Homebrew Blitzed

I used to enter homebrew competitions far more regularly, then kids happened and brewing took a bit of a back seat for a few years. Eventually though, things eased up and brewing become a more regular part of life, getting a proper kegerator definitely helped, as did getting a chest freezer for cold fermentation and then lagering. For the last couple of years I have brewed, on average, once every three weeks - well, the kegerator won't feed itself after all, and getting beer on tap in my own kitchen is freaking awesome.

Admittedly I dipped a toe back into competition world last summer when I submitted a couple of brews to the Dominion Cup, but not knowing that feedback is now online rather than sent in the mail, I have no idea how they fared, other than not getting any gongs. To be honest, I didn't actually know that until Sunday morning when a friend told me that feedback was through the app for Virginia Beer Blitz, which was on Saturday.

I entered three beers in this year's competition, my tmavé, house best bitter, and a dark mild that I brewed back in January to use up some odds and ends of malt I had acquired. I didn't have any expectations of medals, my system is deliberately as basic as humanly possible, and given the advances in homebrew kit and processes in the years since I last regularly entered competitions it is almost like going head to head with near professional brewers. Seriously, some of the gear that you see folks brewing with on Instagram or on YouTube is insane, so really my goal in entering is simply to get decent feedback and for my beers to score at least 30 points from the available 50, which is defined as being "very good, generally within style parameters, some minor flaws".

So how did it go...let's start with the lowest scoring beer, which was my tmavé.

For reference, I wrote about the brewing of this beer, which I call Černý Lev, at the end of last year, even though I didn't brew it until January. I am kind of sad that the keg is almost finished as it has been a thoroughly decent drop, garnering a 30/50 at Virginia Beer Blitz, with both judges noting some oxidation. I am pretty sure that the oxidation character came about because I thought I needed to transfer from its original lagering keg into a new one as I thought there was a CO2 leak in the keg -  it turned out that the gas connector itself was the problem. Ah well, still, not a bad result.

Next up with a score of 31 out of 50 was my house best bitter, which doesn't really have a name, but is based on the beer I designed for Three Notch'd that was known as Session/Bitter 42, originally the former, then the latter.

I will be bluntly honest, I was expecting this one to get panned, simply because I do not use crystal malt in my bitters at all, as in never, ever. I just don't like the caramel sweetness that comes along with crystal malts, and so the only specialty malt in this is Biscuit malt. Unfortunately in the US there is not just a paucity of bitters, whether ordinary, best, or extra special, but of the ones that make it here they are invariably of the brown, caramelly type, and so folks can get confused by something without those flavour notes. I have also pretty much switched to using Endeavour hops, which are a modern English variety, but again expectation of "English" hops here means East Kent Goldings. One judge noted that the beers would benefit from "boosting the caramel", but without caramel malt in the grist, I am not sure what I would be boosting. Both judges did note a slight astringency, which I also picked up when I first tapped it, so I am going to start looking more closely at my well water profile and its mineral content, as well as maybe dropping the mash temperature a touch.

On then to the beer that scored the best, with 32 out of 50 it was a one off dark mild that would be impossible to recreate given the very odd weights of specialty malts, but which, I think, looked gorgeous poured from the kegerator...

There is a large amount of irony, given what I just said about crystal malt, in the fact that this used 5 types of crystal malt, 15, 40, 60, 120, and 260, as well as dose of chocolate wheat. Hence I named this Crystal Conjunction. It's kind if hilarious then that one judge commented that the "absence of balancing caramels and light roast/chocolate impact the overall character". Literally all the specialty malts were crystal or chocolate malts. Obviously mild is not something that is wildly common, heck it might as well as be an endangered species over here, but I have come across a concept many times in the US that a mild is basically an uber session stout - which is simply not true, the range of possibility within mild makes it a beer you can take in so many directions, as borne out by the BJCP guidelines themselves.

As I said, I didn't get any awards for my beer, but it's fun to get the feedback and think about how I could improve my processes, even though I am pretty much guaranteed not to go splurging money on the latest gizmo. My primary reason for making beer is to have something on tap in my kitchen that I enjoy, and that my friends enjoy when they come round, that I have pointers to improve that experience is a good thing then.

Get Your Goat

Goodness me, it has been a while.

This last weekend, Mrs V was up in Washington DC for the annual American Montessori Society conference, she being a Montessori teacher and all that. Thus it was that it was just me and the twins from Thursday night through until Sunday afternoon when she got home.

What to do though with a pair of 8 year old boys with sufficient energy to power a small city, especially on Saturday, as they had school on Friday. Thankfully I got a text during the week from a Welsh friend asking if we fancied taking our combined brood of children for a hike or some kind of adventure, followed by chilling out at a brewery given that the weather was supposed to be glorious. Spoiler alert, it was.

We settled on visiting Luray Caverns, a karst system in the Shenandoah Valley, not too far from Harrisonburg, which is one of the most beautiful cave systems we have ever visited. This was the second time the twins and I had been, but the first for our friends.

Having wandered through the caves, taken in the car and caravan museum, which, thrillingly for this nerd, includes a Morgan three wheeler from the 1920s (I think), and then the Shenandoah Valley Heritage museum, with old houses and interesting displays on the German immigrant communities in the valley, it was time to hit a brewery for some lunch. Said brewery was an hour's drive, through some lovely countryside, having eschewed the hell of I-81, to get to Weyer's Cave and Alpine Goat Brewing.

I had been to Alpine Goat just the once before, when out and about in the Valley promoting my book, "Virginia Cider: A Scrumptious History", and I had a grand time. The owner came and joined us, us being Mark and I, and eventually so too did the relatively recently hired brewer, Jared. They were still working through the previous brewer's batches for the most part, and while decent enough, the star of the show had been one of Jared's own creations. I took a mental note to get back when everything on tap was his, not planning that it would take me more than a year.

To get to Alpine Goat there is a little bouncing along a gravel track, but the views from the brewery and its beer garden over to the Shenandoah National Park are more than worth it. Seriously, if there is a more picturesque brewery in Virginia, I haven't been there yet. Having packed the kids off with a ball, frisbee, and boomerang to snag a table with space for them to play, we went to the bar and naturally I ordered the pilsner, described on the website thus:

"Our German Pilsner showcases the delicate noble hop profile from Tettnanger and Mittelfrüh hops, layered over 100% Bohemian Pilsner malt. Expect a well-balanced bitterness and subtle floral notes, characteristic of the style. With a clean, crisp finish, it's a refreshing choice for any beer enthusiast."

Clearly I didn't take any pictures of the beer, oops. However, the beer lived up to the description, and very nice it was too. Having polished that off while waiting on a food truck lunch, my second pint was the Vienna lager, and again it was a very respectable beer. Thus fed and watered, we spent a very chill couple of hours letting the kids run themselves ragged, they would sleep well that night for sure. Spoiler alert, they did.

Mrs V and I really enjoy heading over the mountains to spend time in the Shenandoah Valley, whether going that way for cider or beer, and in Alpine Goat you can safely say that we have added another location to the list of places to visit. So, if you're ever that neck of the woods, head up the gravel road, park on the grass, and enjoy one of the most charming breweries around right now. Next time I will take better note and maybe even a picture or two...of beer.

Lost Breweries of Egerland

Along the north western edges of modern day Czechia lie the Ore Mountains, known in Czech as Krušné hory, and in German as Erzgebirge. The mountains themselves straddle the border between Czechia and Germany, and as the name makes patently obvious mining was for centuries the primary industry.  It is actually from the town of Jáchymov that we get the word "dollar" as a name for many currencies, though obviously from it's German name Joachimsthal - the silver that was mined here was minted into the standard coin for trade throughout Europe, the Joachimsthaler, which was shortened to just "taler", and eventually became "dollar". For centuries the mountains and their hinterland to the east formed a region known as Egerland, known in Czech as Chebsko.

As early as the 11th century, German speakers were invited to Bohemia to work the mines that generated some of the most industrialised areas of the Austro-Hungarian empire, with glass works, lace making, and textiles also prevalent. Where you have industry you have workers in need of a pint, and so you have breweries to meet that need. All of which brings me to the year 1913, when one "F. Zodel", the business manager of the Eger Chamber of Commerce wrote an article for Der Böhmische Bierbrauer, giving an update on the state of brewing the Eger region. Eger is today called Cheb, and lies almost as far west as you can go in modern Czechia.

In the article, Mr (I assume) Zodel lists the brewing totals for the extant breweries in the region for the 1911/1912 season, though the German word is "kampagne", which sounds so much more workmanlike. The list consists of 37 breweries, all of whom produced over 10,000 hectolitres/8400 barrels of beer that season:

These 37 breweries produced nearly 1.3 million hectolitres/1.1 barrels. Being something of a nerd, I know, shocking, right? I decided to plot the towns these breweries were in, yay for Google Maps!

As you can see, a decent sized local brewery could be found throughout the Ore Mountains in 1913. The red pins are towns where the brewery had closed down the year before the season being reported upon, and the eagle eyed amongst you will probably spot the couple of green pins, those are breweries mentioned in the list that are still operating, Žatecký Pivovar, and Pivovar Chodovar. Unfortunately, Zodel's report doesn't list the 53 other breweries in the area that produced an additional 200,000 hectolitres/167,000 barrels, or the 8 breweries with a production of less than 1000 hectolitres/840 barrels. Imagine that map, with nearly 100 breweries on it. 100 breweries in an area of just short of 1000km2/390 square miles, and between them a production total in the 1911/12 season of 1.5 million hectolitres/1.3 million barrels.

While this all sounds impressive, the 1911/1912 season was 2.3% less than the 1910/1911 season, mainly as a result of 6 breweries closing down, caused apparently by a cold and rainy summer and the impacts on the barley harvest, as well as increased prices for hops. Zodel notes that the breweries in his district were sourcing most of their ingredients from the region itself, making it a truly local beer culture.

However, as Zodel looks to the upcoming brewing season, he strikes a downbeat note, claiming that it "is highly probable that a further significant decline in beer production will occur in the current operating season", citing the ongoing war in the Balkans, a shortage of ready cash, and the rising cost of living, claiming that any "restriction in the lifestyle of the working class and the middle class consequently leads first and foremost to a decrease in beer consumption". Sounds all too familiar really.

While his report doesn't give specifics as to what kinds of beer were being produced in Egerland, Zodel does mention that the cost of a hectolitre of "draft beer (schankbier) or the so-called double beer (Doppelbier)" is about 16 Crowns, though he doesn't mention the price of a half litre of such beer in the pubs.

In modern Czechia, the area we are looking at is mostly part of the Karlovy Vary district, which had as of 2024 a population just under 300,000 people, compared to one of 470,000 in 1910 though it peaked in 1930 at over half a million. The area that today has just a handful of breweries, and as I noted earlier it appears only 2 of the companies mentioned by Mr Zodel in 1913 are still extant, once had a large, local, beer culture. 

Yet, today, in many of the towns and villages of modern Chebsko, I am sure you are more likely to find Gambrinus on tap than you are Chodovar, and I find that deeply sad.

Why No Dry?

Since 2007, I have taken the month of January off the booze. This was before the concept of "Dry January" was even a thing, and I literally chose to take the month off because I felt like shit on New Year's Day and had decided I needed to lose some weight, and so no booze for a while was part of that plan. I actually ended up taking nearly 6 months off the beer, though with the occasional bottle of Frankovka, a Czech red wine, and losing an inordinate amount of weight prior to my first visit to the US that summer.

My month off became an annual tradition, one that I justified as being "the best way to lose the Christmas weight", and so it remained for most of the last 19 years. Most years I did indeed shed the pounds that I had gained by serious indulgence in the festive spirit, and by the end of the month I was eagerly anticipating my first beer of the year. This year I decided to change things.

In 2025 I hit the ripe middle age of 50, even seeing that in black and white looks a bit odd, but here we are. I am 50 years old and as might be reflected in the paucity of posts on Fuggled over the last several years, my drinking is slowing down. I have often said that I am a lousy beer tourist, even in my own area around Charlottesville, Virginia, I am not great at getting to all the breweries and wineries that surround. I have  a few favourite places that do the kind of beers I like, and I see no incentive to go and pay north of $8 a pint for styles I am just not bothered about.

Coming back to turning 50, it was as a result of my annual physical that it became clear that certain lifestyle choices needed to be changed. I need to get healthier in order to get certain numbers more on target than they were in October. To that end, I have already lost about 22lbs/10kg, which brings me back to my justification for taking a month off away from alcohol, it being the best way to lose the festive season weight gain.

I will be blunt and say that I was kind of dreading the holiday period, largely because I find it difficult to say no to many of the treats of the various feasts. I love Christmas cookies, fruit cake, mince pies, and of course I have to have the traditional Terry's Chocolate Orange. The main problem with all this is simple, I am sadly the only one in my household who loves these sweet treats. So every year I would bake a fruit cake, naturally soaking the dried fruit in a strong beer of some description then fed it whisky once a week for all of December, and would end up having to eat it all myself. I would buy a tin of Quality Street and then spend much of Christmas Day and Boxing Day munching through the assorted chocs and toffees, I was a master of gaining the Christmas weight.

That then is the change this year, I was sat pondering the shopping trip to World Market to stock up on the German Christmas treats that transport me back to my childhood in Celle - pfeffernuss, lebkuchen, stollen - when a thought popped into my head. How about just not gaining as much weight over the holidays, and not bothering with Dry January? As I mentioned above, I am down about 22lbs/10kgs since October, but that number was 30lbs/13.6kgs just before Christmas. I knew I would gain some weight as the usual rules went out of the window, but I mitigated that by not making my annual fruit cake, not splurging the cash at World Market to chase my youth, and saying no to a tin of Quality Street.

So no, this year I am not doing Dry January, I am getting back to the setup that has served me well since October, and within a couple of weeks I expect to be back to my pre-Christmas weight, ready to keep on going toward my target. On the flipside of this, I am also not embracing "Tryanuary", I will remain a shitty beer tourist, and my regular haunts will stay as such. 

So, happy 2026 folks!