The Hops & Habanas 1st Annual Homebrew Competition was a great success. The food and atmosphere were great. They really know how to host. Big thanks to Rick at Hops & Habanas for hosting this. Please stop by his shop for some great beer and tell them how much you appreciate them.

There were 23 beers entered in the competition from about 10 different brewers. HBAMM had 11 entries from 6 different brewers. I am extremely proud of our group for winning every single judged category.

Our winners were:

Scott Baughman with Muddy Water Milk Stout

Nathan Harms with Linda Gose To Mars - Misc

Luke Mullins with Choo Choo Weizen

Daniel Lack with 1st Place IPA

Brad Lovejoy with Squealgood Pale Ale

Contentment Brews out of Grenada brought 8 incredible beers. Randy Louden and his partner brew a lot of high gravity Belgian ales that are fantastic. They are brewing 30 gallon batches on a conical fermentor cranking out some damn good beer.

Luckytown Brewing from Gluckstadt had 3 beers including the People's Choice Award winning Lizard Tail IPA. This is an extremely flavorful IPA that is kind on the finish. No hop resin soaked tongue after drinking this session-able ale.

A guy we met named Larry had a couple of interesting beers. He had a really nice strawberry ale that had a tremendous amount of strawberry flavor. He also had an 18% barleywine fermented using turbo yeast.

We also met Randy Graves who brewed a fantastic Kaluha Stout. I'd like to brew that one but he is tight lipped about his recipe.

This was a great opportunity to connect with other local brewers. We made some new friends, reconnected with some guys we had previously met and started making plans for future events.

Momentum is building in the MS craft beer/homebrew scene and we are looking forward to some great things to come.