Front Row Grunt lager!! Can you Adam and Eve it?
As all 3 regular Grunt readers would know, a few of us blogger/media types were given a brewing kit and asked to produce a beer that was judged by the main okes at SAB and this year’s Cape Town Festival of Beer which takes place at Hammies rugby club this weekend …
And the Grunt lager was judged “Best of the Worst” …
We will take that … Since last reporting on this riveting subject, we bottled our beer, primed it with Carbonation Drops, stored it in a warm place for 7 days then moved it to a cool, dark place to mature, and after 2 weeks Tank took a few bottles to a mate’s 40th to test it.
No one died, which was a good sign, and to be honest, it is pretty drinkable. But award winning?
Well, on Tuesday we gathered at SAB’s Newlands pub to be judged! And as reported by Jordan Scott, the judging panel of Kyle who is the captain of the UCT brewing team, which won the intervarsity brewing championship, Ryno Reyneke, who is a home brewer and is from BruHouse, Martin Tucker who is a beer merchant with Keg King and a partner in the Cape Town Festival of Beer and, finally, Denis da Silva who is the trade brewer of SAB, started tasting. Thankfully, the gentlemen weren’t too harsh on the bloggers and as Martin said: “The bloggers weren’t judged on what they were supposed to do, but on what they did.”
The judging was based on the flavour, aroma, appearance, mouth feel and overall impression of the beers. Seeing these men at work was something to behold and although I didn’t understand the terminology I definitely know more about beer than any lady ought to. I thought a beer was a beer was a beer, but, apparently, is can smell like vanilla, bananas or even biltong spice; it can be sweet or sour or both and can even be too carbonated.
The winner of the actual brewing competition was Tank Lanning with his beer “Front Row Grunt Lager”, which the judges deemed the best of the worst and the winner of the design competition was Moustache Mermaid created by Dan Nash and Natalie Roos.
It was an awesome evening and a big thank you to Newlands brewery for the venue (and the beer), to the judges and to Dan Nash for wrangling up the 10 bloggers. Not only was it an awesome evening, but an awesome few weeks for all.
You’ve got 3 likes, so that at least proves there are 3 regular readers. 🙂 Well done on the win! And keep up the good work with the blog – always an informative read with some good rugby insights.
Thank you!!
Well done Tank.
Any idea what your beer’s alcohol % was?
Have tried a few home brews over the years, but the most potent was pineapple beer from a pineapple farm on the outskirts of Bathurst (Eastern Cape).