National Brewing Championships 2014 - Discussion

[Rossa]

The proposal is to split the national for this year into two competitions and have a National Brewing Championships Style Champion and a National Brewing Championships Specialty Champion.

The first competition will be judged to style (in particular the BJCP styles 1-19 & include ciders) This includes all the main categories of which medals will be awarded in all (60+ medals). This will be held in Dublin on the weekend of March 1.

The second competition will take place in April in the Franciscan Well Brewery, Cork. This competition will include the remaining BJCP categories which will really let home brewers let their hair down.

These categories include beers brewed with -
Unusual techniques (e.g., steinbier, ice/eis beers)
Unusual fermentables (e.g., maple syrup, honey, molasses, sorghum, chocolate)
Unusual adjuncts (e.g., oats, rye, buckwheat, potatoes, chocolate)
Combinations of other style categories (e.g., India Brown Ale, fruit-and-spice beers, smoked spiced beers, mint chocolate)
Out-of-style variations of existing styles (e.g., low alcohol versions of other styles, extra-hoppy beers, "imperial" strength beers, orange chocolate beers)
Historical, traditional or indigenous beers (e.g., Louvain Peetermann, Sahti, vatted Porter with Brettanomyces, Colonial Spruce or Juniper beers, Kvass, Grätzer, dark chocolate beers)
Irish-style interpretations of other styles (e.g., hoppier, stronger, or ale versions of lagers) or other variants of traditional styles
Clones of specific commercial beers that aren't good representations of existing styles
Any experimental beer that a brewer creates, including any beer that simply does not evaluate well against existing style definitions

Basically an anything goes home brew competition where the brewer gives a description of their beer to help judges appraise it. Again medals will be awarded for all categories here.

Categories will include
20. FRUIT BEER SPICE/HERB/VEGETABLE BEER
21A. Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer
21B. Christmas/Winter Specialty Spiced Beer
22. SMOKE-FLAVORED/WOOD-AGED BEER
22A. Classic Rauchbier
22B. Other Smoked Beer
22C. Wood-Aged Beer
23. SPECIALTY BEER


We would also be thinking of adding our own categories to this competition. These may include Black IPA, Hopfen Weiss and other emerging styles. If anyone has any suggestions please pipe up.

During this competition we will hold a 'Battle of the Barrel' competition where all clubs barrel beers will shoot it out to become 'Champion Barrelers'. This will only be for barrel project beers and will be judged by a barrel expert.

We will also award a club trophy in Cork. Details of which need to be ironed out but basically the most successful  club  (from both competitions)   will be top dog for the year. 

The cost of entering the competition will be €8 for the first beer and €5 for every other beer. Entry will open in December and close mid January. All entrants must be paid up club members. It's only a tenner so get busy.

All beers will be collected at club level and transported to a central location for re-labeling in mid February.

The judges will mainly be from our own ranks (BJCP and experienced brewers) but will also include some weighty professionals. If you feel you have a good palate, have the knowhow, can tell DMS from Acetaldehyde and how to fix them you would be heading in the right direction to partner a certified judge. Do let us know if you feel up to the job and we will take it from there.

Please read the BJCP guidelines carefully when assessing what category to put your beer in. Judges will be comparing beers against commercial examples so an out of style entry could score a dreaded 13. For example a wood aged beer goes in the wood aged category.  A dry stout containing carrots and strawberries is not a dry stout in the eyes of the BJCP.  Please bare this in mind and assign your entry the correct category and style.  Guidelines - http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php 

Commercial examples are included to illustrate examples. http://www.bjcp.org/docs/classicstyles.xls

[brenmurph]

cool... I ( and south Kildare) will be having two days out or perhaps a weekend in cork and a day in dublin

At those prices  im not entering 11 this year

[brenmurph]

is there a bulk discount?  its very expensive for busy brewers like South Kildare Region to enter a dozen brews and we dont earn as much as the Dublin & Cork members  

[delzep]

The high cost is to save the judges taste buds I'd say. And it's right too

[brenmurph]

I Know... was only takin the piss I thought it was too cheap last year and this year just a little more than I thought it would / should be. Ill be enterin at least 6 maybe 7

[Ciderhead]

Nice post Rossa and although it's more expensive than last year it is still cheaper than other comps here and overseas.
Also the members only bit is a sure way of accelerating our membership and follows the same approach other HB clubs with member only entries allowed.
So if like Bren we all enter 6 that will be 1,200
Interesting way of taking the "Eurovision" extreme winners out.
Loving the club comp idea, however some clubs will have loads of entries and by the law of averages will do well, like them gits in NCB, who may as well collect their medals now. :
Oh Shit just realised that's only 12 weeks away, looks like I'm set for a divorce in Dec so!

[Will_D]

I love the idea of splitting off the specials!

I would also suggest that we split off the other high alcohol/highly hopped beers.

E.g. Imperial Stouts/Imperial IPAs/APAs etc.

The logic is that IF a comercial brewer was going to brew the winning beer then would they really want to brew some of the above?

[delzep]

What's the reasons for proposing a split of the competition?

[DEMPSEY]

Looks good rossa
Just to clarify the proposals.
If we split this as suggested this will mean all the barrel project beers can not enter the main competition.
We also have 1 trophy which represents the yearly winner. Is the proposal for the second competition going to have the same status as the main national one.
Last year we allowed non members of clubs to enter beers and pay a premium. Should we not allow this again this year and charge a higher premium for non members.
Any other thoughs

[Partridge9]

Looks Great Rossa,

Getting Cork into the picture will work well me thinks.

Its also splits the load as it were

Cant Wait !

[Hop Bomb]

Makes lots of sense to keep all the speciality beers to another day of judging.

May I suggest session IPA as a sub cat?

"Entry will open in December and close mid January"  Il only be brewing my IPAs around the end of that period seeing as 2013 hop GB will be dropping then.
Do members just do up their recipes before hand & enter those. Then brew the beers after the closing date? What happens if you dont hit your numbers bang on etc?
Can you change your entry form all the way up to the comp date?

[delzep]

Makes lots of sense to keep all the speciality beers to another day of judging.

The suggestion is to have a different competition for speciality beers, not just to judge them on a different day. At least thats how I read it. I don't agree with it though

[Ciderhead]

Last years guesstimate on
Entries : 100-120 actual 334
NHC Members : 75-100, actual 200

We never get the numbers right ever!

It's gonna be massive

Me an Bren will have 12 to start with and quality this time not the shit I entered last year and got 38 points for

Like every global HB club we do all of this to increase the quality of beer brewed by our members not to facilitate outsiders.
Outsiders can become insiders for 10 snots in any case.

What is really critical is that all members are aware if the announcement so that they can get brewing, can a mail be sent out?

Interestingly also is there a cap?



Sent from 1 of 300,000,000

[Ciderhead]

We have tastings but don't have qualified judges in our club to give impartial advice and it's impossible to tell somebody their beer was piss on a local level.

The NHC is a club with 500+ online and 200 paid members first that run a Homebrew Competition second.

UK craft brewers that run the UK nationals have a different ideology.
Is their event profit driven?


Sent from 1 of 300,000,000

[mr hoppy]

From a purely selfish perspective this is fantastic as I'll probably be out of the country when the style competition is on (again  ), but I'll just have to toddle up to the Well for the speciality competition.

Mind, having entered the speciality section last year, it was completely dominated by big hoppy black IPAs, could I suggest a third competition for Black IPAs, maybe in May?