Economy Size Geek

I participated in my first homebrew competition as a judge! It was the 3rd Annual Austin ZEALOTS Homebrew Inquisition. THey had over 200 entries. I was a judge in the Strong Beer/Big & Boozy category.
The picture is of me about half way through the process. The guy next to me is Chris Colby - the Editor of BYO (Brew Your Own Magazine).
All in all a very good experience. People were nice, and it was also great to get to try the home brew efforts of so many other brewers. Even though this was a very informal event, I got a much much better idea of how a beer in competition is judged. I think I need to spend some more time on my vocabulary when it comes to describing the flavor and aroma of a beer, but I did pretty well at capturing the problems with some of the beers (probably because I’ve a lot of mistakes myself). One beer that really threw me a curve was a spruce tip strong ale which I could have sworn tasted like raspberry (Sorry Joe!).
Now I just have to carve some time out to brew more - who know maybe I’ll be ready to enter a contest in the next year.