Getting Lucky At The St Patrick’s Day Homebrew Competition In Enterprise, AL

After attending the 25th annual World’s Smallest St Patrick’s Day parade in Enterprise AL, we got chatting to some locals at the after party.

One of them – Rob – said that he had two tickets to that evening’s St Patrick’s Day Homebrew Competition and asked if we’d like them. We’d originally planned to visit nearby Dothan that evening to go to a brewery for their St Patrick’s Day festivities. The homebrew competition sounded even more fun though and meant we’d be able to spend time with our new friends in Enterprise. We therefore gladly accepted the tickets.

The event was due to run from 4pm to 10pm; we arrived at 5pm and it was already well underway. It was organized by Boll Weevil Brewing Supply and held at Crossfit FXT which is based in a warehouse-style building. Rob met us at the front to give us our tickets which each came with a cute 4oz commemorative glass.

The other side had a shamrock with a boll weevil in the center (here’s why there’s an insect on there.)

Inside each of the glasses were two tasting tickets, good for trying two of the 15 beers in the homebrew competition. We’d met Guillain at the after party earlier that afternoon and she came over and bought us something like 20 more tasting tickets. I mentioned yesterday how hospitable everyone was in Enterprise – this was just one more example!

We were also given a sheet listing all of the beers in the competition, along with two voting tickets each. All of us at the competition got to be judges for the night, meaning we could vote for our favorite beer in each category at the end of the night.

There were 15 beers you could taste which were split into two categories – Irish and Other Brews.

Irish Beers

• Hoppy Red Head
• Lucky Charms – Irish Red
• Frisky Whiskey – Rye Stout
• The Fiery Sister – Irish Blonde
• Not Your Momma’s Irish Beer
• Freckle Feet – Irish Red IPA
• Not So Red IPA

Other Brews

• Drunken Farmhand Saison
• Capt. Shaddock’s Grapefruit IPA
• B7UE – Blueberry Cider
• Apricot Krystalweizen
• Cherry Bomb Mead
• Mmmmmm Kaaay – English Real Ale
• Green Apple Delight – Wine
• Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Old Fashioned

As you can see, there was a great variety of flavors so I was looking forward to trying them all. Shae’s not a big beer fan, so she offered to be our designated driver for the night. That meant I’d get to take advantage of most of our beer tickets 🙂

Due to its location, dogs were welcome to come along to the competition. That meant there were several other dogs to keep Truffles company. She’s normally wary of other dogs, but is fine if they ignore her; a couple of larger dogs were nose-to-nose, so she slipped in behind for a quick sniff.

We started off with the Cherry Bomb Mead. We’ve had regular mead (an alcoholic drink made with honey) in Ireland before; the traditional version was OK, but very sweet and not something I’d want to drink glasses of. The cherry mead on the other hand was surprisingly tasty – sweet but not too sweet, cherry-y but not too cherry-y.

Shortly after that we tried three beers by the same group of people – the grapefruit IPA, the blueberry cider and the Hoppy Red Head.

The grapefruit IPA was good – there was quite a strong grapefruit taste but without the sourness or bitterness you’d expect from a drink with that flavor.

The blueberry cider was OK – it certainly didn’t taste bad, but there were many other brews I enjoyed more that night.

I think the Hoppy Red Head was my favorite of those three, maybe because I’m married to one 😉

We continued making our way around the room and eventually came to what were my favorite beers of the night. They were brewed by J.R. Crawford, the housemate of Rob who’d given us the tickets to the St Patrick’s Day homebrew competition.

The Apricot Krystalweizen was really good – there was some definite apricot flavor in there without it being overwhelming.

The Lucky Charms Irish Red was even better and was incredibly creative. Brewed with Lucky Charms cereal, some of its marshmallows were scooped on top of the drink when it was served.

I was a little dubious about the concept before trying the Lucky Charms beer but it was delicious. Needless to say, it was quite sweet but that didn’t spoil the flavor. We ended up going for dinner at Rob and J.R.’s a couple of nights later and J.R. was kind enough to give a couple of bottles to take with me. Shae and I also got to meet their sweet dog Dusty that night, the poster boy for J.R.’s brews.

We continued making our way round the different homebrews trying green apple wine…

…jello shots from the same person that weren’t actually part of the competition…

…Frisky Whiskey and The Fiery Sister…

…with Truffles even trying to get in on the act by ordering a hair of the dog.

I was starting to get a bit tipsy by this point. The servings were only 4oz, but trying 15 of them – most of which were much stronger than regular beers – meant they’d gone to my head.

Thankfully there was food available that could help soak up some of the alcohol. Coffee County Family Services provided the food as a fundraiser for their organization, with some of the money from ticket sales also going to them and Hand Up Enterprise. We ordered a corned beef and cabbage hand pie which hit the spot.

After we’d eaten, I challenged Shae to a game of cornhole. After she beat me at that, we teamed up with a few other people to play giant beer pong – the ladies won 🙁

After drinking a couple more of my favorite samples, it was time to call it a night. As we left, Shae and I submitted our votes for our favorite beers. I voted for both of J.R.’s brews – the Apricot Krystalweizen and Lucky Charms Irish Red – while Shae voted for the Cherry Bomb Mead and Lucky Charms Irish Red.

The Winners

We found out a couple of days later that although the results were close, J.R. won both categories for his beers – well deserved!

Final Thoughts

Shae and I had an amazing time at the St Patrick’s Day homebrew competition. There were a bunch of creative brews and I loved trying all of them.

Even better than the beers though were the people. I lost count of how many residents of Enterprise we chatted to, all of whom were extremely friendly and welcoming. Extra special shout outs to Rob and J.R. for tickets to the event, Guillain for buying us tasting tickets, plus Mark and Jeanne from Boll Weevil Brewing Supply for organizing the competition and coming to dinner on our final night in Enterprise. We loved spending time with you all and can’t wait to see you all again when we return to Enterprise in the future 🙂