Has come and gone with no jewelry again. Entered Little Sausages and HOLD FAST! with the steam style ultimately doing better. My Vienna gutted a 29 with notes of more complex malt profile and a more drying yeast even though FG was 1.007. Seems pretty dried out to me. HF! toed the line at 34 needing a smidge more NW hop profile. This I figured would be the case but thought those scores would be reversed? Either way both were noted to have clean fermentation profiles so maybe I’ll start bittering HF! with Perle and saving NW for later additions. Alas, my home state is becoming more difficult than all others to medal in. I’ve noticed it’s becoming easier to medal in larger comps with more of the same style than in smaller ones where they may be lumped into general categories ( ie “pale or amber” whatever) where related beers are judged against each other.
