Fair Results

Well, out of the 6 beers that I entered in the brewing competition at the Santa Cruz County Fair www.santacruzcountyfair.com/ I only received a decent score on one, that was the Roggenbier.
I was happy the rye beer made it to the 'best of show' judging and eventually came out 2nd of the top three beers but dissapointed that my pale ale, IPA and hefeweizen all score poorly (27, 23, and 26 out of 50) for various reasons that I concur with. My Dry Stout scored well with an overall 35 out of 50 and my ESB did well with a 38 out of 50. I was confident in the ESB as it was the same recipe as previous years that scored well. I barely got the Roggenbier into the competition. It was kegged the night before it had to be submitted and bottled the next day. Fortunately, two weeks in the bottle before being tasted helped.

Pitchable yeast

from a prior brew.

It still had a pronounced banana aroma that I didn't like but the phenolic flavors were large and the rye added an increased spiciness to the flavor. A very quaffable beverage in my opinion. Judge Mark Ristow gave me a score of 44 and said "Damn good beer!"