NHC 2015

Still pretty new to the whole competition thing. Entered 1 beer into competition to be judged in Denver. It said that you get notified by 17 Feb if yours would be selected. My question about this is, do they just randomly pick you or do the take previous competitors first?

Hi Jaftak22,

If you filled out the application form, then we will treat your application the same as any other application.  There is no prerequisite for getting into the competition, except that you need to apply first.  Although, I should say that volunteers (staff, judges, and stewards) who helped make the 2014 NHC a success, will be placed in their primary judge centers before the rest of the applicants are randomly selected.  Good luck!

Cheers,
Janis

Yes I totally agree that volunteers would be first to go. I put in my application as soon as I got the e-mail on the 2nd of February. I like doing competitions mostly because of the feedback I get.

I believe 1st round moved to a checklist scoresheet format last year, so you feedback may be limited.  This, by all means, should not keep you from entering however.

Good luck!

No it won’t keep me from entering, and they way I look at is if you move to the next round, you made a good beer!

Does entering early help your chances for a first timer?  I entered on the 2nd as well and first year aha memeber so first year Nhc competitor so trying to figure it out Philly was my prime location since it’s pretty local

Nope - timing doesn’t matter.

The only thing that matters beyond the “hey you helped out last year” thing is how many judging centers you’re willing to ship to. More centers, the more likely you are to fit into the cracks.

I chose two other philly prime New York and ohio

if those three were full, and you missed out on the competition while there were spots available in, say, Saint Louis, would you be upset?  Just making sure…

Guess that is true shipping is shipping and I guess price wolnt really go up that much

Another question are the Sierra Nevada bottles accepted for nhc’s i bottle batches in tall bottles one batch and stubby SN lagunitas bottles the next batch so my one beer is in talls and the others in shorts is this ok

Short neck bottles are fine

Sweet thanks I was worried I was going to only have one entry due to my short bottles lol

So how many usually make it through the first round?

it’ll be around 1000 that make it through, out of around 9000 if all regions are about full.

Kept me from entering! Figured I could enter two comps for the price of the NHC AND get better scoresheets.

1st-2nd-3rd place
28 categories
12 regions

3x28x12 = 1008 potential entries.

In rare cases, it is possible for less than 3 entries in the category score 30 or higher.  30 is the minimum score for an entry to pass through to the 2nd round.