IBRU Fantasy Draught

IBRU Fantasy Draught:  The Ultimate Challenge!

Last Updated 6/15/23

Write-up

IBRU is hosting the first ever Fantasy Draught Homebrew Competition!  Do you have what it takes to complete in the Ultimate Challenge for a chance at ribbons, prize money and brewing glory?

The Fantasy Draught Homebrew Competition is a unique and challenging competition that will be held at our annual Summer Cookout.  The FDHC will test each brewer's creativity, resourcefulness, recipe creation skills, and brewing acumen.  The unique feature of this competition is that brewers will draft their ingredients from an ever dwindling list of pre-determined items, and will create their brew using only the ingredients they drafted.

Details

• Member-only competition

• One entry per brewer

• Entrance Fee - $20 per brewer

  • 100% of collected fees go directly into the prize purse

  • The fee is to help get firm commitments from participants, which is necessary for draft organization purposes

• Prizes = IBRU is providing 1st, 2nd and 3rd place ribbons, and is also putting $100 into the prize purse

• Prize payout

  • 1st place - 45% of prize purse

  • 2nd place - 25%

  • 3rd place - 15%

  • 4th place - 10% 

  • 5th place - 5%

  • Projections based on eight entries

    • $160 in collected entrance fees + $100 purse = $260

    • 1st place = $117

    • 2nd place = $65

    • 3rd place = $39

    • 4th place = $26

    • 5th place = $13

Important Dates

• Ingredient List Available - Mon, June 5

• Commitment Date (with fees) - Sat June 19

• Draft Order Determination - Tues, June 20

• Draft Date - Thur, June 22

• Competition Date - IBRU Summer Cookout - Sat, Aug 26

Draft Rules

• This is an in-person event (virtual options can be discussed but everyone must be able to draft at the same time)

• An initial randomized draft order will be determined and announced prior to draft

• By drafting ingredients during the draft, brewers are essentially gaining the right to use that ingredient

• As an ingredient is drafted it will be removed from the list of available items and will no longer available to anyone

• We will have what’s called a “Snake Draft”

  • In a snake draft, each brewer selects an ingredient during their turn, in the order established prior to the draft.  That order reverses (snakes) back and forth for each subsequent round

  • There are eight ingredient slots per brewer, so there will be eight rounds

  • So if there are eight brewers, the first round draft order would be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.  The second round draft order would be 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, and back and forth for a total of eight rounds.

• Each brewer must finish the draft with a full slate of eight ingredients

• For this year's event, the trading of ingredients or draft picks is not allowed

• A Draft Board will be available during the event to facilitate the proceedings, but anyone drafting virtually will need to track their own ingredients list

• Draft picks, once announced, may not be reversed unless the pick is invalid for some reason

• It is the responsibility of the brewer to obtain any drafted ingredients; IBRU is not supplying any ingredients

Recipe Slots

• Each recipe is comprised of eight recipe slots made up of the following five ingredient categories:

  • Base Malt (1 recipe slot)

  • Yeast (1 yeast slot)

  • Hops (must fill 2 hop slots)

  • Specialty Grain (must fill 1 specialty grain slot)

  • Open Ingredient Slot (3 slots available for any available hop, specialty grain or adjunct)

• Each brewer is limited to a single base malt and a single yeast selection

• Open Ingredient Slots may be filled with any ingredient from the list (except a base malt or yeast)

• There will be multiple hops and specialty malts available

• The assumption is that some ingredients will be in higher demand/scarcity than others, thereby requiring the brewers to consider closely which items they may want to prioritize drafting and adjusting on the fly as ingredients come off the Board

• Anyone planning an extract brew will need to draught accordingly

• Brewers drafting an item will need to include that item in their recipe so don't draft anything you can't source

Brew Rules

• Please Observe Confidentiality - absolutely no chatter about your style, beer name or brew details.  Also, please do not divulge the ingredients drafted by anyone at the draft.

• ONLY ingredients obtained during the Draft may be used

• Every ingredient obtained during the Draft must be used in the brew; no more, no less

• The brewer can use as much of any drafted ingredient as desired

• Any brand of ingredient can be used as desired as long as the ingredient is equivalent to the ingredient drafted

• Final recipes will be collected, not as a check on the brewers, but as a resource to other brewers who may want to replicate or tweak the recipes.  A template brew sheet will be provided to brewers for collecting the brew details

• Any style of beer is fine except no sours/bretts etc. since serving will be via jockey boxes and we don’t want to risk any infections

• Each brewer must provide a standard 5 gallon keg for the competition

• The use of “Incidental Ingredients” (defined specifically as water salts, fining agents and defoamers) is allowed.  If there are any questions about this please ask first!

• The use of any ingredients besides those obtained during the draft or identified in the Incidental Ingredients list is strictly prohibited

Competition Details

• Two volunteers will be needed to manage the competition

• Ideally, beers are either picked up by volunteer staff or dropped off a day or two before the event.  This is being done to help ensure confidentiality of the entries and to allow the beers to settle before serving

• Voting will occur at the IBRU Summer Cookout using the traditional (and casual) "bring a keg/taste all the brews/drink as much as you like/vote with bottle caps" method

• Additional details will be provided as we get closer to the event

Basic Strategy/Other Considerations

• The assumption is that some ingredients will be in higher demand/scarcity than others, thereby requiring the brewers to consider closely which items they may want to prioritize drafting and adjusting on the fly as ingredients come off the Board 

• Brewers will need to strategize how best to compile their brew.  A wise brewer will familiarize themselves with the ingredients available, assess the number of available shares of each ingredient for scarcity, have some basic ideas about ingredients they might want to get, and assess how their place in the draft order may impact their ability to source some of the scarcer or more unique ingredients.

• The number of allotments of each ingredient will be based on the number of participants, but the number of premium ingredients will be scarcer than more common ingredients.

• Flexibility will be key!  Due to the limited availability of ingredients in the draft, brewers will need to be creative in developing their recipes since they don't really know what they'll end up with and will have to build on the fly.

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This document will likely be tweaked as questions are asked and clarifications are made.  We’ll track any changes but keep an eye on things so that you’re always in the loop.  Also, if you’re on Slack, please monitor the #Fantasy-Draught channel for the latest chatter.

• 6/15 - Commitment Date changed from 6/17 to 6/19