REGINA – Marc Loszchuk once told his wife he’d build a brewery in their house and now that’s a reality. She partially helped launch the home brewery after pressuring Loszchuk into reading more and took him to Chapters.
“I stumbled into the “How To Section” of the bookstore and came across how to brew beer book. I thought it might be an interesting read. I had made a couple of kit beers at that point,” he explained.
From there Loszchuk found more information online and eventually joined the Ale and Lager Enthusiasts of Saskatchewan (ALES) club to pick up more tips at their monthly meetings.
He said this accessibility of information is one of the biggest factors in getting more people in the craft.
“Now you can make a world class product at home for a fraction of the cost sometimes and have something that you’re really proud to drink and share with friends,” he said.
It’s enough for many home brewers to share their ales with friends, but for people like Loszchuk, it’s not the only ingredient in their beer game.
“For some of us, we kind of want some external validation so certainly entering competitions is a great way to put your money where your mouth is and see how you stack up against other world class home brewers,” an excited Loszchuk said.
There’s no better place to test your homebrew than the ALES Club Open. Loszchuk entered more than 20 different beers, but that was just a fraction of the 738 that came in from across Canada.
The ALES Club believes this makes them the biggest competition in Canada.
Each entry comes in two unmarked bottles that are assigned numbers and sorted into 32 categories.
Then, the more than 1,400 bottles of beer are off to the thirsty judges.
“You also assign a score to each those areas. So aroma’s out of 12, appearance is out of three, flavour is out of 20 mouth feel is out of five and overall, impression is out of 10,” David Freeman, the ALES judge coordinator, said.
A small army of judges spent the April 11 through 16 judging the beers in the basement of The Bushwakker in Regina.
Freeman is a certified beer judge but says not everyone needs to be. As they are experienced they can judge or learn, and he says home brewers usually make for strong judges.
“So when you taste something off, or an off flavour you know where those come from likely. What process they messed up, or thing they did or temperature they hit to create that off flavour,” Freeman explained.
After nearly a week of judging brewers from as far away as Nova Scotia picked up awards, and Lozschuk added several to his collection including ALES Club Brewer of the Year.
“It’s always big and exciting, but this is the biggest and best competition we’ve ever put on!” Loschuk said.
“It’s been hectic, but it’s been fun.”
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