Always the Bridesmaid never the Bride...

It’s early July and Greig from SOBA contacts me asking if I would be interested in judging the National Homebrew comp. I have been looking forward to the competition being held in Hamilton this year as I was sure this would mean that unlike the past two years I would be excused from the judging table and able to enter my own beers. I have been brewing away furiously and unusually I have been going through the rigours of bottling so that I have beers to enter. I say ‘put me on the back up list I want to compete.’ A month later and the ominous email comes , a judge has stepped down and I’m off the bench. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride...at least I will be able to check out the two beer bars of Hamilton.