Houston Homebrewer Wins World’s Biggest Single-Style Brewing Competition
Recipe Will Inspire Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8, Due in September
HOUSTON, May 20, 2009 – Saint Arnold Brewing Co. (www.saintarnold.com), the oldest craft brewery in Texas, today announced that Phillip Kaufman, a member of the Kuykendahl Gran Brewers homebrew club, won the 14th Annual Big Batch Brew Bash. The contest is the biggest single-style brewing competition in the world.
Judges evaluated a total of 90 examples of the Strong Scotch Ale style and selected Kaufman’s Strong Scotch Ale as the best. The Strong Scotch Ale style, also known as Wee Heavy, tends toward sweetness and a full body, with a low hop flavor. According to the Great American Beer Festival style listing:
Color ranges from deep copper to brown. The clean alcohol flavor balances the rich and dominant sweet maltiness in flavor and aroma. A caramel character is often a part of the profile. Dark roasted malt flavors and aroma may be evident at low levels.
As the winning homebrewer, Kaufman will have his recipe brewed as Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8 – the second Strong Scotch Ale in the Divine Reserve series. Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 4, also a Strong Scotch Ale released in early 2007, won a Gold Medal at the 2008 World Beer Cup. Later this fall, Saint Arnold intends to enter Divine Reserve No. 8 in the Pro/Am category at the Great American Beer Festival.
“The overall quality of the beers entered in the Big Batch Brew Bash was excellent and made for a lively discussion among the five final round judges,” said Brock Wagner, founder and brewer of Saint Arnold Brewing who started as a homebrewer in his dorm room at Rice. “It was a tough choice, but in the end, the judges were comfortable with the results.”
Second place went to the homebrewing team of Keith Bradley and Jay McLuvin of the Austin Zealots homebrewing club. Matt Morris from the Horsemen of the Hopocalypse homebrew club in Fort Worth took third.