State Fair Hardware, by Henry Hunt (Louisville Beer Dot Com)
The Kentucky State Fair opens in Louisville this week with all the rides, exhibits, animals and fan fare. Homebrewers competed for state bragging rights this weekend. Local, Regional and National judges selected winners in each of the 28 beer categories, as well as overall winners in Best of Show and the Brewer of the Year.
Showing posts with label Kentucky State Fair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kentucky State Fair. Show all posts
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Kentucky State Fair homebrewing competition winners for 2015.
Henry Hunt speaks with Tim Rosenberger, coordinator of the annual Kentucky State Fair homebrewing competition, and provides a complete 2015 winner’s list.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Flashback to 1996, and a day at homebrewing booth at the Kentucky State Fair.
The Kentucky State Fair begins on August 20. Since the early 1990s, the Louisville Area Grain and Extract Research Society (LAGERS) home brewing club has run the fair’s home brew competition (2015 results here), and it also sponsors the home brewing information booth open during the fair. The Fermenters of Special Southern Indiana Libations Society (FOSSILS) club typically helps staff the booth.
The original essay here was written in 1996, and the last blog reprint was in 2006 or thereabouts. I might have waited until next year for maximum symmetry.
It's interesting for me to read between these lines.
1996, I was still a full-time bartender at the Pubic House, and NABC's brewery was still six years away. There hadn't yet been a Gravity Head. I was dropped off at the Fairgrounds by my first wife, and my father was alive. The Courier-Journal actually mattered. It was still possible to sit at the bar at BBC St. Matthews (and at the Public House) and smoke a cigar. Had Buddy needed to call me at BBC, I'd have been paged by a worker holding a land line, since I didn't have a mobile device ... and so on.
And now, a vignette from another life.
---
A Day at the Fair.
On the morning of the gorgeous summer Wednesday I'd had chosen to man the LAGERS information booth at the Kentucky State Fair, I awoke to that irritable feeling of discomfort that many people describe as a hangover.
I was shocked and appalled. As a trained, professional drinker of fine ales, I have "hangovers" about as often as I find Beluga caviar next to the Star-Kist tuna at the Dairy Mart down the street.
Anyway, what had I done the previous evening to even merit the mention of a hangover? I’d only had one Old Rasputin Imperial Stout ... followed by an abbey dubbel ... and a couple of Sierra Nevada drafts to ease my aching feet ... and a nightcap of Old Foghorn to chase down an evening meal of one and a half cold breadsticks and thoroughly coagulated garlic butter.
It must have been some kinda allergy, ‘coz it simply couldn’t have been a hangover.
To prepare for the rigors of the day, I ate two doughnuts and drained three cups of black coffee. Thus fortified with sugar and caffeine, I was off to greet the fair-going public.
I was driven to the fairgrounds and deposited at the first Crittenden Drive gate near the I-65 exit ramp. I stepped from the gasping car into a cloud of sweat-laden dust raised by the University of Louisville football players who were practicing nearby in the shadow of the former Mt. Schnellenberger, which has been reduced to the status of mere knob in the collective memory of University of Louisville football fans. It was a little after 10:00 a.m. when I paid the admission fee at one of the auto booths, and then produced my ticket for the next bored employee a few yards further on, who looked at me incredulously and said, "a walk-in?"
I headed for the third base side of Cardinal Stadium, took advantage of the pedestrian crosswalk through thehorse promenade, joyously filled my lungs with the accompanying Bluegrass ambiance, navigated the east concourse of Freedom Hall, and emerged on the South Lawn, to be greeted by Freddy Farm Bureau. Freddy was too busy ogling the scantily clad young schoolgirls to bother with me, but I had spotted a Courier Journal booth and decided to ask if I could buy a newspaper to keep me company.
"No, we don’t have any newspapers," yawned the woman on duty, turning grudgingly away from her telephone conversation about the dating habits of fellow office inhabitants. "But there’s plenty of free maps of the fair! You want one of those?"
Sure. It had a nice recipe for pie, and a reminder that our one metropolitan newspaper is always there when it’s needed.
I turned toward my destination, only to be jarringly confronted by a beer tent that trumpeted the availability of Budweiser beers, those fine premium products from the House of Busch -- in this case, the Outhouse of Busch, where carbonated urine enriches the Busch family as it impoverishes the collective palate of the nation, which in turn worships the swill barons like medieval peasants groveling in the presence of the local nobility.
To conquer swill, you only have to think ...
The LAGERS booth was right where it was supposed to be. I assembled the free handouts (LAGERS, FOSSILS, BBC, Silo, Tucker Brewing, Nuts ‘n’ Stuff, Winemakers Supply) on the long table, surveying the sparse crowd wandering through the exhibits in the South Hall. It occurred to me to keep a log of sorts. Here are a few hours of it.
10:30 First of the very accurately billed "heartburn" specials -- loaded Chicago-style hot dogs from the stand out front of Freedom Hall on the South Lawn.
10:35 First "hey, you givin’ out samples?" question from a passer by.
10:47 First "I remember my dad’s/granddad’s/uncle’s bottles of homebrew blowing up" story, this one from a woman who now lives in Pittsburgh.
10:53 I quit trying to count the number of Kentucky Wildcats ball caps bobbing past.
11:45 Sincere man about my age (36) asks me "do you think there are any places at the Fair where I can get a specialty beer to drink?" My answer: "Do you think Auggie Busch drinks his own swill?"
12:00 (noon) Lengthy country music cerebral torture begins emanating from a stage somewhere in the distance. One Patsy Cline number was tolerable, but the remainder utterly inane.
12:05 Ball cap on ambling, tank-topped redneck reads "tell me now before I spend $20.00 on drinks."
12:10 Pleasant older gentleman asks me if I know the best way to filter red wine vinegar.
12:15 Sudden burst of energy has me out of the chair, trying to work the crowd.
12:20 Energy subsides.
12:30 First hot fudge sundae at booth on the South Lawn.
12:40 "My granny used to make it. My daddy used to make it. We’d just sit on the front porch and listen to it explode."
12:50 A teenager asks me a question. His country accent is so thick that I’m unable to understand him. I tell him I’m sorry, but I just moved here from France and I haven’t picked up the language yet.
13:15 An older man tells me stories about his late father, a rural physician in a dry county, who’d send him out for soft drink bottles to use for the homebrew, which "he’d make out of anything he could."
13:35 Mark, one of the owners of the Liquor Barn in Lexington, stops by to chat.
13:55 Idle speculation: Why do old men dress the way they do -- dress shoes and socks, knee-length shorts, golf and polo shirts? It’s like some sort of AARP-mandated public uniform, which I presume they can purchase at a discount at Wal-Mart.
14:00 Wanderlust. Off in search of TARC schedules, having concluded that I could take a bus to get to Bluegrass Brewing Company after my shift, and meet my friend Buddy Sandbach there.
14:15 First ostrich burger.
14:26 Back to work.
14:35 First gyro from booth on the South Lawn.
14:51 Fifteenth request for samples. Make that sixteen.
14:53 Seventeen.
15:10 The band in the South Hall lobby tears into an inspired rendition of the theme from "The Brady Bunch." People actually sing along. Women with babies in strollers go past me again. A cooking demonstration gets under way. Men in town for the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention wear political buttons, some Gore/Clinton, many more Dole/Kemp. I find that I’m very thirsty, but although there are leftover homebrew entries hiding in the back of the booth, one wrong move could yield a smoked spruce. So I wait.
At some point before 17:00 (notice how fond I am of the 24-hour clock?), FOSSILS Supreme Brewmaster Dennis Barry arrived to commence the night shift. I headed off in the direction of Crittenden Drive with the aim of finding the bus stop, but there was a taxi stand by the side of the Redbirds (remember, that’s the local baseball club that lied to the world about its intention to have good beer at ball games -- you don’t think the Curmudgeon would forget such a slight, do you Dale Owens?) ticket office. What the hell, I thought. I’m thirsty.
The efficient, professional cabby regaled me with stories of convention traffic, noting that religious conventions are particularly good for business, with numerous fares requesting to be picked up a block or two away from the convention hall, to be taken to "whiskey stores and tittie bars." The best of all, according to my driver, were the visitors to the annual farm implement show.
"Man, those farmers raise hell!" he exclaimed.
As we pulled into the BBC lot, I was telling my driver about ways of hailing cabs in the old Soviet Union, when you could stand on the street corner and hold up a pack of western smokes or toothpaste, and then watch the competition for your patronage. He was extremely amused by these anecdotes, and he vowed to tell his fellow drivers.
I slipped him a twenty, went inside, ordered a Dark Star Porter, clipped the end off a Punch Diademas, and relaxed, finally among my own.
The original essay here was written in 1996, and the last blog reprint was in 2006 or thereabouts. I might have waited until next year for maximum symmetry.
It's interesting for me to read between these lines.
1996, I was still a full-time bartender at the Pubic House, and NABC's brewery was still six years away. There hadn't yet been a Gravity Head. I was dropped off at the Fairgrounds by my first wife, and my father was alive. The Courier-Journal actually mattered. It was still possible to sit at the bar at BBC St. Matthews (and at the Public House) and smoke a cigar. Had Buddy needed to call me at BBC, I'd have been paged by a worker holding a land line, since I didn't have a mobile device ... and so on.
And now, a vignette from another life.
---
A Day at the Fair.
On the morning of the gorgeous summer Wednesday I'd had chosen to man the LAGERS information booth at the Kentucky State Fair, I awoke to that irritable feeling of discomfort that many people describe as a hangover.
I was shocked and appalled. As a trained, professional drinker of fine ales, I have "hangovers" about as often as I find Beluga caviar next to the Star-Kist tuna at the Dairy Mart down the street.
Anyway, what had I done the previous evening to even merit the mention of a hangover? I’d only had one Old Rasputin Imperial Stout ... followed by an abbey dubbel ... and a couple of Sierra Nevada drafts to ease my aching feet ... and a nightcap of Old Foghorn to chase down an evening meal of one and a half cold breadsticks and thoroughly coagulated garlic butter.
It must have been some kinda allergy, ‘coz it simply couldn’t have been a hangover.
To prepare for the rigors of the day, I ate two doughnuts and drained three cups of black coffee. Thus fortified with sugar and caffeine, I was off to greet the fair-going public.
I was driven to the fairgrounds and deposited at the first Crittenden Drive gate near the I-65 exit ramp. I stepped from the gasping car into a cloud of sweat-laden dust raised by the University of Louisville football players who were practicing nearby in the shadow of the former Mt. Schnellenberger, which has been reduced to the status of mere knob in the collective memory of University of Louisville football fans. It was a little after 10:00 a.m. when I paid the admission fee at one of the auto booths, and then produced my ticket for the next bored employee a few yards further on, who looked at me incredulously and said, "a walk-in?"
I headed for the third base side of Cardinal Stadium, took advantage of the pedestrian crosswalk through the
"No, we don’t have any newspapers," yawned the woman on duty, turning grudgingly away from her telephone conversation about the dating habits of fellow office inhabitants. "But there’s plenty of free maps of the fair! You want one of those?"
Sure. It had a nice recipe for pie, and a reminder that our one metropolitan newspaper is always there when it’s needed.
I turned toward my destination, only to be jarringly confronted by a beer tent that trumpeted the availability of Budweiser beers, those fine premium products from the House of Busch -- in this case, the Outhouse of Busch, where carbonated urine enriches the Busch family as it impoverishes the collective palate of the nation, which in turn worships the swill barons like medieval peasants groveling in the presence of the local nobility.
To conquer swill, you only have to think ...
The LAGERS booth was right where it was supposed to be. I assembled the free handouts (LAGERS, FOSSILS, BBC, Silo, Tucker Brewing, Nuts ‘n’ Stuff, Winemakers Supply) on the long table, surveying the sparse crowd wandering through the exhibits in the South Hall. It occurred to me to keep a log of sorts. Here are a few hours of it.
10:30 First of the very accurately billed "heartburn" specials -- loaded Chicago-style hot dogs from the stand out front of Freedom Hall on the South Lawn.
10:35 First "hey, you givin’ out samples?" question from a passer by.
10:47 First "I remember my dad’s/granddad’s/uncle’s bottles of homebrew blowing up" story, this one from a woman who now lives in Pittsburgh.
10:53 I quit trying to count the number of Kentucky Wildcats ball caps bobbing past.
11:45 Sincere man about my age (36) asks me "do you think there are any places at the Fair where I can get a specialty beer to drink?" My answer: "Do you think Auggie Busch drinks his own swill?"
12:00 (noon) Lengthy country music cerebral torture begins emanating from a stage somewhere in the distance. One Patsy Cline number was tolerable, but the remainder utterly inane.
12:05 Ball cap on ambling, tank-topped redneck reads "tell me now before I spend $20.00 on drinks."
12:10 Pleasant older gentleman asks me if I know the best way to filter red wine vinegar.
12:15 Sudden burst of energy has me out of the chair, trying to work the crowd.
12:20 Energy subsides.
12:30 First hot fudge sundae at booth on the South Lawn.
12:40 "My granny used to make it. My daddy used to make it. We’d just sit on the front porch and listen to it explode."
12:50 A teenager asks me a question. His country accent is so thick that I’m unable to understand him. I tell him I’m sorry, but I just moved here from France and I haven’t picked up the language yet.
13:15 An older man tells me stories about his late father, a rural physician in a dry county, who’d send him out for soft drink bottles to use for the homebrew, which "he’d make out of anything he could."
13:35 Mark, one of the owners of the Liquor Barn in Lexington, stops by to chat.
13:55 Idle speculation: Why do old men dress the way they do -- dress shoes and socks, knee-length shorts, golf and polo shirts? It’s like some sort of AARP-mandated public uniform, which I presume they can purchase at a discount at Wal-Mart.
14:00 Wanderlust. Off in search of TARC schedules, having concluded that I could take a bus to get to Bluegrass Brewing Company after my shift, and meet my friend Buddy Sandbach there.
14:15 First ostrich burger.
14:26 Back to work.
14:35 First gyro from booth on the South Lawn.
14:51 Fifteenth request for samples. Make that sixteen.
14:53 Seventeen.
15:10 The band in the South Hall lobby tears into an inspired rendition of the theme from "The Brady Bunch." People actually sing along. Women with babies in strollers go past me again. A cooking demonstration gets under way. Men in town for the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention wear political buttons, some Gore/Clinton, many more Dole/Kemp. I find that I’m very thirsty, but although there are leftover homebrew entries hiding in the back of the booth, one wrong move could yield a smoked spruce. So I wait.
At some point before 17:00 (notice how fond I am of the 24-hour clock?), FOSSILS Supreme Brewmaster Dennis Barry arrived to commence the night shift. I headed off in the direction of Crittenden Drive with the aim of finding the bus stop, but there was a taxi stand by the side of the Redbirds (remember, that’s the local baseball club that lied to the world about its intention to have good beer at ball games -- you don’t think the Curmudgeon would forget such a slight, do you Dale Owens?) ticket office. What the hell, I thought. I’m thirsty.
The efficient, professional cabby regaled me with stories of convention traffic, noting that religious conventions are particularly good for business, with numerous fares requesting to be picked up a block or two away from the convention hall, to be taken to "whiskey stores and tittie bars." The best of all, according to my driver, were the visitors to the annual farm implement show.
"Man, those farmers raise hell!" he exclaimed.
As we pulled into the BBC lot, I was telling my driver about ways of hailing cabs in the old Soviet Union, when you could stand on the street corner and hold up a pack of western smokes or toothpaste, and then watch the competition for your patronage. He was extremely amused by these anecdotes, and he vowed to tell his fellow drivers.
I slipped him a twenty, went inside, ordered a Dark Star Porter, clipped the end off a Punch Diademas, and relaxed, finally among my own.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Judges and stewards needed for the Kentucky State Fair Homebrew Beer Competition on Sunday, August 14.
From Tom Person, Vice President of Louisville Area Grain and Extract Research Society (LAGERS). Regrettably for me, the judging always takes place the same weekend as Great Taste of the Midwest.
Fellow BJCP judges and appreciators of fine homebrew:
The Kentucky State Fair Homebrew competition is coming up soon. It will be held Sunday, August 14th ... starting at 10:00 a.m. sharp. We are anticipating up to 500 entries this year, so your exhaustive beer knowledge and superb sensory and judging skills are sorely needed and will be greatly appreciated. Judge registration will be from 9:00 a.m. to 9:45 a.m., with a light breakfast available (so come early!)
We are planning on two judging sessions: an a.m. session (10:00 – 12:00), and a p.m. session (1:00 – 3:00) ... with a lunch provided between sessions. The p.m. session will be followed by a Best of Show judging, and after wards we are planning an awards ceremony to announce the winners.
Use the link below to register to be a judge or steward at this competition:
http://www.lagersclub.com/kystatefair/competition/
Here are the steps once you get to this site:
1. Under the Judge and Steward section ... If it is your first time to this site, then click on the “please register” link. Note: If you have already entered beers with the 2011 Kentucky State Fair competition this year, then you already have an ID. Just click the “log in” link.
2. The first page is where you create your account with an e-mail address, a password for this site, and a security question.
3. Second page is where you put in your name, address, etc.
4. Third page is where you put in your judge info ... BJCP number, rank, beer preferences and dislikes, etc. Under the beer preferences and dislikes, just select any one of the sub-categories that you like or dislike. We will consider your choice to be for all beers in that class. Example: I want to judge Stouts, so I check 13A – Dry Stout. (you don’t have to check all 6 stout categories)
When you have completed your judge registration, there will be a summary page, and you will also see a link to print your Judge Waiver sheet. Please use this link to view and print your judge registration sheet, sign and date it, and then bring it with you to the competition. (If you don’t print it at home, don’t worry ... you’ll just have to sit there the morning of the competition, blurry-eyed, and fill out one of these forms while every one else is drinking coffee and eating donuts!)
Thank you for your help in judging the 2011 Kentucky State Fair Homebrew Competition.
Fellow BJCP judges and appreciators of fine homebrew:
The Kentucky State Fair Homebrew competition is coming up soon. It will be held Sunday, August 14th ... starting at 10:00 a.m. sharp. We are anticipating up to 500 entries this year, so your exhaustive beer knowledge and superb sensory and judging skills are sorely needed and will be greatly appreciated. Judge registration will be from 9:00 a.m. to 9:45 a.m., with a light breakfast available (so come early!)
We are planning on two judging sessions: an a.m. session (10:00 – 12:00), and a p.m. session (1:00 – 3:00) ... with a lunch provided between sessions. The p.m. session will be followed by a Best of Show judging, and after wards we are planning an awards ceremony to announce the winners.
Use the link below to register to be a judge or steward at this competition:
http://www.lagersclub.com/kystatefair/competition/
Here are the steps once you get to this site:
1. Under the Judge and Steward section ... If it is your first time to this site, then click on the “please register” link. Note: If you have already entered beers with the 2011 Kentucky State Fair competition this year, then you already have an ID. Just click the “log in” link.
2. The first page is where you create your account with an e-mail address, a password for this site, and a security question.
3. Second page is where you put in your name, address, etc.
4. Third page is where you put in your judge info ... BJCP number, rank, beer preferences and dislikes, etc. Under the beer preferences and dislikes, just select any one of the sub-categories that you like or dislike. We will consider your choice to be for all beers in that class. Example: I want to judge Stouts, so I check 13A – Dry Stout. (you don’t have to check all 6 stout categories)
When you have completed your judge registration, there will be a summary page, and you will also see a link to print your Judge Waiver sheet. Please use this link to view and print your judge registration sheet, sign and date it, and then bring it with you to the competition. (If you don’t print it at home, don’t worry ... you’ll just have to sit there the morning of the competition, blurry-eyed, and fill out one of these forms while every one else is drinking coffee and eating donuts!)
Thank you for your help in judging the 2011 Kentucky State Fair Homebrew Competition.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Kentucky State Fair homebrew competition judging will be Sunday, August 15th.
The following was forwarded by FOSSILS via Chuck Harp. Note that there is no spreadsheet attachment; of course, you may contact Chuck directly if you're interested in judging and stewarding. I regret that in recent years, the judging has conflicted with the usual day for returning home from the Great Taste of the Midwest. One of these days, I'll make it back to the fairgrounds.
---
The Kentucky State Fair homebrew competition will be held on Sunday, August 15th. We are looking for lots of judges and stewards to help out with our competition. The judging will be held in the south wing conference center of the Kentucky Exposition center in Louisville, Ky. If you are not familiar with this location, please see the KY state fair website for details.
Our schedule for the day is as follows:
10:15 am Start judge check-in (coffee, juice and donuts are planned)
10:45 am Calibration Beer
11:00 am Start judging first round
1:00 pm Finish first round
After each judge is finished with his/her flight, there will be a box lunch provided. Our hope is that by allowing each judge to eat as soon as they are done, we can quickly start on the second round of judging.
1:30 pm Start second round (or earlier)
3:30 pm Finish second round
3:45 pm Best Of Show
Due to the large number of entrants to this competition who are also judges, stewards and organizers, we have decided to also try to have an awards ceremony immediately following the judging. It is scheduled as follows:
4:30 pm Start Awards Ceremony
5:30 pm End Awards Ceremony
We are hoping you will be able to participate, and I would also like to pre-assign judges prior to the event so things can go smoothly
Please e-mail back if you are going to be able to judge or steward this year, and also please fill out and return the simple attached spreadsheet. There is an example tab to show how to fill the form out, and a tab called JudgeList which should take about 30 seconds to complete. The purpose of the form is to let us know if you entered any beers in this years competition (and your likes/dislikes for judging styles). All we need is the class number of the beer or beers you entered, prefer to judge, and prefer not to judge (if you have a preference).
Thanks for your help, and may the next beer you drink ... be the best beer you have ever tasted!
Chuck Harp
---
The Kentucky State Fair homebrew competition will be held on Sunday, August 15th. We are looking for lots of judges and stewards to help out with our competition. The judging will be held in the south wing conference center of the Kentucky Exposition center in Louisville, Ky. If you are not familiar with this location, please see the KY state fair website for details.
Our schedule for the day is as follows:
10:15 am Start judge check-in (coffee, juice and donuts are planned)
10:45 am Calibration Beer
11:00 am Start judging first round
1:00 pm Finish first round
After each judge is finished with his/her flight, there will be a box lunch provided. Our hope is that by allowing each judge to eat as soon as they are done, we can quickly start on the second round of judging.
1:30 pm Start second round (or earlier)
3:30 pm Finish second round
3:45 pm Best Of Show
Due to the large number of entrants to this competition who are also judges, stewards and organizers, we have decided to also try to have an awards ceremony immediately following the judging. It is scheduled as follows:
4:30 pm Start Awards Ceremony
5:30 pm End Awards Ceremony
We are hoping you will be able to participate, and I would also like to pre-assign judges prior to the event so things can go smoothly
Please e-mail back if you are going to be able to judge or steward this year, and also please fill out and return the simple attached spreadsheet. There is an example tab to show how to fill the form out, and a tab called JudgeList which should take about 30 seconds to complete. The purpose of the form is to let us know if you entered any beers in this years competition (and your likes/dislikes for judging styles). All we need is the class number of the beer or beers you entered, prefer to judge, and prefer not to judge (if you have a preference).
Thanks for your help, and may the next beer you drink ... be the best beer you have ever tasted!
Chuck Harp
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
