Dominion Cup 2009

The Dominion Cup is the largest homebrewing competition in the state of Virginia and three of us from CAMRA drove down to Richmond to volunteer at the event this year. Jamey, Greg, and I left Charlottesville around 7:00 am the morning of August 28th and arrived at the site of the competition, Capital City Ale House Music Hall (http://www.capitalalehouse.com/), a little after 8:00 am. The Capital City Ale House Music Hall is a large rectangular room with a large cooler in the back, where the competition organizers from the James River Homebrewers (http://www.jrhomebrewers.org/) set up a series of long tables for the judging to take place.

Jamey, Greg, and I each ended up in different roles during the competition. Greg, who won a bronze medal for his German alt beer in this year's National Homebrew Competition, ended up judging IPAs during the morning session and fruit beers in the afternoon session. Greg has been talking about getting BJCP-certified, so this was a great experience for him. Jamey ended up stewarding for both sessions of the competition. A steward assists the judges at his or her table by organizing score sheets, maintaining the beer entry pull list, and generally trying to keep things moving for the judges. As an added bonus, Jamey got to taste some of the entries along with the judges and weigh how he would have scored the beer as compared to the judges' comments.

I got to spend the day performing the duties of cellarman. I had volunteered to steward for both the morning and afternoon sessions of the competition. But, though a volunteer sheet mix-up, I was not scheduled in the morning. The competition director put me to work helping the club's cellarman, Mark, for the morning session. The cellermen of a competition organize how beer is stored and distributed to the stewards and the judging tables. In this case, it meant moving and organizing 732 bottles of beer (366 entries, two bottles each). The cellerman position was surprisingly interesting, as it was a logistical focal point of the competition. We had to make sure the entries were pulled in the correct order for each of the 11 tables, so the judges were working through sub-categories correctly (light alcohol to heavy alcohol, less assertively flavor sub-categories coming first, etc.). We also had to organize the cooler so that we could easily locate the best of show entries for the final session in the afternoon (the best beer in each category was reserved and then provided to the BoS judges late in the afternoon to pick the best beer of the competition). Mark did a great job and I enjoyed myself enough to volunteer to continue to help him into the afternoon. It was a great way to spend the day.

At the end of the day, CAMRA did great (full awards list can be found at http://www.jrhomebrewers.org/dominioncup/DomCupWinners2009.php). Jamey ended up winning more medals than anyone else and took home the Plato Award for best brewer at the competition (total of 25 medal points). Greg won two medals and I won my first ever medal, a bronze for my Hoppy American Amber Ale. Several other CAMRAites won medals, bringing our club total to 15. It was very exciting to see our club get so many accolades. It was also fun to see my brother take home two medals with some of the beer I brought down from his club when we visited Rhode Island earlier this year.

Most of all, I enjoyed spending time with my two friends and talking shop about a hobby we all love so much. I had a chance to meet a bunch of other homebrewers from all around Virginia and hear some of their stories and brewing methods. The experience once again affirmed to me that brewing beer is, above all, a social activity. While we all came together in the spirit of competition, the most enjoyable part of it all was spending a day in each other's company.

Of course, winning a medal never hurts either . . .