The Stainless Brewer Contest

(or—the Iron Chef gets drunk!)

In the spirit of the Iron Chef cooking contest, the MHBA will hold a "Stainless Brewer" contest in conjunction with Big Brew Day, Saturday, May 6^th at Rick Oftel’s house. For those who aren’t familiar with the Iron Chef contest, contestants make a recipe of their design that must include a mystery ingredient that is revealed at the last moment.

At the Big Brew meeting on Saturday, May 6^th, teams will receive identical brewing kits that contain a variety of ingredients. You may bring your own water and water treatment, and you may select yeast before or after the fact, but the rest of the ingredients are set and unknown until the event. Teams may use as much of an ingredient as they see fit. The goal is to brew the tastiest beer using only those ingredients that are provided for the team. Once the ingredients are revealed, teams will declare to the contest organizer which style they are attempting to replicate. Beers are brewed to be evaluated and enjoyed at a future meeting.

Before May 6^th, you may form a team of two to four persons and select a team name (please make them fun!). Please send that information to me (John Longballa) at jlongballa@newspiritschool.org. If you don’t have a team, please send me your name and I will help you find a team. The team entry fee is $20 to cover the cost of ingredients. Please also let me know if you will be brewing extract with steeping grains or all-grain.

At the Big Brew event, besides brewing the national recipe, teams will finally get their ingredient package. After discussion with your team, you will secretly declare which style you hope to brew. You may use whatever in the kit suits your needs. Water and yeast are up to the team, and since Midwest isn’t far from Rick’s, you could make the decision after inventing your recipe. Please make sure to send me your team name and members!

Please consider forming a team and giving this a try! It should turn out to be a most interesting challenge, and there’s sure to be a wonderful prize for the STAINLESS BREWER! Thanks.