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Events & Comps
41

Well that would be good for me, but how about the current “homebrewer of the week” Dave Motter if rule this was in place last year?  He did pretty well for a first time entrant.

This from the last question in the series.

I entered my first NHC in 2011 and was humbled with 2 medals and was part of a 3 way tie for Ninkasi (losing due to first round points).

I submitted beers into 10 categories and advanced 4 to the final round, taking Gold with my American Amber Ale and Silver with my English Mild Ale.  I made it to the semi-finals in the Samuel Adams longshot competition with my Dopplebock.  It was pretty cool getting feedback from Jim Koch, although a free trip to GABF and having it brewed by SA would have been better.
 
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42

Well one thing that I think would help a bit is only count an entry that has been paid for. I has come to my attention that there is quite a lot of slots floating in limbo out there. In fact i managed to round up 7 today from a region that sold out the first day :-\

43

We have discussed some options in the past for how to address this, and we will again in the future.  We really didn’t anticipate the competition would sell out this fast - it took much longer last year and we increased capacity by ~10%.  We’ll look into any number of options.  Things we have discussed that are coming up here:

  1. Pre-qualifying is too exclusionary in my opinion, and I would not support that.
  2. Having many smaller first round sites would only increase the number of final round entries, so judging at the final round would take more than 1 day like it used to in the bad old days.
    3.  Adding more regions might be a good option, even though it increases the number of entries in the 2nd round it wouldn’t as much as 25 regions judging 400 beers.  This still depends on judge turnout for the 2nd round though, and finding enough judging centers that can definitely handle 750 beers.
    4.  Raising the price would curb entries somewhat, and might be something we do.

Keep the ideas coming though, we are open to new ideas.

44

I’ve suggested in the past that we don’t necessarily increase the number of first round regions (for the reasons Tom mention), but instead that we increase the number of satellite regions from the first round.

In LA we used to take a set of classes up from the San Diego regional site and utilize the local judging population. We haven’t done it in a few years, because it was a fair amount of work and the guys in SD stepped up and covered the load.

We’d have to have a better solution for moving the classes around, but it’s a thought.

45

Just so you know, anyone can pick any regional center…you just have to send all of them to only one.  I was contemplating a new region if my region sent to Sarasota this year, but luckily they went back to Philly.

46

Drew’s idea looks to be a good one.

Everyone needs to think about the work that goes into judging 750 beers.  There was a local competition this last weekend that had 1034 entries.  There were 5 sessions over 3 days.  It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun also. The judges also came from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois in fair numbers.  There was one guy each from Texas, and California (featured speaker John Palmer).

You will not get the participation from all of the states in the area if there are other judging center close by.  I am thinking of going down to Indianapolis to help with the judging, just need to sign up and do it.

47

I just hope that what ever change is made is not to discourage the hobby of COMPETITIVE homebrewing.  It seems like its the CASUAL homebrewers that have a problem with the current set up.

48

would they ever limit the beers advancing to the final round to just gold, or just gold and silver winners in the first round?  That would make those 25 regions judging 400 entries not so hard on the final round.

And yes, I know there is history of first round bronze winning final round gold.  But if they really want to keep the final round to a single day they’re not going to be able to grow this contest much further without a significant change…

if they just want to keep adding first round sites, maybe having some smaller locations could help make it feasible for smaller clubs to host.  500-entry sites qualify their Gold and Silver winners while 750-entry sites send all three.  shrug  whatever, the growth of the hobby is a good problem to have!

cheers–
–Michael

49

Not all AHA members live in the US. If I ever wanted to enter the NHC comp I certainly wouldn’t be able to meet the criteria of having won a medal at a sanctioned comp, especially since there are no BJCP judges in my country. I do think that the way things are now, though, I would be able to enter without a problem if I really wanted to. People who weren’t able to enter because of work or whatever, I understand those obligations, but there’s always the ability to ask a friend to fill out the form for you.

Also ‘competitive homebrewing’ as opposed to ‘casual homebrewing’ say wha??? What happened to RDWHAHB? All homebrewing should be casual - not saying it doesn’t hurt to get feedback on recipes, but if the whole reason someone is homebrewing is to get medals, there’s a problem somewhere.

50

^^^^^^^^That

51

Well, if that’s the case then the AHA is contributing to the “problem” since they’ve set up the largest competition in the world.  Some people compete to get feedback, some people compete to win, and some people don’t compete at all.  I don’t think any of those groups of people has a problem.  It’s just another aspect to the hobby.

52

I’m itching to see a histogram distribution of number of entries per contestant.  That could be an informative step for the govening committee as they look at the “problem”.

53

are you suggesting they change the name from “homebrew competition” to “homebrew feedback” ?

two years ago I won a trip to sierra nevada for beer camp because I won a gold at NHC…so HELL YEAH, I enter to win medals.

so, why are people coming on here to complain if they should just RDWHAHB… ::slight_smile:

54

Don’t ask me, I wasn’t complaining :wink:

55

CHEERS man!

56

I like competitive homebrewing. It is competitive competition entering that I object to.

57

+1.  i entered specifically for the feedback.

58

Competitive and casual are the only choices?  Too funny.  I know quite a few serious brewers who could not care less about beer competitions.

I’m betting the feedback to ego ratio on homebrew competitions is around 1:4.

I think it’s great that there are venues for those who like to compete.  I also think it is an odd paradigm.

59

Don’t forget about the mega-clubs entering in all the different regions. That fills up a region a lot faster than you you might think. It’s a well thought out strategy. I don’t fault strategy but the comment earlier about feedback to ego ratio is pretty correct. 1:4  Clubs included! :o

60

Hypothetically, what if there was no cap limit on entries? 
With our local competitions, don’t we always seem to find a way to get it done and send the best on to the next round?  My only beef would be that, given the current BJCP experience point table and the points cap, there’s no benefit for the judges to go along with this approach.

However, that could change as long as the BJCP and AHA are willing to give judges credit for the number of flights judged over many different days (or, even weekends).  Our point accumulation should not be limited by a points cap–which exists for most competitions.  Otherwise, it makes no sense for local judges at the various regional centers to put out additional effort to help judge the surplus entries.  It is great that we get the occasional judge from one state or another, but the bulk of the judging is going to be done by the local club (or clubs).  The current points table seems to favor the judge who comes into town for the competition weekend.  The local club has already pre-judged the “first round” of entries and screened out all the inferior beers; only the good beers get pushed onto the next round.  The out-of-town judge ends up judging better beers in the second round and mini-BOS (and even BOS), and potentially maxes out on judging points within 48 hours (and may only judge one flight per session).  However, local club members who put in countless hours and (multi-flight) sessions over several weeks to cull the inferior beers and make the number of entries more manageable for the weekend competition don’t necessarily get the benefit of the same number of points.

In other words, if I judge one or more flights a day Fri-Sat-Sunday for three weekends straight, then I should be able to get 9 BJCP points (0.5 pts/session*, 1 session/day, 1.5 pts per 3 day weekend x 3 weekends).  However, Table 1 on the BJCP EXPERIENCE POINT AWARD SCHEDULE shows us to be capped at 5.5 judging points max regardless of the number of comp entries.

*A session is one or more flights per “sit down period,” e.g. morning, or afternoon, or evening).

You’ll need more entry locations (to entice more local judges–i.e., the ones who won’t travel to a more distant regional center) or you’ll need to be able to give the judges more points if they’ve earned it.  Otherwise it’ll be hard to entice judges to take their valuable personal time and money to judge (for nothing).  In fact, as it stands, judges would do better to just judge one flight per session and then go hang out in the hospitality room, or leave the judging area–there’s no reward for being “helpful” to the organizers.  Meanwhile, the comp organizers are unsuccessfully trying to recruit judges for the next flight and everyone seems disinterested–as one comp organizer recently described to me, “it is like herding cats.”

This could be improved–we need to reward the effort.  Perhaps the BJCP and AHA governing committees could address this.