I’ve never entered any of my beers in any competition or subjected any of them to be professionally judged in any way…until this. Beer Connoisseur Magazine invited us to submit a beer for review. My philosophy is I’m not making beer for other brewers, and I’m not chasing clout. I’m the only brewery in the county, I make beer for a population of a few thousand people and I need to make beer that THEY like. But I thought what the hell, it’s free other than the shipping. I only had a few beers left in stock in cans and the most popular two I had were my White Pine Belgian Witbier and my August Skies Hazy IPA. Around here the White Pine is always a local faveorite. It’s real heavy on the orange peel so it’s very popular in the summer, and hazy IPAs are always a solid choice, but I figured they must get so many damn hazys Im gonna send them the White Pine. I thought, if they don’t like its not like I have to tell anybody about it lol But I was very pleased with the response. It even made my wife cry (albeit she’s 6 months pregnant so she cries a lot) seeing our name in the magazine that just showed up today with the list of “Top 100 Rated Beers in 2025”. There we were sitting at #53. With a score of 90/100. It was a nice jolt of positive reinforcement in an otherwise cold, muddy, and tight pursed time of year. Have any of you ever submitted anything for judging? If so, how did it feel?

Never seen them before, but was treated to a nice light show as I walked out of my front door on the way to the brewery to start carbonating a new beer I’m working on. One of the perks of having a business in the country. I like to start carbonating slow either at night or in the morning and let it slowly trickle in over a 12 to 24 hour period. Test it then hit with another 6-12 hours usually if it’s a little under. I bought an expensive tester once but I found that nothing is more accurate than just pulling a sample and testing with your mouth, a full pint at a time!