Several bottles of each beer were sent to Portland for a Brewing Techniques sponsored tasting. A beer score sheet would have been worthless in this endeavor, since the idea was to find out how the beers differed and not to judge the beers against a style. The procedure was to combine ten or twelve beers in a pitcher and use this as a standard. Each entry was then judged relative to this standard in several different categories on a –5 ("less than standard") to +5 ("more than standard") scale.

I’m not quite sure how to read the score sheets and what use they are to me by themselves. My "bitterness" scores were all over the place—I had a –3, a –1, and a +3. Some individual judge differences there. My "maltiness" scores, though, were all positive. In fact, I "won" the malt category by having the most malt flavor. I wonder why my beer might have more malt flavor than the others. Nothing in my procedure springs to mind.

Several more bottles were shipped to Louis Bonham in Houston to do some lab work. Louis is a lawyer, but somehow he has learned enough organic chem to do some beer analysis. He streaked the beer out to check on cleanliness. Five or six brewers came through with flying colors, but both Bob and I had a fair number of bugs in our beers. Not enough to hurt the flavor, but not a good sign for long-term storage. I wonder if the bugs are in my keg or in my counter-pressure filled bottles. I generally don’t sanitize my bottles that well figuring they’ll be emptied soon enough.

The more interesting lab data is the IBU calculations. The beers all came between 55 and 90 IBUs or so. No word yet on what might contribute to such a big range. The majority of beers, however, were in the mid 60s. Using good old Jackie Rager’s formula for estimating IBUs, with no correction for pellets and a maximum utilization of 31%, I get about 61 IBUs. Pretty close to measured. Garetz much maligned formula gives something like 38. Quite a difference. This was a pretty bitter beer. People have reported numbers from Glen Tinseth’s formulas anywhere from 44 to 54; I haven’t found the formula myself. So after years of arguing about formulas and publication of both Tinseth’s and Garetz’s "improved" equations, Rager still comes out looking pretty good.

Hopefully at the meeting we’ll have more results of tasting and lab work.

Congratulations:

Bob Wilcox, who took gold at the Alameda Cty Fair with his Boh. Pilsener.

Upcoming events: