Words & Photos Brian Conway
THERE’S THE BEST & THEN THERE’S THE
BEST OF THE BEST At TRASH XXVII, the most recent installment of the Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers annual homebrew competition, the enviable, yet difficult, task of determining which gold medalwinning beer is first among equals falls to a panel of five judges. It helps to have the highest-rated home beer judge on the planet around to help with deliberations. Founded in 1987, TRASH has grown leaps and bounds from the early years when a couple dozen friends would gather at Chiodo’s Tavern in Homestead. This year’s competition had 300 entries from 120 different brewers, including many from Ohio, West Virginia, and some as far away as Connecticut. Entries sold out in about an hour.
CraftPittsburgh | issue 31
Notable TRASH alumni include Andy Kwiatkowski, head brewer at Hitchhiker Brewing Co., and Chris Brunetti, owner of Oakdale’s Helicon Brewing, site of TRASH XXVII.
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“It’s been an amazing experience to have everybody out at my place,” he says. “All of my friends are in the homebrew club.” Brunetti joined TRASH about 10 years ago after homebrewing on his own for five. A longtime software engineer, he left his “cushy corporate job” to open Helicon last November. Brunetti never did take top honors during his homebrew years, but he did take home a couple of style awards, including a gold for his oatmeal stout, but he’s more proud of a silver he took.
“Winning gold out of 9 or 10 entrants isn’t as exciting as winning a silver for American IPA out of 42 entrants,” he explains. This year’s competition featured submissions in 29 different categories, 27 for beer and two for ciders. The most popular category was American Pale Ale, with 19 separate entries, while niche styles like smoked beer and Trappist ale attracted a half-dozen apiece. Chris Marasti-Georg, TRASH vice-president, says that over the years he has seen the number of entries for particular styles mirror craft beer trends as a whole. “We’re seeing a lot more experimental entries, sours and American Wilds,” he says. A gold, silver, and bronze medal is awarded in each category. Each gold medal winner (except for the ciders) make it to the final table to determine the overall Best of Show. Each beer is judged in five areas: aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression. But not all attributes are given equal measure: 40 percent of a beer’s score comes from flavor; just 6 percent for appearance. This year’s judges included Brunetti, Helicon brewer Andy Weigel, former TRASH president Jack Smith, Trade Brewer for Tenth and Blake Beer Company Brian Reed, and Gordon Strong, president of the Beer Judge Certification Program and a Grand Master of the 10th degree. Strong literally wrote the book on homebrewing: it’s called Brewing Better Beer: Master Lessons for Advanced Homebrewers. He also took top prize at the National Homebrew Competition three years in a row, from 2008-2010. A few weeks before traveling to Pittsburgh, Strong was judging a homebrew competition in New Zealand. He’ll soon head to one in Uruguay.