This isn’t a dig at the NHC. I think the costs for submitting entries is fair considering how much they have to do for this thing. I just wonder if the way some people blast the competition with entries, makes for a less welcoming kind of competition. Especially when in the Midwest region this year, they reached their max. I can guarantee you there were a number of people who spent literally hundreds of dollars on entry fees to enter beers in almost every category. Meaning some people who wanted to enter, could not. Seem silly to anyone else?
I’d like to see the NHC put a cap on how many beers you can submit. The competing for the Ninkasi award just seems like it gets a little out of hand. Anyone else? This is just my 2 cents.
I think we could all assume the midwest was going to fill up this year due to the conference being in their region. I wouldn’t be surprised if 50-60% of those are from Saint Paul’s. The NE filling up was a bit of a surprise I guess.
I’d much rather spend the hundreds of dollars on other things like food, clothes, better brewing equipment ( I think Gordon Strong said once he spend the equivalent of a one weeks paycheck one year ).
Caps on number of entries may be in the future, but I thought you couldn’t enter more than 1 in a category already ( but I may be thinking about a different comp ).
Are people able to enter multiple beers per style? If that is the case I agree with you. If they are entering just one per category I don’t think I have much of an issue with that. And by category I mean the by the lowest level, i.e. American IPA, English IPA, etc. not IPA in general.
Yup, one per style.
But the people who do enter dozens and dozens of beers are just ruining the experience for other people IMO, especially since they’re crowding people out. I mean 80 beers at $9 per entry is $720. That’s just unnecessary, and the point system right now incentivizes it.
Crowding people out for what exactly? If you want to win the category, brew the best beer.
Granted if you want to win the entire shooting match (Ninkasi) you’ll need excellent beers in multiple categories. Really want to be the best, win Homebrewer of the Year (BOS) and the Ninkasi. I cannot recall the last time that happened.
Crowding people out of the 750 spots for entries in the region? If you enter 80 beers (including the same beer in multiple style categories, as some people do), that’s 10% of the entry cap.
the most I’ve heard of is about 50 beers from Jamil and Gordon, since Jamil didn’t even enter, and since Gordon is in the East region - which didn’t even fill up, I’m not sure what the complaint even is
I agree. If someone wanted to enter in one of the regions that CAPPED then they should’ve got off of their duffs. I’m sure the situation will be assessed for next year, but I’m not sure an entry CAP is the answer? :
I don’t speak for anyone with the AHA, but as someone who has been involved with the NHC regionals before I’m fairly confident the cap is to allow the comp to finish in time. When we held in in NC I judged on 5 or 6 different days to work our way through the 600+ entries. 750 would be a nightmare and would not be something we could confidently achieve. I think a note went out the South (in GA) was going to judge 3 days in a row to pull it off this year…
That’s pretty much it, Mike. I’ve asked Janis to weigh in on this. She won’t be able to do it til next week, because she’s judging this weekend! It was a topic of our last GC conference call, and I’m sure it will be a major topic at our meeting in Minneapolis.
