Byggvir's Big Beer Cup 2014: ITS A TRAP!

Every year I take part in one of the most unique of homebrew competitions: Byggvir's Big Beer Cup.  This competition takes place on site at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, a place I have been visiting since I was a child.  As a result of being on site, Byggvir's has some challenges involved: getting the beers and equipment into the festival grounds, the pervasive odors of food and smoke, loud crowds, strange weather conditions, etc.  But all that makes this such a unique experience that I just have to keep going back!  For the past few years I have helped run the competition, but this year didn't have the time to invest--I still signed up to judge.  Here is how my experience went this year...

Volunteering at the competition gets you into the grounds for free, one of the best perks of the event for many.  On Saturday, very early in the morning, Steven M. picked me up and we took the sun-dappled country roads from Waconia to Shakopee.  This is one of the few homebrew events that is actually out our direction, so we were happy with such a short commute.  We entered through the "back door" off highway 41, to the new Queens Gate parking area.  Over the past several years the rock quarry that surrounds the festival grounds has expanded like some massive progressive sinkhole bent on eventually swallowing the entire festival in one massive final gulp.  The regular parking lot has been almost entirely subsumed by the expanding pit of doom, requiring many people to park some distance from the grounds and get shuttled on old yellow school buses.  Each year we have done this event the cast/will call entrance location and process has been different--last year we were sent to no less than three entrances before eventually giving up and sneaking in a secret way!  This year's was a bit less stressful, but the will-call ticket booth had no list of us.  Luckily they were understanding and let us in with a minimum of fuss.

Entering into the festival grounds a few minutes before the cannons fire is a strange experience.  There is an odd ghost-town effect.  Most of the players are clustered at the main King's Gate to greet the incoming crowds, and the only people around are a few shop keepers frantically attempting to get their places in order before the influx.  Rather than a roaring crowd of costumed folk and patrons there is very little noise at all.  No lewd shouts from the pickle sellers.  No fiddle music drifting across the breeze.  No people being placed in the stocks to be ridiculed.  The experience is akin to seeing a supermodel in scrubby sweatpants without her makeup on.  A strange experience for sure to one who has been going to Fest for so long! 

This Saturday I was actually supposed to be spending the morning wandering the Fest with Sj, but she was sick and stayed home to wallow in her illness.  Steven's family ended up coming in the front entrance shortly after cannon fire announced the official start of Fest, so I hung out with them for a bit before striking out on my own.  I got my obligatory Scotch egg and glass of mead.  I had my camera, so took some pictures of the strange environs (and denizens.)  I had a great time trying to catch good shots of the camera-shy reptiles at the Royal Herpetological (not an STD) Society Cabin.  An essential part of any trip to Fest for me is to see The Dregs--a hilarious "Irish" band that sings songs of love, sea shanties, death, and zombies.  Check out their website here and see them in person!  Eventually, a smile on my face and an Enki beer in hand I headed back for judging.



Steven and I reconvened at the Blue Lion Tent for our afternoon of beer judging.  I've said this before and I'll say it again to anyone who will listen:  Byggvir is the most fun you will ever have judging beer.  When we arrived, the early shift was over and Todd was working on a demo brew for the spectators.  This year they have added a portable beer serving station at the tent, so we had to fight for space a bit with the beer swilling, turkey leg gnawing rabble!  I was judging Belgian strong ales, a great category that I have a fair amount of experience with.  I got to sample a good mix of Belgian pale ales, dubbels, tripels, and dark Belgian strongs.  Aroma was quite difficult to deal with between the strong smells of boiling wort, turkey smoking, cigarette and cigar smoking, privies, and spilled beer--but hey that is part of the fun!  Just like learning to blind-fight in martial arts, one must learn to accurately judge beers under the most extreme of circumstances!  I think the overall quality of entries was much better this year, perhaps a sign of improving homebrew information out there.

At the tail end of judging Ye Olde Cell Phone and darkening skies warned us of an impending cataclysmic rainstorm.  Steven and I high-tailed it back to his car and piled in just as the bottom dropped out.  The rain almost instantly turned to a deluge, dumping tons of cold water on the rapidly exiting crowds of festival goers.  We made it about 10 car lengths from our parking spot by the entrance before we hit a stop in traffic.  With the encroachment of The Pit, there is really only one main exit from the festival grounds.  The literal Perfect Storm of rapid patron exodus, limited traffic control options, torrential downpour, and apparently three accidents caused converged to trap hundreds if not thousands of people in a traffic line OF DOOM!  Festival goers streamed out past us on foot, soaked to the bone.  The fine red dirt and clay of the lot rapidly turned to a thick muddy morass that sucked shoes right off of running pedestrians and made the whole place turn into a wickedly messy Slip-N-Slide. 

Shuttle buses were trapped right with us so all of those who were parked a mile away were either stuck in a children's school bus or walking through the rain and mud back to their cars.  We were actually stopped on the firmer dirt roadway, but many cars became stuck in the mud pit that surrounded our high ground, blocking more traffic and necessitating tow trucks to navigate the chaos.  After about 45 minutes the rain slowed and eventually blew over, but the damage had been done. 



After the storm

A hint of blue sky peaked out from the retreating Doom Clouds but night was approaching quickly.  We were now camping, but at least we were in the relative comfort of Steven's car, listening to music on the radio and watching the **&^%-Show Nightmare that surrounded us.  Not knowing about the accidents near the exit, none of us had any idea what was going on or how long this might last.  Quickly the thin veneer of humanity dropped from us and we began to discuss cannibalism options...luckily we had a nut roll and hunk of beef jerky in the car to hold us over for the first hour or so.  As time went on we started to People began to exit their cars, smoking, raiding coolers, talking with "neighbors".  Regretting the beer and mead I had partaken of earlier, I began to think seriously about making the small Barley Johns growler I had won during judging into an upscale trucker-bomb. 

The truck in front of us died a slow death of battery drain.  The car next to us in the muddy ditch had jumper cables, but they had to get another car that was closer to the front to actually jump the truck's heart back to life.  Minutes later the car next to us went dead, requiring another car to jump them!  Darkness came upon us at this time, dropping like a thick veil over the muddy and bedraggled crowd that was trapped.  Now the red tail lights put a devilish crimson glow over everything.  Screaming infants, exhausted and hungry, wailed through open windows, adding to the bedlam that surrounded us.  Like a scene from a futuristic Hieronymus Bosch painting, the costumed fiends cavorted about in the dim bloody lights, awaiting their escape from this endless purgatory. 

We had entered our car at 5 PM.  When the traffic began to move again it was after 8 PM.  Tired, dehydrated, sweaty, and needing desperately to void my bladder, I staggered into my home at 9 PM.  Migraine ensued. 

And flip to 7 AM the next morning!  Dragging my still flimsy carcass out of bed, I donned my vest, pantaloons, and boots, ready to face the music again.  Strapping on my sword and leather mug, I headed out for another fine day of judging beer at the Renaissance Festival! 

Luckily the Sunday session was much less dramatic!  Driving in, I did have a little PTSD flashback to the night before as I passed stalled out or stuck cars still entrenched in the surrounding fields.  This cool morning I helped set up things for judging and then started out with Specialty Ciders for a nice liquid breakfast!  I was pretty impressed with them overall and we had a difficult time coming up with our overall winners.  After a eating a massive and drippy turkey leg, I judged Strong Ales for the afternoon session.  Again, a good set of beers! 

Despite the insane events of the previous night, the Sunday visit was much more reasonable.  As always, the competition and locale has left me with stories to tell!  What could possibly happen next year?  Check back here again and I'll surely have more tales!

Byggvir's Big Beer Cup Award Ceremony 2013

On Wednesday the 28th of August a plethora of local homebrewers from several different clubs converged upon an unsuspecting Town Hall Brewery for the 7th Annual Byggvir's Big Beer Cup Award Ceremony!  OK, I guess Town Hall expected us since the back room was roped off for us, but that intro sounded way cooler...  In my previous post I spent quite a bit of space describing the competition itself, and here is a shorter description of the award ceremony. 

Right after work on Wednesday, Sj, Steven and I rocketed out of Waconia on our way to Chaska to pick up Matt and Anna.  From there mistress leadfoot (Sj) got us heading up I35W in great time...until some sort of accident farther up-stream caused a huge car log-jam leaving us in stop and go traffic for the next 35 minutes.  Luckily Jerry and Mike L. had saved us a large table and even had drinks waiting for us upon our tardy arrival.  Thanks guys, that is a wonderful welcome! 

The place was hopping, with most of the back dining room filled with eager homebrewers.  At least 10 JABbers were present, as well as some folks from MHBA, Primary Fermenters, and some of the other smaller clubs that I need to get better acquainted with.  Gera Exire Latour and Tim Roets had organized a few tables into first, second and third place prize piles before we arrived and set up a small microphone.  They were kind enough to wait until our carload of JAB arrived before starting the ceremony, but a lot of the folks had been there since about 5PM.  We promptly ordered food and got to work on our drinks.  I was pleased that there was plenty of Thunderstorm (a Belgian with lemongrass and orange blossom honey) to go around, though some of my less discerning friends (Mike and Jerry) who I won't name here are not fans.  They are incorrect!  The AC either wasn't working or couldn't keep up with the crowd and the 95 degree weather outside, so the place got pretty toasty as the evening went on.  That just reminded me of our Extreme Beer Judging at the Fest grounds, but minus the dust and turkey legs. 

Gera began the official proceedings with some background on the competition and about the special Historic beer category before launching into the winner list.  She would read off several categories and then take a break for Tim to read off some raffle winners (everyone present got a ticket.)  This was as nice way to extend the event a bit, giving us time to talk to winners, drink great Town Hall beers and eat our dinners!  Tim also came by a few times over the night with Beer Trivia for each table so we could win bottle openers and other cool prizes.  Tim and Gera did a great job on getting sponsors and swag this year so there was plenty to go around!  The Renfest medals had not arrived in time for the ceremony, but they had given us enough mugs that each first place winner received a large and colorful 2013 commemorative mug.  I was lucky enough to get several of my beers into the winner's circle and ended up with a large pile of prizes.  This more than paid back the cost of my entry fees to the competition.  A lot of my friends won medals as well including Jeff Malek, Kyle Sisco, Brett Glenna, Joe Lushine, Mark Glennon , Wayne Doucette, and more! 

Once all the categories had been announced, Mike Hoops came up to talk about Tim's Kolsch (the winner from last year's BOS round and currently on tap at the brewery,) and about the potential difficulty in getting into the GABF in the next few years.  He and Gera then announced the Best of Show winner that will be brewed at Town Hall for the coming year: Ben Adair's Colonial Ale!  This is the first time one of the historic beers has made it to BOS and I'm very excited that the beer will be brewed commercially.  I would have preferred if my stout or apricot beer had won, but hey maybe I have another shot next year!  Interestingly myself and Jeff both won medals in that category as well, but were apparently beat out by a pretty amazing beer.  I brewed a Gose beer with French grey sea salt and coriander specifically for this competition (mainly so I wouldn't have to judge the category for the fourth year straight!) and was pretty pleased with the result.  A perfect refreshing and tart beer for a crazy hot end of summer.

My rockin' swag!

Overall I had a great time at the award ceremony.  I loved hanging out at one of my favorite breweries with a bunch of my fellow homebrewers, and the event was a great excuse to get down there during the week.  Let's have a big "Huzzah!" for the 2013 Renaissance Festival and Byggvir!  Thanks to Town Hall, Mike Hoops, the MN Renfest and all of our other sponsors.

The official winner's list can be found HERE!

The Dust Bowl: Byggvir's Big Beer Cup 2013!

Last year's epic post on Byggvir's Big Beer Cup was one of my most-read pieces of the year, so I figured I should do a recap to this year's event as well.  This homebrew competition takes place at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival as part of their Royal Ale Festival Weekend, and is currently in it's seventh year.  Personally, it was the first competition I ever put beer in and the first to award me a medal for my efforts--releasing the flood gates for me to become a beer judge and win lots more medals!  This was also the first competition in which I ever tried my hand at judging.  Between the relaxed (though loud and possibly dusty) venue and the easy-going nature of the competition itself, we encourage inexperienced judges to pair with higher ranked judges and let folks ease into the competition community.  I thought about trying to do this whole blog entry in Middle English or even a fake Renfest patois, but decided that would get old in about two sentences and let it go with an occasional "Huzzah!"

Behind the scenes organization takes many months before the actual competition.  Gera Exire LaTour, myself, Brett Glenna, Tim Roets, Jeremy Lawson, Wilbur Ince, and Steven Mathistad have been working at getting posters made and distributed, supplies wrangled, prizes/donations gathered, website updated, and much more.  This year we had a bit of a snafu with the website not allowing new registration (since all of us had old logins or admin accounts we didn't realize there was a problem until later in the game,) so we extended the deadline an extra week to allow for later entries.

Once our organizers had gathered all the entries from the local homebrew stores, we could get on with the labeling session.  Last year's was in my basement and trying to scatter 200+ beers in 18 categories throughout the space was crowded and difficult to say the least!  This year Tim Roets was kind enough the let us use the Historic Jordan Brewery (soon to be a fully operational brewery once more!) as a space for the organizing and later for a Friday pre-judging session.  I arrived early, having grabbed Tim's keys prior, and took advantage of the afternoon sunlight to take some cool pictures of the brewery building.  Jeremy and Brett showed up not too long after and the three of us worked on putting the entries in numerical order for ease of labeling later. 

Soon Gera, Wilbur, and Steven arrived and we dug into the next step: each entry must be assessed for damage, correct entry labels, etc.  Each entry is assigned a random number, and a neck label with the number and style category is placed on each.  A smaller number label is also placed on the cap to allow for easy organization in a cooler at the judging.  Since each entry is two bottles, we have to do all of this twice.  The entries that win gold medals in their categories have their second bottle go to the Best Of Show round on Sunday afternoon.  What happens to all the other extra second bottles you ask?  Depends on the competition really.  Mostly we mix them all together into a giant vat and make the people with the lowest scores in each category drink a German Boot of the resulting mess.  Ok, I might be pulling your leg a bit!  At Byggvir's we will sometimes crack open the extra bottle of the second and third place beers at the competition so volunteers can try some of the top examples of the styles (for education purposes only of course!)  One year we had a tasting at a Jack Of All Brews meeting focusing on some of the meads that were left over.  Sometimes it can be fun to track down the beers with recognizable flaws--again as an educational tool for brewers.  And mostly we end up recycling the bottles for future use in homebrews!  Now you know where your precious beer goes!

Once all the bottles had been labeled and anonymized, we organized them into categories in another of the brewery's rooms.  Then time for pizza, pickled ring bologna from the meat market in Jordan, Tim's homebrewed Mild Ale, and organizing the checks and paperwork.  As with any competition, some bottles come to us broken in shipping, or missing entirely, or having ended up in the State Fair competition by accident and sent back our way!  At this stage there are always some issues, and the 30 inch thick stone and iron walls made computer and cell phone use to fix them much more difficult.

While sitting in the main brewery, we heard a loud explosion in the other room followed by tinkling glass.  Quickly and carefully rounding the corner through the hobbit sized door we saw glass fragments that had been thrown 15 feet across the room from one of the entered bottles.  Strange but fortunate that it took that moment to expire instead of when we were handling it for labeling.  We very cautiously covered the second bottle with a box and later, using improvised bomb-squad gear, loaded it into a safe trash bag and disposed of the deadly item.  Gushers are common, but true bottle bombs are deadly.  Make sure to check specific gravities on beers you are going to bottle and that they are actually done fermenting first!

Between Tuesday and Friday all of us worked on our assignments:  Tim to gather prizes; Gera to work on gathering equipment for the judging itself; myself to organize the beer flights and make the judge lists; Wilbur to work on labels and paperwork.  Doing the flights was interesting.  We have 18 categories for this competition, so I had to condense the beer categories down in a way that made sense but didn't give us groups of beer that were too big or too small.  Once that was complete I had to do a complex logic puzzle (Sj will be glad to tell you that this is not my strong suit) to correlate judges' likes and dislikes, as well as making sure that they don't judge their own beers! 

On Friday evening we had a Pre-Fest judging and organizing session back at the Jordan Brewery in order to knock off a few smaller categories before the main event.  I had no idea how many people were actually going to show up and was concerned that it would three people judging 28 beers...but we ended up with 11 or 12 folks to spread the wealth around!  We made sure that Tim judged the historic category since he has won in that category several times and specializes in brewing crazy styles.  After the judging session, some of us organized the Saturday entries into boxes to be taken to the Fest in the morning.  I left around 10 PM, but I guess some folks were there into the wee hours chasing and struggling with a large bat that managed to fly in through the open front door of the brewery!  I wish I hadn't missed that excitement, since I keep thinking of the bat scene from the movie The Great Outdoors and imagining a bat stuck on Tim's face...

Awakening at 5:30 on Saturday morning (yes 5:30 on a Saturday...voluntarily) Sj and I donned our doublets, bodices, codpieces, flasks, leather mugs, swords, etc. and hopped in Steven's truck for the start of a long day.  We arrived at the Fest early, but had to sit in a long line of cars since they don't open the grounds until 8:00.  At least we were near the front of the line and were able to get a good parking spot once they let us in!  The gravel pit next to the Festival grounds has continued its inevitable expansion, its slow crawl now taking over more than half of the old parking area.  Festival workers apparently are having to park some distance away and get bussed in to work nowadays in order to leave more parking for Fest-goers.  The old entry gate for special events has been overshadowed by the burgeoning pit and is mostly out of commission, so we were at a loss as to where to enter the grounds.  Starting at one back entrance, we were then directed to last year's (now quite hidden), and then re-directed back to yet another ingress near the front of the Festival.  Upon arrival there, we discovered that this was only for the Pet-Fest and it took a bit of wrangling to figure out which entrance we were actually supposed to go to.  Eventually we discovered a tiny door near the front, almost completely obscured by shrubbery and flowering plants.  Huzzah!  No one was manning that entrance at the time so we walked through and ended up behind the scenes (not where we belonged) eventually having to spelunk our way into the actual festival grounds.  Always an adventure!  Having been through unusual circumstances with set-up at Fest before (see last year's post) I been prepared for some craziness.  I felt bad for all our other volunteers who probably had no idea it would be this difficult to get onto the grounds!

We're not in Kansas anymore...

Finally finding our tent, we went to work moving around tables and benches to our specifications while Todd Simmons set up his system to do a brewing demo during the judging sessions.  When the beer arrived (Tim had a coveted pass and was able to drive right up to the back entrance behind the tent) Steven went to work chilling down the beers in our large body coolers.  We papered the tables and got all the paperwork organized.  Volunteers started to trickle in and were put to work with further set-up until our judging time arrived.  As usual with Fest, some small things went awry, but nothing we couldn't deal with.

The morning and afternoon judging went without a hitch.  I had a great time talking with some old friends and met some cool new people as well.  A lot of novices got to try their hand at judging and stewarding and seemed to have a rewarding experience as well.  Steven did a great job again this year as Cellarmaster--handling and organizing all the competition beers.  The biggest trouble with the day was the elements.  The heat was oppressive with high humidity, and frequent gusting strong winds would blow sample cups over and set sail to much of our paperwork.  Blowing red quarry dust coated everything, including our sweat-drenched skins.  "No, that's not a nice glistening tan, its only my fine coating of perspiration and Fest-Dust (TM)!"  Interestingly enough I am currently reading a great Joe R. Lansdale book that takes place in the Dust Bowl during the 1930's and this day gave me just a tiny hint at what those folks dealt with.  I kept expecting a big humming plague of locusts to alight on our judging area!  Poor Sj is very heat intolerant (she gets crazy heat-rage) but was quite the trooper though all of this.  I felt worse for all the folks who brought their animals to take part in Pet-Fest!

After we finished judging, Tim had prepared a Post-Fest party for us back at the brewery.  Sj and I were hot, sweaty, filthy and exhausted...but Tim's cooking is something sublime and neither of us were going to miss it!  The brewery is built right up against the cliffs resulting in a natural air conditioning for the place, so we were at least able to cool down our sun toasted brains.  Timmy's Kolsch (Tim's Town Hall beer) was flowing from a keg for our libations and dinner was a stellar spread of Jamaican pulled pork and huge hot dogs from the local meat market.  Something like 20 different condiments, hot sauces and pickled vegetables rounded out the repast.   Tim does nothing by half measures!

Jerky Dog! (hot dog with jerked pork and bonus condiments)

A fair number of people showed up for the party and Tim even had a drawing for prizes.  I won a pound of Saaz hops, so I'd better get cracking on some Pilsners!  Sj and I had to leave a bit early due to an impending catastrophic migraine (thanks heat, beer, sun, beer, and more heat)  but the party went on pretty late that evening even without us.

Tim giving away awesome prizes to his lucky guests

On Sunday the hated alarm again sounded out its call to arms at 5:30 in the morning.  "Why did I volunteer for this again?"  I loudly asked myself, using my Minnesotan passive-aggressive super powers to make my wife suffer with me.  Sj got to stay home due to heat and an incoming cousin visit necessitating some swift home cleaning.  Steven picked me up again we headed for the Fest.  This time we had inherited one of the magical passes that allowed us into the back parking entrance, letting us get in before the crowd of waiting cars.  We hustled over to the tent and started cleanup--a ton of empty cigarette packs and PBR tall boys--from the previous night's Festie Festivities.  This day we had a stumble right off the bat with our flight pull sheets not arriving on time, requiring a bit of a late start, but we still ended up completing our morning flights in time for the afternoon to begin.

The serious business of judging beers!

Once again, our day consisted of tasting beers, with the addition of ciders and meads.  If Saturday was an extremely hot day, then Sunday was its terrifyingly searing older brother.  The temperature topped out at 98 degrees with high humidity, resulting in the lowest attendance I've seen at the Renaissance Festival in my life.  There was no grand parade due to concerns about cast members and their pets passing out from heat stroke.  My friend Hassan was happily Morris Dancing his way around the Fest though--a brave man indeed.  Let me tell you that the privies were not a pretty sight, nor a pretty smell.  I fervently hope that they were checked frequently to pull out the folks who may have passed out from the steaming effluvium.  Even the flies seemed lethargic and lackadaisical.  Poor Joe Lushine was a trooper as our daily demo brewer, generating even more heat with his burner and boiling wort.  Tasting high alcohol sweet meads in this type of environment was difficult to say the least.  The dust was not as extreme as the previous day though.  Small favors.  I will say that the environmental roulette that one plays with scheduling this competition can add to the character of the event and to that of the participants.  Every score sheet will return to its beer's owner coated in sweat, rock dust, dried beer, turkey leg drippings and more.  Take a little Renfest home with you, one and all!  Huzzah!

After the sweltering afternoon round was complete, our Best Of Show round began in earnest.  Mike Hoops and Pete Rifakes from Town Hall, Al Boyce and Jeremy Lawson all got to taste the top beer in each category and try to narrow down the BOS winner.  I was not able to watch this process since I had some beers in this competition and potentially may have had a beer in this final round (fingers crossed.)  One of these top scoring beers will be brewed with Mike Hoops on Town Hall Brewery's system and entered into next year's Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am competition.  This is probably the coolest prize for any homebrewer to win:  getting to brew with one of the best brewers in the country with the chance of winning a medal at the GABF?  Heck yeah!  I thank the folks at Town Hall for offering up this gem of a prize to our competition and also to all of our other sponsors for donating prizes and supplies to it.   A large number of awesome people contributed to making this event happen: MHBA, Jack Of All Brews, organizers, judges from many clubs, stewards, spouses, sponsors, and more.  Thanks to everyone for making this a great and truly unique experience.  Most importantly, we have to thank the Minnesota Renaissance festival for hosting the adventure!   Despite minor mishaps and tropical heat this is hands-down the best homebrew competition I've ever taken part in and wouldn't miss it for the world!

Best Of Show deliberation featuring Jeremy Lawson and Mike Hoops (and the disembodied hands of Pete Rifakes and Al Boyce)

The winners will be announced live at Town Hall on Wednesday night.  The event starts at 5:30 and the ceremony will begin around 6:30.  Good luck to all those who entered beer!