You can’t just bottle up any beer and enter it in the Shawano County Fair’s beer and wine contest.
Mike Conard, a certified beer and wine judge from Kewaunee, will know the subtle differences, and he will call you out on them.
Thursday’s judging was more than an opportunity for bragging rights. It was a chance for those whose palates are not tuned to the dozens of different varieties of beer and wine to find out what makes each beverage distinct.
“This is a suck job,” Conard said, tongue-in-cheek, as he opened a bottle of beer, generating a few chuckles from the crowd.
As each beer and wine bottle came before him, he would pour a little into a glass, scrutinize its appearance, take a long whiff and finally give it a taste before giving a dissertation on why each entry was good, bad or ugly.
One bottle of beer Conard particularly enjoyed, calling it a “chick beer,” had a distinctive taste of apricots. It was good as a specialty beer, he said, but he had to dock it a few points because it wasn’t in the specialty beer category.
Conard pointed out to the crowd that specialty brews needed to taste like beer first, with the particular fruit or herbal flavors hitting the palate at the tail end of the experience.
“So many, especially brewers, overdo it on the additives,” Conard said.
Some of the audience members who sampled the apricot-flavored beer agreed with his assessment.
Carol Sybeldon, of Tilleda, agreed that the beer qualified as a chick beer, something that appeals to female drinkers.
“It was mild and smooth,” Sybeldon said.
Kathy Johnson, of Eland, echoed Sybeldon’s sentiments.
“It was very good. It was just the fruitiness of the apricot that made it good,” Johnson said.
Conard had similar insights about the wines he sampled.
As he prepared to taste a pair of entries in the white grape wine category, he pointed out white wine is not as good for a person’s heart as red wine, because the white wines are made without the grape skins, which produces fewer antioxidants.
There were a couple of times when Conard had to take second tastes to determine winners.
“Every year it gets tougher,” he said.
Early on, Conard made it clear he wasn’t going to be driving away from the fair after the contest.
“Thank God for designated drivers,” he said.
Final results were not available by the Leader’s press time.
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