Beer Forum

I found out today that there's a local homebrew comp and the winning beer and brewer will be selected to join a local brewery in brewing the winning recipe for a pro-am competition. At first I was excited, but I quickly realized that I don't really have any recipes of my own and if I won, I'd feel wierd about brewing a beer for the pro-am without giving credit where credit is due. For instance, I'm really proud of the way Tasty's Janet's Brown Ale turns out when I brew it. But, I'm not sure if I'd feel comfortable entering it into a comp like this. Am I being overly "brewer's code-ish" or is there a way to handle this? Thoughts?

Think of it this way: Tasty won the biggest pro-am in the country (Sam Adams Longshot) brewing a slight variation on Vinny's classic Pliny recipe. I don't imagine he felt guilty. You shouldn't feel bad if you win a pro-am using his recipe.

If you feel like you have to, change or add an ingredient, like Tasty did by upping the gravity and adding the Northern Brewer to his Pliny clone. One thing I did when brewing Janet's a while back was to replace the chocolate with chocolate rye, half of the 2-row with rye malt, and the cascade with simcoe. You can take an existing recipe and really make it your own by tweaking it.

A couple years ago 6 different people sent me bottles of beer all made from my Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Amber recipe. These were 6 distinctly different beers with only one anywhere close to my version. Differences in your equipment, water, source of ingredients, process and any of a number of other reasons (often out of your control) make any beer from someone else's recipe a different beer of the same general style. The CYBI guys are extremely skilled and experienced brewers and even they don't always hit a clone. When they do, this is with a lot of information gotten directly from the original brewer.

Go ahead and brew your own version of whatever recipe and submit it as your own. You might give the originator credit for coming up with the recipe, but it is your own beer.

Wayne

I share my recipes so that others might enjoy success in brewing them. If you were to win BOS with a beer based on my recipe or anyone else’s that would be an indicator of your brewing skills much more than the recipe. A pro-am is a celebration of your victory and the pro’s willingness to collaborate, not the recipe. No one should ever feel obligated to give me any credit for a recipe. There are tons of similar and many better recipes. My success in competitions, participation in the homebrew world, and being on the BN has just made mine more visible.

So brew that JBA up and win that comp, all that matters is that Janet will know how you were inspired.

Tasty

Well, I guess that settles it. Gonna enter JBA and several other beers I've brewed from BCS. If I win, I'll be sure to give Tasty or Jamil/Palmer a shout out for sure. Thanks for the replies everyone.

Also, on a side note, I get a little like a giddy school girl whenever one of the BN celebrities like Tasty, Sully, Colin, etc. respond to my posts.

Cheers!

keelanfish wrote:Also, on a side note, I get a little like a giddy school girl whenever one of the BN celebrities like Tasty, Sully, Colin, etc. respond to my posts.

There are far more bigger deals in homebrewing posting on this forum that me. I just happen to live close to the BN studios and I'm willing to go there 14 hours a month. AJ, Spider, Bug, etc. They are the rock stars.

Tasty

TastyMcD wrote:So brew that JBA up and win that comp, all that matters is that Janet will know how you were inspired.

Tasty

This sentence has left me with a tear in my eye.

Tasty, I agree with the rest of your sentiments re: winning the comp. It's a brewing comp, not a recipe comp. If you win and you and the commercial brewer do a JBA for GABF, that comp will then be a test of you and the commercial brewer scaling up a recipe and brewing it on a larger scale.

keelanfish wrote:Gonna enter JBA and several other beers I've brewed from BCS. If I win, I'll be sure to give Tasty or Jamil/Palmer a shout out for sure.

If you win with the JBA and feel like thanking Tasty and honoring Janet, might think of kicking a few bucks this way..
http://www.lls.org/