Competition success - Belgian Tripel

My beer, bit flat in this pic

Competition finals are always a bit of a challenge - there are so many interesting beers so it's tempting to try too many and end up with a sore head the next day. They are doubly a challenge on Monday, and it's probably impossible to be abstenious when your beer wins a prize. Work the next day was a bit of a struggle

This week I had more success - my Belgian Tripel placed third in the Tripels flight (15 beers in total) at the London Amateur Brewers "Fast like a Monk" competition and scored 41&38 from the judges, really pleased with these scores! 

Comp entries

I'm really pleased with this beer for a few reasons: 

• Its my first excellent beer in a new style. My other excellent beers have both beer wheat beers. 
• I used hops that I grew myself (First Gold) on my fence 
• I put a huge amount of effort into making this a good beer, so I was really pleased when it paid off

There were a few things I could have improved to get a better score: 

• It should have been stronger - at 7% I rather undercooked it for the style, at the limits of acceptability. I should have added a bit more sugar. 
• It should have been better carbonated - I always take a safety first approach to carbonation in glass. 
• It should have been hoppier - but again using my own hops was a bit of a gamble, there wasn't any data on their strength to help get the beer right. In future, as i like em hoppy, I'll over do the hops with my own and cross my fingers.....

My beers with the orange caps on the winners tasting table

 So after collecting my prize, I sampled some of the other winning beers. The overall winner, a dopplebok was amazing. Deep malty but smooth and warm. The other Tripels were worthy for their top places, and I really enjoyed the Trappist Singels - the winner had the fruity esters of a strong Belgian golden ale but hoppier and at a much more session-able strength. 


So a really enjoyable competition - but reckon results and awards nights on a Friday in future please (urgh!) 

Getting my rosette with the other flight winners!