2019 Dates:
Judging February 8 – March 17
Event March 22 – 23
A note from the 2019 Bluebonnet Director, James “Smitty” Smith
Welcome to the 33rd Annual Bluebonnet Brew-Off! It seems like yesterday, we were handing out awards for #32. Now, here we are back at it for one more round. There is a lot of excitement building with your 2019 Bluebonnet Committee, who are now in full swing working to bring you another great competition and event. For 2019, we will remain at the Sheraton DFW Airport Hotel, just as we have the last two years. Be sure to check the Conference Info/Hotel Info for the special rate code to be posted soon. Below are a few highlights for what to expect.
On the competition side, we are working from an approach of splitting judging sites into 2-3 locations. We do plan to continue our relationship with Makerspace in Farmers Branch for the Dallas judges, while offering another site closer to the mid-cities and Fort Worth. An additional site may be in the works as well. We hope this will offer many of you options for where and when you can judge, resulting an more and more reliable turnout. Judging almost 1,500 entries is quite a logistical undertaking in itself, and we can not do it well without judges of all experience levels participating in the process. Stay tuned for more details!
For the 2019 Hop Showcase, we have again received an allotment of hops from Yakima Chief. This year is a bit different in two ways. First, we received a relatively new product called Cryo Hops. Although most have probably heard of them, it is likely many of you have not yet brewed with them. What are they? Simply put, they are the lupulin glands separated from the leaf through a liquid nitrogen process. They offer a much higher alpha acid concentration, while also lessening to a great extent the hop debris. Secondly, two sub-categories will be judged for the hop showcase: 1) single hop, any style, and 2) American Pale Ale. Much more detail can be found on the Hop Showcase page HERE.
Moving on to the conference weekend, as in previous years, there will be the popular pub crawls, tech talks, brewer’s roundtable, and cigar clinic. Additionally, having received positive feedback the last couple of years regarding splitting the commercial and homebrew tastings between the two nights, we will continue with that format this year. The Commercial Tasting, featuring breweries local and nationally, will occur Friday night after the keynote. The Homebrewer’s Showcase will occur immediately following the awards ceremony on Saturday night. Whether you are with a club or independent, anyone is invited to serve their beer(s) at the Homebrewer’s Showcase. More information can be found HERE.
This year’s guest speaker will be Peter Bouckaert from Purpose Brewing and Cellers. Peter, co-author of Wood & Beer (Brewers Publications, 2016) relocated to the U.S. in 1996 to become New Belgium Brewing Company’s brewmaster in Ft. Collins, Colo. Bouckaert had previously brewed for a decade at Brewery Rodenbach. When Peter joined New Belgium, the company’s portfolio included five Belgian-inspired beers. We are thrilled to have Peter share with us his philosophy on beer and techniques on brewing with wood.
We will again offer the Saturday lunch and beer pairing this year. Overall, the Sheraton’s excellent chef and her staff has helped to make this a great success, and our goal is to make it even better for 2019. Two breweries will be featured: Celis Brewery and Lakewood. The popularity of this has been through the roof, so remember to purchase tickets early as they will almost certainly sell out fast.
The “Big Thirsty”, going throughout the weekend, will as usual be serving various brews, but this time in TWO areas this year. As usual, the familiar but recently remodeled Tap Room location will serve up delicious brews, while the Grand Atrium will also have a biergarten set up while you get registered and peruse the vendor booths. Check out http://www.bigthirsty.net/ during the weekend to see what is on tap.
Finally, I am very much looking forward to being your “Master of Ceremonies” at the 33rd Bluebonnet. Please feel free to come introduce yourself and offer me words of encouragement. Also, I want to acknowledge the hard work and dedication every committee member has to helping bring you an exceptional competition and conference weekend. There are a lot of moving parts with people helping to make those parts move as smoothly as possible. There are always hiccups, but these folks work their butts off to ensure they are few and far between. Having said that, we can always use more help in every area. If you are interested in volunteering a little bit of your time to making Bluebonnet Brew-Off 2019 a success, send me an email at director@bluebonnetbrewoff.org.
Cheers!
James Smith
“Smitty”
director@bluebonnetbrewoff.org