{"id":10994,"date":"2015-06-04T17:22:10","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T00:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=10994"},"modified":"2015-06-04T17:22:10","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T00:22:10","slug":"karl-strauss-pro-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2015\/06\/04\/karl-strauss-pro-am\/","title":{"rendered":"Judging Karl Strauss\u2019 Pro-Am Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"proam_02\"<\/a>San Diego\u2019s pro brewers continually cite the county\u2019s homebrewers as a key source of inspiration for creative beer-crafting. And a number of company\u2019s put their mash tuns where their mouth are, holding homebrew competitions that allow winners to brew their recreational standouts on a large scale for sharing them with the masses. Among those interests is Karl Strauss Brewing Company<\/strong><\/a>, which recently invited San Diegans to submit entries for its 2015 Pro-Am Competition.<\/p>\n

\"Brewmaster<\/a>
Brewmaster Paul Segura examines entries from Karl Strauss’ 2015 Pro-Am Competition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fifty-five homebrewers heeded the call, up 17 entries from last year. A group of 11 consisting of members of Uncle Karl\u2019s crew, the San Diego Brewers Guild<\/strong><\/a> and the media (i.e.\u2014Eater San Diego and yours truly) came together to assess the fermented field and figure out which would serve as Karl Strauss\u2019 entry into the Brewers Association<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s annual Pro-Am Competition at this year\u2019s Great American Beer Festival<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

With so many entries, divvying them up was essential to prevent palate fatigue and inebriation. The judges and the beers were separated into three groups. Judges tasted through each of the beers in their group individually, taking notes and ranking them before conferring with the other connoisseurs in their group to come to a consensus on which three brews to advance to the second round of judging.<\/p>\n

\"proam_03\"<\/a>While contestants tackled a wide variety of styles, a large percentage of the beers were hoppy in nature (pale ales; session, single and double IPAs). Yet, only two hop-forward beers\u2014a pair of American pale ales\u2014made it past the first round. A pilsner, altbier, dark mild, saison, smoked porter, wee heavy and British-style strong ale made up the other seven left vying for top honors.<\/p>\n

Though determining best of show at some brewing competitions can be both tough and time-consuming, for the most part, the judges of this contest agreed. One of the American pale ales (brewed by Tim Taylor<\/strong>, who’s placed in the top three the past three years in a row) edged out the other for bronze, while the saison (Jacob and Roy Bauch<\/strong>), which was infused with apricots that synced up nicely with the beer\u2019s Belgian yeast esters, took second place.<\/p>\n

\"proam_01\"<\/a>The beer that garnered gold, a smoked porter brewed with coffee and vanilla called Black Nose from Jim McCaskey<\/strong>, made it into everybody\u2019s top three, earning many a complement for its balance, chocolaty aroma and full-bodied flavor. That beer will be brewed in July at Karl Strauss’ Downtown San Diego brewery-restaurant so that it\u2019s ready for the GABF Pro-Am in August. Additionally, it will also be put on tap at Karl Strauss\u2019 Pacific Beach tasting room and its Downtown San Diego brewery-restaurant so locals can get a taste of McCaskey\u2019s black gold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Diego\u2019s pro brewers continually cite the county\u2019s homebrewers as a key source of inspiration for creative beer-crafting. And a number of company\u2019s put their mash tuns where their mouth are, holding homebrew competitions that allow winners to brew their recreational standouts on a large scale for sharing them with the masses. Among those interests […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[368,287,1],"tags":[1353,1561,376,1559,675,1562,390,391,466,467,1565,1563,79,1558,1566,1439,1560,1564],"class_list":{"0":"post-10994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-beer-news","7":"category-homebrewing","8":"category-san-diego-beer-beverage-news","9":"tag-sdbeer","10":"tag-ba","11":"tag-beer","12":"tag-black-nose","13":"tag-brewers-association","14":"tag-brewers-guild","15":"tag-craft-beer","16":"tag-craftbeer","17":"tag-gabf","18":"tag-great-american-beer-festival","19":"tag-jacob-bauch","20":"tag-jim-mccaskey","21":"tag-karl-strauss","22":"tag-proam","23":"tag-roy-bauch","24":"tag-san-diego","25":"tag-smoked-porter","26":"tag-tim-taylor","27":"entry","28":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-2Rk","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}