At least then everyone was held up. If you want this to be the competition that names the NATIONAL hombrewer of the year, there cannot be any advantages to one entrant over another. Everything MUST be equal.
Yeah…no.
I wanted early results so I selected an early region…
Crazy how that worked out.
Edit - also tired of the one-sided complaints; why did the late regions get a few weeks of cold conditioning mine didn’t?!?
If everything was equal…those entrants would not have had extra weeks of cold conditioning. I guess I have to realize that this competition is as much about gaming the system as it is brewing prowess. I don’t think that wanting everything equal is too much to ask. The fact that there is this much conversation should be an indication of a problem. I’ll just enter big beers and meads…keep the system out of it.
But that’s exactly what it is Scot! 
I made sure to enter an early round (because I hate waiting), entered a region where I know for certain that the judges know how to judge a “wild ale” properly (because wild ale “isn’t sour enough” is not acceptable feedback to me), and then had Myles double our chances in another early region.
But even with “gaming the system”, I still had the exact same success rate as my first two years. Perhaps next year I won’t be burned out from wedding brewing that I’ll actually have more than just weird beer ready to go.
re-brewing is overrated anyway. And judging by the amount of green beer I’ve tasted in the Finals, happens all too often.
3 medals in 2 years with 1.050-1.054 gravities, all brewed between Thanksgiving and New Years. My “advantage” is I know how to keep my beer in good condition.
Some styles age better than others. Advantage? Some regions have better judge pools. Advantage? Last year, and before, people present at regions heard unofficial results verbally announced. Advantage?
We can talk about this stuff all night. If I was interested in re-brewing something it would be on my brew plan to do so, and in all but a couple of styles my re-brew date would be before I’d receive notification of any regions. Gimme results today, and I’m re-brewing IPA or hefeweizen tomorrow. That’s it.
Best of luck to all entrants. Have a great time at the conference. All is well. Obviously, I’m the only one who sees a problem.
Has anyone received score sheets from Nashville yet?
I also see a problem, but it’s not worth my time to argue about it. [emoji1]
Never mind. Asked the wife. They were sitting in my house for the last week!
Five outta five to mini BOS, and two blue ribbons. I’ll take it!
Congrats Dave! Sorry, my post got lost in the whiner shuffle so I figured I’d congratulate myself… :
To the whiners and complainers, if you don’t like the format, don’t enter. But stop whining and complaining. This is supposed to be fun. Stop taking yourself so %$@#! seriously.
Done now.
Dave
Now that is good work! Congrats!
That is tremendous work. I aspire to be there someday. For now, I know my girl and I love my beer, but I know it’s not award winning yet. Again, someday…
Congrats Dave and jvoeltz - that is crazy good 5 for 5 being in mini-BOS. I recently was in a comp and scored a 43 (45 from a pro brewer) and didn’t even make mini Bos (tough category that day, I guess).
Baseball is supposed to fun, too. You know what else it’s supposed to be? Fair. That’s why they have umpires.
Oh I think it’s flawed as much as you do. But I also know that the system isn’t changing within the comp year, so we’ve just settled on gaming it when necessary. This year was a gaming year.
Do I have time to devote to being on the comp subcommittee to help fix it directly? Not it the foreseeable future. And I doubt you do either with all the other stuff you do for the hobby!
When the results were all released at once, and one region was late with the data, there was a lot of complaining from those that did not know if they should re-brew.
It is fun when you win a medal. This year my fun will be applauding and cheering for those I know who win medals.
All I know is if I gamed the system and sent my entries to Austin, I would have had one or two advance after looking at my scoresheets last night. As it was, I fell victim the the almighty miniBOS!
I may be done with the NHC comp and just do local and my select favorites (KCBM, MidWinter, Upper Miss., etc).
For sure, comps are getting to tougher to place in.
Man, that is awesome! Way to go! Good luck in the final round.