My goal in this document is to present a ‘Cliff’s Notes’ version of the Judging Mead section of the Mead Study Guide prepared by several members of the BJCP and available at this URL: http://www.bjcp.org/mead/Mead_Study.doc This document is very long and is intended to include all information needed to pass the BJCP Mead certification exam. Every bit of the following discussion is taken from this tome.

Judging mead differs from simply drinking mead as a judge is to compare his/her drink to idealized standards and discuss why it does and does not fit the profile.

March 2, 2010 - Munich Helles

So I really liked a Stoudt's Gold that I bought as part of a mixed case last time I visited my folks in Pennsylvania. This beer is a Munich Helles style lager and is the opposite of a Pilsner, it is malt accented and hops only help balance the malt. It is a somewhat sweet (from pilsner malt) malty light lager. Since I enjoyed the decoction process the week before, I decided to see if I could find some undermodified pilsner malt for a batch. While picking up Dredhop entries in Ft Collins, I found that they had a sack of undermodified bohemian pilsner malt.

February 20, 2010 - Munich Dunkel

On February 20th I brewed a Munich Dunkel using a decoction mash and 100% Munich Malt. This is the first decoction mash I've done since diving into the BJCP study cycle that has caused me to delve much deeper into brewing books.

This recipe consisted of 23lbs of grain, 78% Munich 10l and 22% Munich 25l. I dove into a decoction mash hoping to both maximize the extract from munich malt and get the 'beguiling maltiness" described in Greg Noonan's "New Brewing Lager Beer".

I brewed an American Amber Ale last week and have been too busy with my day job to blog about it till today. I transfered to secondary today and my gravity has dropped from 1.052 to 1.022, I plan to finish slightly below 1.010.

My grain bill

• 18.5 lbs Maris Otter (Crisp)
• 2 lbs Munich Malt - 10l
• 2 lbs Victory Malt
• 1.5 lbs Crystal Malt 40l
• 1 lbs Special Roast

I was going for a more toasty flavor as opposed to a caramel hence the victory and special roast.

Mash
I did a single infusion mash, I was aiming for 154, but over stirred and mashed at 152.

I tapped the 2nd 5 gallon keg of my Southern Brown tonight. It has been conditioning in my fridge at around 45 for a few weeks now.

I primed this keg to reach about 1 CO2 volume, just as I did for the keg I brought to the December meeting. At 45 degrees, there wasn't enough pressure to push it through the tap line so I added a little extra gas. I will not pull this one through the beer engine as I don't think I can consume it in a short amount of time, and would like to have it on tap for a few weeks.