Crappy day beer-wise

So what made the day crappy? Nothing major; just two annoying things.

First, the weizenbock was fermenting so vigorously that I had to rig a blow-off tube using a rubber stopper and 3/8" tubing. Unfortunately, the tubing was too thin and clogged. So what happened? The stopper blew out, throwing chunks of beer and yeast across our white basement ceiling. I'll post a picture later, but let's just say it wasn't pretty. Ultimately, I had to run to Home Depot to get a length of 1" (ID) tubing which is pretty much clog-proof (knock on wood). The ceiling's still a bit of a mess but who looks closely at a ceiling?

The other crappy news is the results of the Cactus Challenge were announced and neither our Gust Front Leipzig-Style Wheat nor our Cocoa Puffs Stout won anything. I know competitions are a bit of a crap shoot, and entering the "specialty beer" category is even more so, but losing always sucks. And I was also annoyed that a rye beer won their "most unusual ingredient" category. I'm not saying our Cocoa Puffs Stout should have necessarily won, but rye? Go to beeradvocate.com and search "rye." There are 25 beers listed, and those are just beers with "rye" in their name. But, to quote Nigel Tufnel, "that's nitpicking." I'll be curious to see what the judges had to say about the beer, especially considering that it was most likely the first time they tried a Leipziger Gose, homebrewed or otherwise.