2017 National Brewing Championships

[guest1906]

Hi guys

Is this competition only for home brew beers to enter as I produce home brew cider and wondering can I enter my ciders?

[Leann ull]

If you are a full member you can enter no problem

[Bubbles]

At the end of the day I know that the organisers try and have bos judges with clean palettes and they are best placed to put one against another.

Fresh palates for the BOS, but generally not for the mini BOS. A pair of judges typically taste 12 beers of the same style before they go on to do the mini BOS which will often have beers of different styles, gravities. Palates are shot, and the judges beer preferences might start coming into play. For example, how is an excellently brewed blonde supposed to stand up against a well brewed American pale ale, judged by two people who have just sampled 12 pale ales? I'm sure we could find numerous examples of this across all the styles.

but in the main what was done worked, I'm sure this year will be no different.

I thought everything worked brilliantly last year, speaking as an entrant and judge. So I'm wondering why the changes this year on entry caps, reduced number of medals etc. There's a handful of categories that attracted very low numbers of entries last year that should be rolled into other categories. But we need to be sensible about it. Even halving the number of categories would be silly imo.

Its up to us as entrants and club members to recommend solutions to help the organisers, every year there have been lessons learnt in how the whole thing is run what works and what doesn't, full open bjcp cats didn't work so its up to us to propose something that will help.

I'm happy to do that, here or offline. I'm surprised that there hasn't been any open calls for feedback after the Nationals each year tbh.

[guest1906]

Hi Bubbles

For someone who came a member last June and new to the home brew championships I see this ac-arum constantly BOS in you posts, What does BOS mean?

[Simon_]

What does BOS mean?

Best of show
After beers have won their category they go forward for BOS where one will be judged the stand out beer. What Bubbles is referring to as a mini BOS is the compromise being made where quite different beer styles from a bundle of categories are judged together within the parent category

[DEMPSEY]

The winner of each category is then elevated to the BOS and it there that a panel of judges choose the overall winner.

[guest1906]

So will there be many cider entries into the championships?

[pob]

From memory about 30+ each year in the Cider & Mead category.

[Leann ull]

You are only allowed enter 1 per sub cat so in theory you can enter your max of 5 across the 11 odd cats, but please please taste you cider then read the guidelines for each style to see which one it's most suited for!
Nothing stopping you entering a good cider in 2 or 3 cats.

[mr hoppy]

Two quick questions on the competition website.

1 - I couldn't see a shipping address.

2 - I thought I'd read somewhere on here that swing tops were not allowed this year, but the competition site says they are. I assume the competition site is correct but could someone confirm?

[Leann ull]

I think the conversation went that they were allowed however they present a significant danger because of their height in a bulmers crate and getting popped in stacking, there were 2 instances of them getting popped in the past and replacements were chased. That won't be happening this year so if you have an option I'd go standard caps.

[mr hoppy]

Sounds like a sensible approach.

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

Has there been any judging guidelines done up for NEIPA entries?
Is it worth entering them or will they be marked down because they don't meet set style guidelines?

[DEMPSEY]

Methinks someone has a cracker of a murky looking beer

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

Still in trial mode, it's a beer that interested me from day 1 and I really enjoy drinking it.
I just don't want to fork out the time and effort and expense, there's a few grams of hops in there, to be told "not to style".
There's probably others in the same boat too.