December 2025

Monthly Meeting

• Date: December 20th

• Early Start Time: 10 am – 12 pm

• New Location: Old 121 Brewhouse

• New Address: 2010 S Oak St, Lakewood, CO 80227

This meeting will be packed with quarterly challenge tasting and results AND our annual White Elephant Ingredient Gift Exchange AND announcing the leadership team for next year.

We’ll taste the quarterly challenge entries and hear from each participant about their beer. A reminder for folks to bring in 2-3 additional samples. After tasting we’ll announce the winner.

Additionally, we’ll have our annual White Elephant Ingredient Gift Exchange. This is for our March quarterly (5th Annual White Elephant Gift Exchange). For those new to this:

• Bring a unique brewing ingredient that is wrapped. Our challenges are designed to get brewers out of their comfort zone. Keep this in mind when purchasing your White Elephant Ingredient. Past examples, Ginger, Rye malt, a new dry yeast, honey, flavor extracts, etc.

• We’ll draw numbers and have a White Elephant Exchange. The ingredient you end up with is your ingredient you brew with for our March quarterly challenge.

• If you would rather not participate in this, no worries, just enjoy the fun of this part of our meeting and the gift stealing and laughs.

• If you’re unable to make the meeting and would like to brew for the March quarterly, email lakewoodfermentationclub@gmail.com and an ingredient will be assigned to you.

Quarterly Happy Hour

• Date: December 9th

• Time: 6pm - 8pm

• Location: Old 121 Brewhouse

• Address: 2010 S Oak St, Lakewood, CO 80227

This one is a little short notice, but mark your calendar and join us at Old 121 for a happy hour, and check out Old 121's new location if you haven't been able to stop by yet. Come hang and catch up with everyone before the holidays. We will also get a tour from Bobby of the brew space.

Old 121 Brewhouse Scale Up Quarterly Challenge

For this quarterly challenge, Old 121 has let us know they will be doing a scale up! The winner of this challenge will get to brew their winning entry at Old 121. The only limitation to this challenge is that it has to be something fruity! It doesn't matter if you use fresh fruit or a fruit extract. Just make sure there is an addition of a fruit flavor. Entry form and drop off details can be found here.

Up Coming Competitions

• Collard Lizard Classic

  • Registration opens 12/01/2025, register here

  • Entries are due 03/06/2026

• Peterson Homebrew Competition

  • Registration opens 12/06/2026, register here

  • Entries are due 03/14/2026

• Sweetheart’s Revenge

  • Registration opens 12/15/2025, register here

  • Entries are due 1/12/2026

• Bière de Rock

  • Registration opens 01/01/2026, register here

  • Entries are due 1/16/2026

Education Corner

Competitions

If you want to know about how your beer is, entering a competition is a great way to get feedback from blind tasters. Entering competitions is all about giving judges the clearest, cleanest representation of your beer. 

• Choose the correct BJCP style category.  When in doubt, ask for help—our club has several BJCP-certified judges who are always happy to guide you on style fit or category strategy. It’s possible you brewed a style and that is the style it should be entered in. I had a recipe I made for an International Dark Lager that I didn’t really enjoy, when thought about as a lager. Brought it to a meeting, asked for help, and told it would be a good Dark Mild, when entered as a Dark Mild it won a pro-am. Just because you planned on brewing a certain style it may actually fit really well in another category. You can also enter the same beer in multiple categories, that Dark Mild above also medaled as a Scottish Light.

• Packaging matters, too. Fill bottles or cans gently to minimize turbulence and oxygen pickup. A proper headspace, like commercial beers, and purge this head space with C02. This helps preserve hop aroma, color, and flavor stability. Use clean, label-free bottles so nothing distracts the judges or hints at age or storage history.

• Carbonation counts. Judges evaluate carbonation level as part of style accuracy. Package a test bottle early to ensure your carbonation target is correct before competition day.

• Temperature awareness. Keep entries cold when storing and when transporting.  

• Label carefully. Follow competition rules on labels and stickers exactly. Incorrect labeling is one of the most common reasons beers get disqualified before judging.