Last Saturday evening, March 25th, 2017, Silvia and I were completely dumbfounded at the Bluebonnet Brew-Off awards ceremony. After watching many happy brewers stroll to the stage to collect ribbons and Steins in other categories which we had entered, we hear our beer name, Thistle Dew, crackle out of the public address system.
I knew it was our beer. While the director was calling my name, the disbelief hit hard. I was already four steps toward the stage when I turned back to make sure that Silvia made the trek with me. It was awesome to see and hear our table full of friend erupt in congratulatory cheers.
As I posted earlier, at bottling time, some of our beers were still too young and I wasn’t very confident about how they were stand up to judges’ scrutiny. Our Scotish Ale was especially worrisome. We had altered the recipe for this competition in an effort to dial back the alcohol percentage and bring the beer more in line with the style guidelines. I guess it aged enough between when the bottle was capped and the judges quaffed as we landed a stein from a field of 24.
Ag Alewerks 