There have been a lot of changes, new locations, and more interest than ever before.
So, I’m interested in hearing how they are going!
I can report that the Kansas City Bier Meisters did a great, great job of organizing a successful judging weekend in KC. I know they are exhausted now but I hope they consider hosting a regional in another year or two. Some solid and some excellent beers from around the country, and judging done by around 5pm yesterday. Sufficient lighting and not overcrowded. The food was great and plentiful, thanks. Quite a few judges made really long drives to help out. Janis even flew out to help! Yeah I did some bitching about a few long flights, but that is practically my calling card. ;D
Looks like Category 16 is the most popular these days. People love their Belgian Specialties…
Michael, thank you for the kind words! Yes, we are all exhausted, but it was well worth it. We certainly could not have pulled it off without the help of everyone - something Janis also commented on. When a snafu arose, there was always someone there to figure it out and make it a non-issue.
We had AMAZING food crafted by one of our members, a great staff, and a whole lot of volunteers from all over the midwest (and some beyond!).
I do hope we can do this again next year. If we can improve on a “great, great job”, then I think we’re in business!
PS - I’m going to have to get the recipe for that peach cider you handed me. ;D
I forgot about the second bottle for mini-BOS…Mostly because it caused everything to go smoothly, and is generally an awesome change. The competition isn’t perfect but this is a big improvement.
I agree that the 2nd bottle was a huge win during judging. I was able to pull flights from large categories when extra judges showed up, because the mini-BOS could be delayed until all flights finished with no detrimental effects. Even during the bottle sort, the larger number of bottles wasn’t that big of a deal, as we finished the sort in a little over 3 hours.
It did take 2x the space though.
I thought I’d bump this up to see how the other regions have faired…are we all done?
I judged Th/Fri/Sat in Tulsa. I believe they finished up the last few categories on Sunday.
An unfortunately-timed Tulsa Craft Beer Week really ate into the local volunteer pool, but I was impressed with the organization. The FOAM club does a nice job, and Desiree Knott is an amazing organizer.
Several judges came from Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri and Texas to help out. Gary Glass also flew out to help, which gave us a certain street cred…not as much as if we’d had Janis, but beggers can’t be choosers. ;D
I think a good time was had by all. I saw a lot of really well-filled-out scoresheets.
Once again the single best improvement to this competition was the 2nd bottle.
In review I’d be happy to send entries to Tulsa again and would judge there again, especially if they work on the local Fest scheduling to increase the volunteer pool.
any other regions/volunteers want to chime in? Things you’re happy with? Areas for improvement?
I judged & stewarded on Saturday in Tulsa with the FOAM guys and High Gravity. Kudos to a well organized judging (lunch was great too!). Got to put a few faces to names I see on here or competition results pages.
I judged Saturday in Zanesville and everything appeared to run smoothly. I was not involved with any organization. Those dudes seemed to keep things running and at least looked pretty well organized.
As a judge, I liked having the second bottle for mini-BOS. Although its like there is a cup shortage now…
Thanks to the both of you (Michael & Ross) & all of our guest judges for helping us out at the NHC (1st Round) in Tulsa, OK. We had some great beers & meads with some solid catered food from the 907 Café to lay down some good “belly mortar” for enjoying all of those fine homebrews. It’s always nice to see entrants putting forth effort to help judge a competition they have vested interest in. I agree that we were “short-handed” due to Tulsa Craft Beer Week (TCBW) compared to our normal judging pool, but we also had a great crew on the other side of town at the festival speaking “the good beer (homebrew) gospel” and received alot of publicity for craft & homebrewed beer in Oklahoma. We’ll definitely coordinate better & offset the dates IF High Gravity (Desiree) decides to host it again next year, but this year it was totally out of our control. Thanks again to you both! P.s. It was very nice to finally meet you Ross “Angry Scotsman” Harper. You’re really not as “Angry” as all of that! >:(
From an organizers standpoint, I think it ran fairly smooth in Zanesville this weekend. We judged 721 beers Friday - Sunday. We were down about 20 judges compared to previous years that I have run the event. We have a pretty good sized judge pool in our region so its not for lack of numbers.
Reasons:
1. I heard from numerous people that they were not judging this year cause they were frustrated with registration and/or having to ship their beers to a different region.
I heard from people that they were not entering or judging this year cause they were shut out of the conference and just did not care.
Several regional clubs had some events planned (normal meeting night, brewout, etc.)
On the flip side, we had a Friday session with 14 of 16 judges being National or higher and most other sessions were pushing closer to 20 of 50 being National or higher.
Thanks to all that are lurking and came out to help!
I believe that all the 1st round judging has taken place right? Does that mean maybe this week the AHA will post 1st round results? May 4th is too far away!!
I drove down to judge a couple of flights for the San Diego location. It was very well run and a pleasure to judge. Kudos to Eric DuRose and the rest of the organizers and stewards.
There’s a rather long thread on Homebrewtalk regarding the first round results and inconsistencies in each region (which have sent to a member of the GC so they could be aware for next year ). Some are valid, like the scoresheets for some regions being sent out the next business day while other regions judge the same day haven’t sent them out yet (not going to say who but it rhymes with Blue Snork Ditty ;D ).
Others are ridiculous, like saying “how hard is it to enter info into a database and put them online”. Very few of us (me not included) knows how much work Janis puts into getting the results posted. Some are just comical, like the poster who said the reason region 11 had so many issues is that people in NYC are just busier than everyone else.
Everyone likes to throw the “perceived advantage” thing around but having 3-4 extra weeks to rebrew one or more of your entries is definitely an advantage. I have no problem waiting for the May 4th deadline, but feel that some will have a 4 week jump on others just doesn’t seem fair.
I’m not sure how to fix it and don’t envy those who are assigned the task.
