Rockit Cup Choose Your Own Yeast American Weissbier Recap

A more subdued Rockit Cup this month, with five brewers and eight beers, including newbie Mike Nereng. For the first time ever, I wasn’t the only asshole with more than one version of the Rockit Cup. Thanks, Darren, for making me not look like such a jackass (again) for bringing three different beers. I actually had a fourth version, but it wasn’t bottled in time. Anywho, our participants, and their yeasts: 

Jon Vanderglas: Wyeast 1007 German Ale
John Hoke: Wyeast 3711 French Saison
Darren Link: Wyeast 3942 Belgian Wheat & Wyeast 3462 Forbidden Fruit
Mike Nereng: Safale US-05
myself: Wyeast 1056, WLP 510 Bastogne, & a sour-mashed version using Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus and WLP 510 Bastogne

The lower numbers allowed us to rank all eight beers. And again, an interesting variety of flavors, although the color and mouthfeel was pretty similar in all the different version, with slight varieties here and there. The Top 3 were:

1st: John Hoke with Wyeast 3711
2nd: myself with Wyeast 1056
3rd: Darren Link with Wyeast 3942

My sour-mash Bastogne was hands down the worst beer on the table—I’ll need to try the whole sour-mash thing again to work out the kinks, although the beer I didn’t bring (the other half of the sour-mash batch brewed with ECY19 Brettanomyces custersianus) tasted far better: maybe Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus really are meant for one another. I was also slightly annoyed that I couldn’t pick out 3711; I had it in third place, but not because I could identify the yeast. I had my Wyeast 1056 version in first—it was clean and very drinkable, and as Mike Nereng observed, tasted almost like Budweiser, but better. I had Darren’s Wyeast 3942 in fourth, so not far off there, either. Darren’s 3463 Forbidden Fruit version confirmed my dislike of that yeast: I described it as “sulphur and jank” in my tasting notes. Interestingly, I wasn’t able to identify the straight Bastogne version I brewed, as I picked up an adhesive flavor in the sample I was given that I hadn’t tasted before or since, so hopefully it was just an off bottle or an off night for my palate. Still, a fun experiment all told. Now I need to collect bottles to mail off to Jeff Alworth!

Again, thanks to all who participated! Up next is October’s Brett Trois IPA. Remember to make a good-sized starter for that one!

And Wes & Todd: where did you two disappear to?

(8/9/2013)