would like volunteer to be a 
judge.  I don't want to put George on the spot, but I would like to see 
him on the list of judges.  I would also like to see Tom on there if he 
would like, as he is our resident professional brewer.  This would be a 
good way to learn, if you're interested in being a judge in the future.

    For these competitions I would basically bring in the official style 
guidelines the month before ... and at each competition I would try to 
line up someone to stand up and talk a bit about the style and a certain 
important element of hitting the style.  This would vary from month to 
month and hopefully we would have several people interested enough in 
doing a little homework before the meeting.

    I've been thinking about this for awhile now.  I look forward to our 
meetings, not just because it's a night out to drink and talk to 
friends, but I "try" to learn something about a style from someone each 
time.  And I thought that our meetings could use a little shot in the arm.
~r~