Speaking at the Dixie Cup

Last week at the time this gets published, I (Drew) was flying to Houston for the 40th iteration of the Foam Rangers‘ Dixie Cup. As one of America’s oldest homebrew competitions, they’ve had beer luminaries speaking like Ray Daniels, John Maier, George Fix, John Palmer – not to mention the long history of Fred Eckhardt as semi-official emcee and storyteller.

This year, they had to settle for me. (Event details below)

The Message

Given how “wibbly” everything is in the hobby right now – I wanted to remind people that Homebrewing Matters and it matters for more than (or maybe in spite of) the beer/mead/wine/cider. I won’t go into the whole talk here (I’ll be doing that elsewhere), but here’s the briefest of looks.

• Fermentation is Alchemy – It’s the closest humanity has every gotten to transmutation and it powered the rise of civilization. (See my Zymurgy Live with Julia Skinner about the same)
• Fermentation is An Act of Mental Wellness
  • It’s creative in a way we don’t generally get in our day to day lives
  • It embraces “The Quietude of Puttering”
• Homebrewing is “Defensive Brewing”
  • Commercial breweries – by nature of the need to actually make $$ to stay open – don’t make the wide ranging breadth of styles available to us. I brew because if I want a Mild – it’s on me!
• Homebrewing is Community
  • We need community more than ever these days and brewing provides a perfect thing to talk about.

Renewal

I’ve been deeply in the middle of helping relaunch the American Homebrewers Association as an Independent organization after spinning off from the Brewer’s Association. As of July 7th, the orgs are officially split apart and we, the homebrewers, are the stewards of our fate.

Why is this in the middle of me talking about Why Homebrewing Matters? Because of that wibbliness in the world of brewing – both professional and hobbyist. Self reported drinking habits (the most accurate survey of all!) are lower than in recent past. Breweries are closing at a clip (negative growth for the first time in decades), homebrew shops are closing as well, clubs are struggling, etc.

These are the sorts of time that community was made for. I want to urge you to discover what your community can do differently. What the AHA can do to help and how you can help grow what we do – Again, Because Homebrewing Matters. 

This incredibly silly “waste of time” has enabled me to grow in ways I’d never thought possible. I went from being an arrogant but mostly shy guy to a slightly less arrogant but not shy guy at all. I’ve moved into leadership positions thanks to my experiences leading my club, The Maltose Falcons. I’ve gotten to go around the world to talk to people who are deeply fascinated with improving the health and wellness of the otherwise short and frenetic lifespan of unicellular fungi.

And I’ve made some of the best, most helpful, sometimes frustrating, sometimes cringey, always funny (sometimes unknowingly so) friends that a nerdy kid like me could ever make.

So please help us get programs off the ground to help clubs. Help us bring back HomeBrewCon. Help make your local homebrew community flourish. (And if you don’t want to volunteer, but have an idea – send it in!)

Remember that homebrewing is weird and fun because you’re part of it! (No one else is going to be silly enough to brew a Clam Chowdah Saison!

Back to the Dixie Cup Travelogue

Thus concludes the message part of the program – on to the silliness of the Dixie Cup!

I said above that this is the 40th iteration of the Dixie Cup, which started in 1983. It doesn’t take a math whiz to realize that 1983 was more than 40 years ago! So what happened? The same thing that is still happening right now. COVID and other challenges threw things for a loop and stopped the whole proceedings. As we know, once you’ve stopped a great big spinning wheel of tradition, it’s a Herculean task to get over the inertial hump.

After a two year hiatus, the Foam Rangers, with much poking and prodding from Dixie Cup Coordinator Paul Porter, returned to an unsuspecting hotel conference center. They spent multiple weeks getting their entries judged and so when the day of rolled around – there was a very light workload – which was good because my Friday was hectic.

Day 1: The Crawl

Under the care of longtime homebrewer and former owner of DeFalcos, Scott Birdwell – I went from Hobby (home of SouthWest) and traipsed all over Houston. The absolute mandatory stop was Saint Arnolds, because of course.

We went by Farmboy Brew Shop and said hello to the crew there – including longtime brewer and maker of merriment – Michael “Mufasa” Ferguson. I miss that man being around Los Angeles!

Scott introduced me to the “sport” of Feather Bowling at New Magnolia Brewing where we were treated to several lovely pre-prohibition style of beers that were quite the thirst quencher on a hot and humid Houston afternoon. I love a stout, but when it’s 95°F and 95% humidity, a light lager is a much better mood lifter. (Particularly liked that Magnolia Grand Select – a pre-prohibition beer recreated from an original Magnolia Brewing recipe – “Southern Select/Grand Prize”)

And after much running around, Scott took me to one last strange place – a graduate bar at his alma mater – Rice University. Cheap beer, “terrible serivce”, volunteer bartenders, cut up PhD ties, sketchy bathrooms and stickier floors and your only sign it’s there, might get you into trouble in other parts of the world.

Day 2: Barleywines, Judging, and “Speaking”

In days of yore, when knights were bold and we were all much sillier – the Dixie Cup included a mirthful shirt slogan along the lines of “We drink more barleywine before 9AM than you do all day”. But thankfully as busy bees circled around the hotel conference area – setting up bars, trucking out masses of raffle prizes, the barleywine crew changed their Barleywine “Breakfast” into more of a Barleywine Brunch. Never forget to praise the hardworking “core” crew of people doing the work while others sit around!

Note: the Barleywine Brunch was possible due to the massive judging done prior to the event –  leaving just the speciality category to be inflicted on me and a Best of Show panel. Also – there’s still a judging shortage that required a lot of judging from a small group of overworked panelists over those weeks. If You Like Competitions – Please Judge!

The bar was set with a wonderful selection of local craft beers (also love that it’s made of brewery piping and clamps), ice chests full of other cans of craft beer.

Scott (a BJCP Grand Master Rank something or other), myself, and a few others were given the hard work of fighting to see who would win the overall competition. And I swear I didn’t sway this – it was universally either 1 or 2 in the judges votes – but the winner was an American Cream Ale brewed by Rick Chainani. It was lovely – as were the other beverages that got removed or ranked lower for quibbly hairs of the finest nits to be picked.

Before the results were to be announced, Scott gave a presentation on the history of homebrewing that covered how things got started and then eventually legalized.

And recounting of much of the early goofery around the AHA, the BJCP and others. I’m shocked at the number of faces I recognize in this photo even though it’s well before my time!

And then all that stuff I led this post with got spewed. And despite the thoughts of some in the crowd – neither Scott nor I planned for our talks to flow in terms of “the past” and “the future”!

After that, awards were presented and medals handed out with The Bay Area Mashtronauts winning the actual Dixie Cup. Then the serious beer drinking business got to doing. The party wrapped up sometime stupidly late with lots of “I love you, man!” and jokes. In other words, some of the best things from homebrewers.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

The next day, Sunday, I returned to Hobby to fly back to Los Angeles, but first one last stop to one of America’s great outsider/folk art installation – the Beer Can House.

It’s the sort of art project that takes an incredibly patient or bought in spouse/partner and it was a fun little tour. And in a looping of Dixie Cup history – the house is maintained by “The Orange Show“, which was the first public venue for the Dixie Cup in its second year!

Final Thoughts

I’m grateful to the Foam Rangers for getting me out for the Dixie Cup (and Denny and I will gladly speak to y’all as well – just ask!).

The Dixie Cup is one of those pieces of homebrew history – it’s a little nostalgic, a little off the rails and a little silly. I hope that they continue their return to keeping the party going and that people keep finding the joy in feeding fungi enough sugar that they make the sugar rush of a four year old’s birthday party seem “tame”.

And remember that the joy of homebrewing isn’t just found in semi-organized party in a hotel conference center – it’s found every time you break out a pot to brew, every time you break out a bottle to share – every time you get that feeling of “I made this!”