Collaborator XI Competition basics The competition is open to all members in good standing of the Oregon Brew Crew. This is a special competition to celebrate 11 years of great and distinctive beers, and to show off what homebrewers continue to bring to the local beer scene. One (yes, only one) entry per listed brewer or co-brewer. This is a competition about your singular, best expression of a special beer for Collaborator. If you are listed as a brewer or co-brewer on one entry, you cannot be a brewer or co-brewer on another entry. Entries will be judged by BJCP members, past Collaborator winners, and lay judges. There will be only one winner of the CXI competition. Runner-up awards will be at the discretion of the judges. Widmer will be the final arbiter whether they are able to produce a beer and when it will be produced. The CXI (Collaborator Eleventh Anniversary Brew) will accept entries packaged as follows: Two bottles should be submitted for the judging. They should be a minimum of 11 ounces (33 cl), and have all labels removed and bottle cap markings obliterated. (Optional) Two bottles for Widmer lab analysis. This requirement is not optional for the winner. If you don't have the lab bottles, they won't be able to make the beer. Please attach a paper with a rubber band to all your bottles that contains: name of brewer(s), beer name, and your contact information. You may optionally include the beer style. Also, VERY IMPORTANT, rubber band the beer RECIPE to at least one of the bottles. The recipe should list all your ingredients and techniques. Do not use tape!!! When and how to enter: Entries will be collected at the February OBC meeting at Steinbart's on Feb. 12. 2009. Judging is scheduled for two days later on Feb. 14. If you can't make the February meeting, then send your entry with a friend. If you can't do that, then you may drop your entry at Steinbart's during normal business hours on Friday, Feb. 13. Entries will not be accepted the day of the competition. It is strongly encouraged to have your entry brought to the meeting. Feb. 12th is still a long way off. It's probably too late to start your brew, but it's plenty of time to package your beer, decide which beer to enter, and go buy some rubber bands to avoid using tape on the bottle. (Hint: we hate scraping tape off of bottles. We'll ask you to lick it off if we see you at the meeting.) Good luck! Click here to download a .pdf of the CXI Entry info (.pdf, 140kb) History of Collaborator The Collaborator Project is a collaboration between home brewers in the Oregon Brew Crew and Rob and Kurt Widmer of Widmer Brewing. It all started when the Widmers and fellow Oregon Brew Crew members were talking about how few craft beer styles were available. At the time, craft brewing was holding to the popular styles. If you lived in America and wanted a Belgian Wit or Schwarzbier, you had to depend on beers from Europe. The fact was that these esoteric styles would never be profitable for commercial breweries in the US. Kurt and Rob looked at that as an opportunity and challenged the Oregon Brew Crew to have an annual competition where the best of the club's beers, regardless of style, would brewed and served by Widmer Brewing. In the spring of 1998, the first beer chosen was Scott Sander's English Brown Ale but for whatever reasons, the Milk Stout was the first to be brewed by Widmer Brewing and was served in the summer of 1998. This Stout became known as the Collaborator Stout and was an instant success. Over the years, this Collaborator beer has probably been brewed more often than all of the subsequent Collaborator beers combined. Its popularity was further boosted when it became the AHA's Big Brew recipe for National Homebrew Day in 1999. That was surpassed when Widmer tweaked the original recipe and introduced the Collaborator Milk Stout as Snow Plow Stout in 2004 as their annual winter seasonal and won a GABF gold medal. Snow Plow Stout is Widmer's best selling seasonal beer. Rob and Kurt honored the Brew Crew by including a short history of the Collaborator project and a Brew Crew Logo on the six pack holders. All of this is not even the best part of the Collaborator Project. With every barrel of Collaborator beer that Widmer sells, they donate $1 to the Bob McCracken Scholarship Fund which supports students at the Oregon State University Fermentation Science program under the direction of Dr. Thomas Shellhammer. To date, Widmer Brewing has donated over $5,000. Walk in to the Widmer Gasthaus any time of the year and you'll find a Collaborator beer or two on tap. If you can't make it out to Portland, the Snow Plow Stout shows up on your grocer's shelves in October. Every year, more Collaborator beers are chosen during the annual competition held in July for Brew Crew members. Will your beer be the next Collaborator beer?

Beer	Brewer(s)	Date
Milk Stout - Now known as Snow Plow Stout	Ken Bietschek, Jeff Brinlee and Jeff Langley	Summer, 1998
Belgian Dubbel	Committee	Fall 1998
English Brown	Scott Sanders	Spring 1999
Belgian-style Witbier	Noel Blake and Martin Wilde	Summer 1999
Belgian Pale Ale	Martin Wilde	Winter 2000
Bermuda Schwarzbier	Eric Dana	Spring 2000
Pre-Prohibition Lager	Curt Hausam	Summer 2000
Hallucinator English Old Ale	Gary Corbin, Michael Rasmussen	Fall 2000
Steel Bridge Porter	Noel Blake	Winter 2001
Hop Nation IPA	Matt Hollingsworth	Spring 2001
HB 25 Dunkles Bock	Mitch Scheele	Fall 2001
Sled Crasher Winter Warmer	Noel Blake	Winter 2001
Scotch Ale	Ken Johnson	Spring 2002
Maibock	Ken Johnson and Preston Weesner	Spring 2003
Dry Stout	Ingmar Saul	Summer 2003
Saison	Chris Johnson and Bill Schneller	2004
Alpenhorn Vienna Lager	Mitch Scheele	February 2005
Pilsner	Chris Johnson and Bill Schneller	2005
Hopnosis IPA	Brian Butenschoen	Spring 2005
Zephyr Kölsch	Dan Schultz	Summer 2005
American Stout	Craig Edwards	Spring 2006
Ember Ale Smoked Porter	Jamie Dull	Fall 2006