A few weeks back, roommate Jeffrey and I entered the PDX BEER BRAUL.  This was a project put on by Hawthorne Hophouse and Fifteenth Avenue Hophouse with locally-owned The Zythos Project (creator and manufacturer of the stainless steel growler Brauler – I definitely need to get one of those!)

The point of the game was to show off your beer knowledge in a blind tasting competition features beers from Portland breweries:

• Migration
• HUB
• Occidental
• Laurelwood
• Basecamp
• Lompoc
• Commons
• Upright
• Gigantic
• Burnside
• Natian
• Amnesia

Participants got two flights of six beers, unmarked.  First flight was paler beers and the second flight was darker beers.  You then had to match each of the beers with a corresponding list.

The top 24 contestants would then be invited back later to complete to be the Grand Prize Winner.  Not only does the Grand Prize Winner receive bragging rights, but they also get a Hophouse Lifetime Mug Club Membership, Hophouse hood, and a “2013 Beer Braul Champion” engraved Brauler.

So, Jeffrey and I decide to enter.  We agreed on almost every beer except for one set.  And when the top 24 contestants email went out guess who was on the list?  ME!

First of all, mad props to the four people who achieved a perfect score.  The odds of doing that by chance are 1 in 518,400!  I was in the second group of 20 people who only mix up one pair of beers.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to the finals do to a previous commitment (World Domination Summit) but I was thrilled to participate and get minor bragging rights with a few friends.

Have you ever entered a beer competition before?  How did it go?