[caption id="attachment_4076" align="alignleft" width="250"] Boulevard brewer Jeremy Danner (blue shirt) joins Tim Squires (red shirt) and friends to brew his winning recipe on our original 35-barrel brewhouse.[/caption]

9AM on Monday, August 5th: I was running behind, traffic was terrible, and I hadn’t yet had my morning coffee – I definitely had a case of The Mondays. I had just settled into my desk at work when my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number (my initial thought was a fence salesman as we’d been getting estimates). Reluctantly, I answered with an angry “Hello?" and a man with a cheery, Belgian accent responded, “Hi this is Steven Pauwels with Boulevard Brewing.”

At this point I remembered 1) the homebrew competition entries had been judged over the weekend and 2) Steven Pauwels is the Brewmaster at Boulevard. I quickly thought to myself, maybe he is calling all the homebrewers to let them know how their beer was. I soon found out that wasn’t the case.

“I was calling to let you know we really liked your beer and that you have won the competition," Steven continued.

”You are joking," I quickly spouted off.

“No. This is a Monday morning and I don’t joke on Monday mornings," Steven replied.

The conversation continued with Steven introducing other folks from Boulevard that were on the line. They talked about the judging process as well as the qualities that they liked in my beer. I was then told I’d be invited back to brew "Fusion" on their 35bbl system. The discussion concluded with me being sworn to secrecy for two days until Boulevard announced me as the winner. One word could sum up that phone call: excitement. I could not believe I won.

Once Boulevard made the announcement, I told my friends and family. Responses ranged from “congrats” to “awesome” to “that lucky expletive."

Over the next few weeks I met with Boulevard employees to discuss the beer. As we started to scale my five-gallon recipe to one thousand gallons, figures like two 55 gallon barrels of wine juice, 400 oranges and 600 lemons started to get tossed around. It was amazing to see the scale that professional brewers work with on a day-to-day basis.

Brew day was October 5th. Boulevard graciously allowed me to bring along a few friends. We started with mashing in (soaking grain with water) and then once the mash was going we started zesting a bunch of fruit using the infamous Rotato (if you don’t know what one is, look it up – it’ll change your life). The entire brew house smelled absolutely amazing – orange, lemon, grain mashing in.

By noon we were sparging (rinsing the grains), drinking some awesome beer, and eating tacos. The whole time I was thinking to myself, “This isn’t a whole heck of a lot different than a home brew day." I met several of the Boulevard brewers and employees throughout the day. One thing remained consistent – they were all super nice, laid back, and happy to answer any questions I had.

I was amazed by how much the brewers actually let me take part in the process. I figured I would essentially just watch them brew Fusion. Instead I was actually brewing my beer on their system. I was controlling the brew house computer, weighing hops, putting hops in the boil kettle, turning knobs, adjusting valves, taking samples, etc.

By 4:00 the wort had been moved into the fermenter and the yeast had been pitched. My brew day was coming to an end. It is a life experience that I’ll never forget. I sincerely thank everyone at Boulevard Brewing for having me!