Judgment Day(s)

I started this weekend with a terrible lapse in judgment: I drove a car. I was on my way to judge beer at the Kansas City Bier Meister's 30th annual homebrew competition, and by the time I got out of work, it was still possible to get there by bike but I'd have been pushing it time-wise.



Judging was scheduled to start at 7:00 with food at 6:00 before it, registration of judges starting at 5:00. I didn't need to get there by 5:00, but pedaling there it looked like I'd get there right at 7:00, no time to eat whatever dinner might be left at that point.

Not that a shortage of food is generally the issue at Bier Meisters events. The only place I've ever seen equal attention paid to great quantities of excellent food, served frequently, is in The Hobbit. And that's even if you don't (as most of us do) consider beer to be food.

I used the GPS app on my phone because while I knew generally where I was going, I didn't know exactly where the CWA Union Hall on Universal was.



I guess the GPS was my second mistake, Tom-Tom turns out to know fuck-all about getting to the CWA hall, too.



Driving across on Front I saw the street sign for Universal and turned right. This was, as it happens, exactly what I should have done, but as I started to look for addresses on buildings to se if I was getting warmer or colder, TelNav started freaking out and telling me to turn around. I did, and when I got back to front street, it told me to go forward 160 feet and turn left. Which is to say it told me to drive into a ditch, because 160 feet forward and you're on a divided road with a big drainage trench or creek doing down the middle of it. And what's on the other side of the street there is definitely not the CWA Union Hall.



The building on the right side at that corner had an address of 6501 Universal, so based on that where I was going was...Taco Bell. I looked past the Taco Bell, eventually driving the length of Universal from where it terminates on Cambridge Ave to it's other end, Executive Dr. I asked a hotel clerk on Cambridge, who had no idea. I finally asked a QuikTrip clerk who pulled up another map on her cell phone and sent me to look across the street from the Taco Bell.



Sure enough, it was across the street from the Taco Bell, an odd numbered address on the opposite side of the street from 6501, the odd numbered address on the other side of Front Street. Never seen that trick before. Someone should send a memo out that odd numbers and even numbers are supposed to be different sides of the street, it's kinda standard.



The CWA's building is set back from the road and their sign isn't very well lit, but I would have spotted it, I'm pretty sure, from a bike. You see so much more in the saddle, between moving slower and looking around for menaces like SUVs.



As luck would have it, they were late getting started judging, because it was 6:55 when I finally walked in. There was still plenty of food courtesy of Local Pig, excellent. I've never tried their ground beef before, it seemed a bit of a premium price for that. But I have to say, the burgers on hand Friday night had exceptional flavor, so I may have to revisit that decision next time I'm down in the East Bottoms.



I love judging beer, and I've only gotten to do it this once-a-year way for a long time now. Good news, though, this weekend I found out that we got NHC first rounds back, which I've missed terribly the past few years. My life is heading towards a place where I can probably start travelling to judge again, something I was just starting to do when I became a father and re-prioritized my life a bit.



It was hard to judge this weekend because my nose has been so raw for so long from a series of colds going back almost two months. The cold symptoms have quit, but my nostrils still sting when air hits them and I'm not convinced I smell things fully. I was pleasantly surprised to find my scores generally within five points of the other panelists through the whole weekend, generally having identified the same aromatic flaws and virtues as the other judges, even DMS (that cooked corn smell you probably associate with a Rolling Rock)—normally an aroma I have trouble smelling. I still begged off when invited to judge Best of Show, something I would normally jump at the chance to do—I knew there were at least a half dozen judges in the room as qualified or more than me who weren't struggling to allow air into their nostrils.



This year they asked us what categories we'd prefer to judge, but not which ones we'd rather not. I'd always put the lagers on my 'not' list in the past because I don't drink as many of them and especially the American light ones aren't that interesting to me. So I drew Light Lagers on Friday evening and European Amber Lagers on Saturday afternoon. I did get Belgian Strong ales on Saturday morning, but I was kind of dreading two flights of lagers with a questionable sniffer.



One thing about those lager categories, they aren't really where the beginners go to brew. To do them right, you have to have good temperature control, which is well outside the equipment a beginner buys to get started brewing. So while I can't get too worked up about drinking these beers, it was interesting to judge. They are hard styles, with nothing to hide any sin, and of the eight or nine light lagers on Friday night I think only one of them scored less than a 30.



Friday night, as I was leaving, Nueva said, 'You're not riding home in this, right?' Sadly, no, I answered. She made some comment about how it was snowing, which was true, but it was a perfectly rideable amount of snow and I was truly regretting taking the xB instead of riding Minnie Pearl.



Saturday morning, I made no such mistake. It had gotten down to 20ºF by the time I rode out, but I've got my kit for that temperature down pretty good at this point, light base layer, the sleeves of my cycling jacket (they zip off along with the shoulder part so you don't have to have your body covered to shield your arms from the wind), then my Chiefs turtleneck. I cover all that with a Hawaiian shirt, mainly for form and so I have something to wear once I get where I'm going. Oh, and long johns, that's a pretty important one once you get below freezing.



Later in the day, after the judging sessions, chatting with a fellow judge he realized I was the one who'd ridden the bike in the hallway. In his words, "So you're the psycho."



This from a runner. Someone who tears his ankles, knees and hips up doing an impact sport while probably never actually making is workout do double duty as transportation. I'm all about freedom of choice, I don't grudge him his terrible choices, but I think this is the psycho pot calling the cycling kettle black.



Breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturday were also all Local Pig. They spoiled us rotten, actually, from a breakfast casserole to an amazing soup to a multi-course banquet featuring lamb, bacon-wrapped chicken livers and I don't know what-all.



In the evening before dinner, there was demonstration of Spiegelau glassware I hadn't signed up for. I didn't really understand what it was, other than $20 (and you got to keep a nice four-piece glassware set). Turns out, it's a really nice set of glassware, and the demonstration was all a dog and pony show about how Speigelau glass is awesome for serving beer, having to do with minimizing impurities to create a super smooth surface. I gather this makes a difference both in how fast your beer goes flat and how fast it tends to warm up. I had fun lurking around the edges photographing people who had popped for it, but I kinda wished I'd signed up myself by the time it was over.





I decided to get riding home before the awards ceremony, it was already turning into a late night and I was definitely running out of steam. It was great to see all these friends I don't get to see nearly often enough, but I had to cry uncle. I think it was maybe the worse for the fact that I'd been caffeine free for the day, not by design, I just ended up drinking water and beer the whole time. There was Roasterie coffee Saturday morning, but I'm not much of a coffee drinker to begin with, and the last thing I want to do is scald my tongue right before judging two flights of beer.