The 10th Annual Bluebonnet Brewoff
Dale H. Leschnitzer

I had the pleasure of attending the 10th annual Bluebonnet Brewoff in late
March of this year. The Brewoff is held in the Holiday Inn, DFW South,
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas each year. It is hosted by four local homebrew
clubs (Fort Worth's Cowtown Cappers and Dallas' North Texas Homebrewers are
two) that put aside their rivalries for a weekend. The Brewoff is the
largest regional homebrew competition in the world. This year they had a
whopping 825+ entries from all over the country! There were at least 200
people present.

The first evening's event was a dinner and several speeches. Local
microbreweries provided kegs of their brew to sample. Homebrew was
abundant. There were several talks on homebrew clubs and judging. Karen
Barela, president of the AHA, spoke on the new efforts to change regional
homebrewing laws and beer laws in general. Later that evening there was a
formal tasting. One had the opportunity to sample specific styles or the
local craft brews. I had to settle for the Belgian Ales. Life is hard....

The next day featured a panel of local craft brewers from the region
including the new Bosque Brewery in Waco, Texas (my old stomping
grounds...where were they when I needed them?) and Pierre Celis from Celis
Brewery (the star of the Brewoff). The panel spoke of laws and techniques.
But most interestingly, they spoke of the effect the craft breweries are
having on the big brewing conglomerates. Anheiser-Busch sales are actually
down, slightly. Currently, craft breweries are taking in a whopping 1% of
all beer sales. That may not seem like a lot, but the beer market is a
multibillion dollar arena. Current projections show that craft beers may
make up 2% of all beer sales in the USA. Television commercials, like
Miller's "Beer made from the heart of the hops" (one panelist asked what
were they using previously, the kidney of the hops?) show that the big beer
companies are worried about the craft breweries. Go get 'em!

The judging followed. All AHA recognized styles were present (including
several, like Sake, which have been dropped by the AHA). Many beers had
already been through a first round. Tension was high. And many of the beers
were outstanding!

Later came the Pub Crawl. Three Greyhound busses took homebrewers to local
brewpubs in the Dallas area. Of course, a keg of craft brew was on each bus
for those long journeys. Bosque Brewery provided us with a keg of their
Honey Lager direct from the silver buckle of the Texas Bible belt. My bus
hit four pubs: The Gingerman, with over 60 beers on tap and twice that in
bottles; The Hoffbrau Brewery and Steakhouse, where we tried the mellow
wheat and the robust bock; The Tipperary Inn, an authentic Irish Pub; and
the Hub Cap where the Downtown Brown flowed effortlessly.

The awards ceremony feature 100+ door prizes including everything from tee
shirts to an oak keg from the Chimay Brewery in Belgium. Handmade steins
were awarded to the winners in each category. Best Extract and All-grains
were awarded. It was a festive occasion.

The Bluebonnet Brewoff is held on the last weekend of March, each year.
Entries are encouraged from anyone. Anyone that wishes can attend. Look for
information about the 1997 event in upcoming issues of Zymurgy.