Our club had its annual Iron Brewer competition last Saturday. In case you’ve never seen Iron Chef, the TV show that inspired the event, teams of brewers arrive at the brewing location, set up their equipment and are given secret ingredients to use in a batch of beer which they have 5 hours to brew. The ingredients don’t have to dominate the beer, but they do have to make a noticeable contribution to the beer. We had six teams of 2 brewers this year. Each team was given a selection of crystal malts (20, 60, and Special B) and a quart of pomegranate juice to use. I always like to throw in a diabolical twist during the brewing process. In the past, it’s been as evil as confiscating each team’s specialty malts and redistributing them to other teams, but this year I wanted to take it easy on them. A couple hours into brewing, each team was given a bomber of St. Denny Dubbel, a gluten free beer from Harvester brewing in Portland OR (http://www.harvesterbrewing.com/our-beer) and told they had to drink it while brewing. Yeah, not too diabolical. There were some great great sounding beers brewed and I’m happy to report that everyone completed their brew in the required time. In early September we’ll have a club party and the beers will be judged by “celebrity” judges on the criteria of flavor, lack of flaws, and use of special ingredients.

More photos at http://s794.photobucket.com/user/dennyconn/library/IB%202013