National Homebrewing Competition Fees and Support

General Homebrew Discussion
41

I think the bottleneck for the most part is the availability of judges. I agree with Martin in the sense that some level of compensation will entice judges to travel further and ultimately attract more judges. I also think that the location of the competition has a tremendous impact on the ability to procure qualified judges. The bigger the city, the larger the judging pool and so forth.

With the increasing level of interest in hombrewing as a hobby, there is also an increasing interest in competing as can be witnessed by the increasing number of entries each year. I see this as a positive as opposed the other extreme. I think that by focusing on the demographics, specifically the highest incidence of judges by location, this will help draw more judges to volunteer for competition.

42

Speaking strictly for myself . . .

Obviously this shouldn’t happen, and I think it is more a matter of educating the organizer than anything else.  If a mini-bos is going to be required, those entries all need to be judged in the same session with the mini-bos immediately following.  It still doesn’t solve the problem of having the first beer open so long, but it is better.

I just disagree, but that’s my opinion.  No reasonable amount of compensation is going to entice me to come to a competition.  Now if there is a party, a rare beer tasting after, something along those lines . . . then I’ll make a serious effort to attend, maybe rearrange my schedule.  Money isn’t going to entice me if it doesn’t fit my schedule.

Rather than offer $50 here and there to cover transportation costs, spend a few hundred dollars on beer.  Get a keg or a few cases of something rare and serve it to the judges after (and provide designated drivers) and I think it will be cheaper and more enticing for judges than some money.  But again, that’s just me.

43

What about a tiered per-bottle entry fee? First bottle submitted is gratis if you’re an AHA member. Second bottle is $10. Third bottle is $15, Fourth bottle is $20, fifth is $25, etc. By submitting loads of bottles a person is putting a bigger load on the judges, and they should be expected to pay to offset that load.

I think you’d get better submissions with a system like that, and it’s a way to ‘raise’ the entry fees without excluding people who can’t afford an outright cost increase.

In terms of compensation, I think non-monetary compensation would be excellent. Free food (perhaps a cook-off or pot luck? Those are always fun) and a hotel room if you travel farther than X miles. For people traveling less than X miles but more than Y miles, they get a gas card or something similar.

44

I agree 100%. There may be some judges for whom $50 makes or breaks the decision but ultimately if you want to change my decision, give me something I can’t get at home (rare beers, poorly distributed local beers, talks). I have $50 at home. Instead of the 3 of us that think we need to give judges cash reimbursement to encourage participation arguing with the three of us that think perquisites would be better going back and forth forever, maybe someone should put together a survey and email it to some judges and ask them what would best influence them to travel to judge.

Also I’ll throw in that in some cities, particularly Dallas, the problem was getting the local judges. Maybe that can’t be fixed in Dallas with the timing of Blue Bonnet (which probably makes Dallas a non-viable first round site) but you have to solve the problem of getting people down the street to judge before you consider getting people from out of state to be your primary problem.

Thanks for being receptive Harold. I guess ultimately I would like that rather than adding more sites and raising interest fees that it would be better to go back to the drawing board and restate what the AHA values in terms of the competition and how to get there. Obviously I think two bottle vs one bottle should be on the table. I understand why the change was made, but now that we have done it for a while it is reasonable to evaluate how well it has worked. As a judge I don’t think I am confident that we are picking the best beers in big flights where freshness is important (IPA being the prime example). As an entrant, I don’t like that.

phillamb168:  I think people overestimate how many entries are from prolific entrants. As such I don’t think capping entries by participant would be effective and even if raising the fee per entry number(using a reasonable schedule which I don’t think your proposal is though I think the exact numbers were just meant to be illustrative) discouraged those that enter heavily, I don’t think it would be very effective. Also in most cases the people with dozens of entries are judging themselves so on a net basis I would argue that aren’t causing problems as much as the huge number of people sending 2-3 entries but not helping out on the volunteer side. I do enter quite a bit, though I haven’t gotten close to breaking any records, so perhaps this is self serving on my part but so are the calls to cap entries or charge insane prices for high number of entries from people who don’t enter heavily. Ultimately I think let’s try some simple things before we try exotic things.

45

I suggested something like this earlier itt.  The way I would propose would be that a certain number of entries are the ‘base’ price but once you get over a threshold you have to pay more per entry.  johnf mentions some problems with that but the intent (imo) isn’t just to ‘discourage those that enter heavily’ per se, but rather to increase the money taken in IF those heavy hitters are not discouraged.  It’s their choice, less entries or more money.

This is over 1200 bottles and there is a ton of room to spare:

All inside this:

46

Valid points, but speaking as someone who sent their beer to Saratoga, where the original judging date was April 2nd, extend to a second date of April 17th, and now waiting on a 3rd date of April 30th, I could care less if it was judged in the first, middle, or last weekend, as long as it doesn’t take a month to do it.  Next year if the NE dropoff is in the same location, I’m sending to a different region.

47

It doesn’t take a cunning amount of insight to realize this is a heinous thing to do.  That’s reason enough to not use that location as a judging site in the future.  If you don’t know how to hold a competition, then don’t volunteer to do the NHC.

Did they lose the bottle corks and competition instructions that had been provided, not read them, or just choose to ignore them?

Mini-BOS is a continuous part of the session in which the component beers were selected.  It’s not another judging round.

Beers shouldn’t be “open for 3 hours” either.  The whole point of the bottle corks is that you open the beer, pour your samples, immediately cap the bottle and then save it cold.  You don’t leave the bottle open until you decide you want to save it for later.  If you don’t want the bottle, you pull the cap and reuse it.  But you treat the bottle as if you were going to save it until you decide otherwise.  It’s not as good as a fresh bottle, but it will keep the beers in reasonable condition.  You work with the situation you have.  But you can’t intentionally treat a beer as poorly as possible and then blame the system for your choices.

48

[quote]Jeffy asks about the costs of running a first round judging site.  I have personally been a first round organizer 3 times over the last 10 years and our region has run right around $2,000 - $2,400 in that time.  We have costs for beer storage, judging site rental, 3 meals [we judge on a Friday evening, Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon] - so we do one dinner, a light breakfast and a lunch.  This is for approx 80 people each day [60 - 65 judges and 15 or so stewards].  Postage to mail out score sheets can be over $200.  Cups - for 750 entries and mini-BOS panels for nearly every category one needs almost 3,000 cups. etc. etc, You get the idea, all these expenses total out to a pretty big number pretty quickly. 
[/quote]

Say it actually costs $2400. What about the entry fees? At $5-$10 per entry, that adds up pretty quickly, as well. If you have 480 entries at $5 each, you’ve broken even. Maybe that’s an abnormal amount of entries, but I really think $5 is low balling the amount, based on what I’ve read here.

There’s no doubt that all of this costs money, especially when you might consider adding a refrigerated truck. By the way, I think that’s a great idea. I have to say though, reading about some of the judging methods described here, (uncorked bottles, warm beer, old beer, etc.) makes me really question the outcome of some of these contests.

As for paying judges, I think the free meals, after party, etc. are better ideas, but I’m not a judge, so my opinions are limited in this area.

49

The issue is not whether a nice case of bottles can be stored properly the issue is all those boxes arriving, needing to be unpacked and then stored. It took two of us 2 days to unpack and sort all the entries (600+) for the South Region back in the day. Then 4 loads of trash to the dump and recycling. We had rented a temp controlled, but not cooled, storage facility space and worked in there. A two bottle comp would have been nice, but we could barely handle all the bottles as it was and if we had two could not have pulled off the competition since there would have been no single vehicle owned by either of us which could have taken the beers 3 hours to the other site for judging.

As far as the issues faced in NY, it sounds like the flights must not have used queued judging. I was not aware of it when we hosted in 2008 and had I known we could have sped things up considerably. Now it’s standard fare at all the comps in our area and has been since it was introduced to us at the 2008 NHC finals. More info is available on the BJCP site:
http://www.bjcp.org/compcenter.php

50

The story from NY is that the bottles were truly open, not sure if that was accurate, I was not there.

Normally of course you would put a plastic cork in and keep them cold. That is still not an ideal package because there is empty space in the bottle that is filled with air at atmospheric pressure. The remaining beer will have a lower carbonation level and be exposed to oxygen. I would argue this is material for IPAs, immaterial for still meads, and slightly material for most stuff.

I judged IPAs in Denver and we treated the beers as well as possible. I’m not confident mini-bos went the same way it would have gone with a second bottle. Of course I can’t say that for certain. It seemed like several of the beers in mini-bos had poor hop aroma and I was surprised they got through. Then the judge from that flight would say it seemed better when they were judging it. So basically do you judge the beer you have or give weight to what the other guy remembers? With 5 sets of judges and 3 mini-bos judges, several of those beers that had suppressed aroma had nobody from the judging pair in mini-bos to stick up for them or convey a memory of what it was like fresh.

On the other hand I judged stouts and I think one bottle worked much better there. All of the beers that were in mini-bos were good at that time.

51

A few unconnected thoughts:

The entry fee covers not just the first round, but also the second. An option (and I’m not even sure I like it, but I’m throwing it out there) is to charge an additional fee for beers sent to the second round.

My wife and I are both judges. She’s Master, and I’m National. With two high-ranking judges in the same household, we’re often treated to a “personal invitation” from contest organizers. A personal gripe is that all too often organizers try to make us feel guilty, “We really need you,” or the one that makes me angry, “You’re BJCP, you owe us.” I heard this from two of this year’s regions. Any organizer that gives me that line will never see me.

We pick which competitions to attend for a number of reasons, including going to meet and support personal friends, going someplace new, and places that offer a unique experience. Drew’s idea of special beers or a party is something that would normally attract us, but there’s a problem. The last few years when regionals were hosted by Weasel Boy in Zanesville, Jay and Lori (the owners) planned special entertainment for Saturday evening, and generally treated us like royalty. But, after judging and a little partying Friday, and two flights on Saturday, all we wanted to do was crawl into bed. We didn’t hang around after judging.

Finally, the organizers do a boatload of work. (I know about the second round from personal experience.) Does the AHA give them anything for their efforts? I know they get BJCP points, but I’m one who doesn’t care about points (I know, heresy to some of you :D). At a minimum, I’d like to see a thank you article in Zymurgy that lists the names of all of the people involved. Going further, perhaps a gift certificate to the Beertown store might be offered.

52

A higher entry fee, to which I am not opposed, might reduce the practice of entering a single beer over multiple catagories, thus reducing the load on the judges and in turn, lead to an increased focus on the specific style being judged.

I agree with some of the earlier posts; anything we can do to make things easier for the judges would benefit the competition.

Good health,
Curt

53

Never heard that one.  Thankfully.  For them.

Competitions exist in a marketplace.  Market rules apply.  Get a reputation for running a lame competition and don’t be surprised if your customers (judges, in this case) bail on you.

Judges are a valuable, limited resource.  Treat them well.  Many of the improvements introduced in the second round over the last four or five years were specifically to create a better judging and conference experience for the judges. In some past conferences, judges (who have to pay to be there, by the way) missed half the conference due to judging, and received essentially no thanks except a free lunch.  Looks like a similar amount of attention has to be focused on the first round.  That’s more difficult to manage since the people running it are independent groups, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tried.

54

I don’t understand this sentiment.  What difference does it make how long it takes them to finish, as long as the beers are properly judged and they finish before the deadline?  If they take three weekends to finish and finish on the last weekend, vs. judge all of them the last weekend, how does that impact entrants? :-\

55

cuz our impatient little heads’re gonna 'splode.  the suspense is killing me :slight_smile:

56

That’s just the point…from everything we are reading, from various sources, they all seem to be in agreement that the NE region isn’t being properly judged, i.e. mini-BOS entries being left open overnight, not having any method to recapping entries they couldn’t get to, etc.

Of course I’m not there and all these rumors may be exaggerated.

57

Ah, well yes, “properly judged” is a really big part of the equation.

58

I was going to head up to Saratoga to judge.  It’s about a 4-6 hour drive depending on how you go and traffic.  No biggie for me, I am used to driving long distances.  However, I would have probably stayed over night so I didn’t have to drive all fatigued.  I am willing to drive to judge because of the experience.  Where else can you sit in a room full of beer geeks and taste some really spectacular beers?  It’s a lot more attractive than going to a beer festival.

I am usually treated very well as a judge, but I am also very low maintenance.  Tell me where to go, what I’m judging, and who my judging partner is and I’m ready to go.

I do agree with the folks talking about meals.  I was at one competition that quickly ran out of food for the judges, but they took initiative and resolved the problem as best they could.  But I think that judges need a continental breakfast spread (rolls, bagels, spreads, coffee, tea, hot water, etc.) when they arrive and at least a hot lunch for judging a flight.  A second flight should come with the option of a hot dinner or snack.

Judging stipends piqued my interest and I understand some of the issues in granting them.  It’s another piece of overhead for a competition too.  It also sets up an expectation and people can get frustrated and irrational when expectations and money are involved.  However, it can be used as some good incentive to get judges more motivated.  For instance, if you said that a National Judge gets $20 per contest and a Master Judge gets $30.  We’re rewarding experience and participation in judging and we’re providing some incentive for more experienced judges to go to more competitions.  We’re also providing low-ranking judges with the incentive to get more experience.  It shouldn’t be a lot of money but enough to provide incentive.

The only caveat is that I would not mandate these rules unless you are sponsoring a large competition.  Something like nationals probably needs a different system in place with some incentives to get judges out.  You’d also have to do the same thing with stewards too.  It’s a complex issue but not one that’s impossible to solve.  It’s worth doing a financial analysis on it to see how much the stipends would cost and how that would affect the cost of entries.  And then, of course, determining if there are any tax-related issues with doing this.

I recently judged a homebrew competition who in years past gave out recappers as a thanks to the judges.  They were hand-made brass bottle openers with a recapper on the other end.  I searched eBay and such to find one and only found one device that could do the trick.  It removes the cap without bending it and has a capper on the other end–a round crucible-shaped end.  I found an old version of this called a Pop’N Stop.  The devices was made in the early 1900 and is designed to reseal soda bottles from back in the day.  I will be bringing this opener with me to all competitions so I can reseal entries immediately after opening them.  The folks that used to give them out host the Hudson Valley Home Brewers Competition.  If someone can get the design and mass produce them, they would be an outstanding judges’ “thank you” and mitigate some of the mini-BOS issues.

I also think that the next few years should see some improvement in these larger events.  We have more people than ever applying to become judges and just as many entering entries into contests.  We’ve acknowledged that revisions to the BJCP exam are being discussed and they will facilitate getting more judges out there.  I also think the national competition will change too.  It’s huge and may need some unique solutions to keep it going.

I’ll throw my hat in to help judge next year’s NE rounds.  I didn’t do it this year because I had too much stuff going on, but if I can help improve it, I will.

59

I’ve heard the same rumors of course. At least some of it I heard from someone who had been there, directly, in person a week later.

I don’t think the taking 3 weeks part in and of itself is a horrible thing. In fact, maybe regions should plan from the outset to judge multiple weeks. I guess you could make the argument that people want to time some of their beers tightly to the judging date but that seems fairly nit picky and since the entries are due at the same time is hard to do anyway. I’m the biggest “IPAs have poor shelf life” freak you’ll find but even I think if you can’t make an IPA that is substantially at peak quality for 3 or 4 weeks when stored cold then something is wrong. I’ll take well judged over 4 weekends vs sloppily judged in one. Maybe sites should be encouraged to schedule judging on multiple weekends if they aren’t confident than can do it in one. I think that might be more smooth than trying against all odds to finish in a single weekend and then adding ad hoc sessions afterward that nobody expected and therefore get low turnout.

One thing not mentioned about enticing out of town judges is that I think passive things like location can mean a lot more than anything you could afford to do actively. This means not just city but location within city. I like to do fun extracurricular stuff when I judge and I hate having to deal with driving on a weekend centered around beer. I live in KC, basically the same (long) distance from Denver, Dallas, Indy, Madison and Nashville. I went to Denver, and it was an easy decision, because they judged within walking distance of all the spots on Blake street.

60

No.  I didn’t realize they had done that this year.  That’s a step in the right direction but yeah, varrying limits per region could be a headache to implement properly.