National Competition - Some Issues

[irish_goat]

Custom caps are unnecessary, if anyone puts a marker or whatever on the cap this can be covered very easily with a marker by myself. It's only the people who use very distinct bottle shapes/fail to take the labels off who are causing the trouble here.

[Damien M]

Not everyone is as organised as you 

You haven't seen the state of my Brewshed

[Boycott]

Possible solution:
>have all the judges judge the 1 cat at the same time (lets say there are 10 judging tables of 2 people)
>start with the largest cats (eg IPA with 40 enteries)
>So every judging table gets 4 beers and that category is finsihed very quickly leading to a quicl mini BOS judged by 2 judges
>the next largest cat goes ahead with the remaining 9 judging tables doing the same thing.

This has a number of advantages with taking only one set of bottles out of the cold room at a given time, beers are kept fresh and no need to put them back and forth to the crate. Wraps everything up nice and quick for people dealing with the papet work after too. Beers can be dumped sooner too unlike the all at the end scenario.

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

Interesting idea and it would only be necessary for the large categories. Get them out of the way early.

[irish_goat]

Not a bad idea! Only issue I see is if you get all the judges to do the American Ales and Stouts first would their taste buds not be shot when it comes to judging light beers like the lagers?

[Shane Phelan]

Your taste buds are fine if you were only drinking 3 or 4 samples. The only complication I see is what happens with the miniBOS in that case? Does each pair submit their top two (rather than 3) leading to a miniBOS with 10 beers assuming 5 pairs of judges?

[Will_D]

Your taste buds are fine if you were only drinking 3 or 4 samples. The only complication I see is what happens with the miniBOS in that case? Does each pair submit their top two (rather than 3) leading to a miniBOS with 10 beers assuming 5 pairs of judges?

The initial suggestion was for 10 tables (20 judges) - each judge 4 beers and say put 2 forward (max) - they could put 1 or even none through - thats a max 20 for miniBos

[Shane Phelan]

20 in a miniBOS ?

[Boycott]

20 in a miniBOS ?

I know judges score things differently but surely all the scores together at the end should mean that the top 5 or 6 be choosen. I know this year in the ipas only 3 beers scored over 40 and 6 over 35 so i dont think it would be so hard. It looked to me that actually loads of beers got to mini BOS simply because there wasnt that many good beers. There was even debates with some cats that none of the beers deserved a medal at all!

I wouldn't get bogged down in the numbers they are just an example lads. It was more the idea of getting more judging tables to plow through the big  cats first. From what i saw its all about getting rid of the bad flawed beers which are the majority!

[Will_D]

Possible solution:
>have all the judges judge the 1 cat at the same time (lets say there are 10 judging tables of 2 people)
>start with the largest cats (eg IPA with 40 enteries)
>So every judging table gets 4 beers and that category is finsihed very quickly leading to a quicl mini BOS judged by 2 judges

Shinny: This was the original suggestion.  It implies that the 10 tables would quickly taste 40 beers and knock out 20 at minimum. If there was only one worthy beer then only that one would go through.

I am not sure if it the best idea as 20 beers is a lot for a mini-Bos

[Boycott]

You could count out a lot more just take the top 5/6 from all the scores.

[Parky]

BOS?

Best of show 

[DEMPSEY]

BOS?

your missing an S

[Parky]

your missing an S

Found it !!!

[Hingo]

I've read over this thread a bit - some of it at a glance so if I'm repeating anyone's point - just take it as a re-iteration.

There seems to be an attitude at the moment that when the national's are mentioned at a club meet or brewday, and time & time again I always hear something along the lines of:

"Have you any beers on for the National Comp?"
"No, but have a few there I might just throw in, just to see where they come" Or "Yeah, it's not great but a least I'll get some feedback"

Seems to be a lot of entries are just chancing their arm.. I could have done that myself with a few beers I had but IMO when something carries a calibre of a "National Competition" I would believe that everyone should be bringing their A-game to the table.


This will sound like a "re-invent the wheel" solution  (sorry James) so I'm anticipating to be told to get my coat, but hear me out.

New BJCP Styles/Guidelines are being sgned off at the end of the month and my understanding is that there's going to be a lot more styles in there. If we go with this, even for 2017, ultimately it's going to affect the overall logistics.

So how about over the course of 2016, instead of having a regional, local clubs could be assigned a number of categories and host their own competitions for everyone to enter across the country (We do this already to a certain extent  - Galway's IPA Fest, GCB's Red ale, etc..) and if entries that score EG:38+ points at a club level, they can qualify to enter a beer in the same category to the Nationals in 2017. The Beer doesn't have to be that same batch you brewed for the club comp (but can be if preferred) - just the same style.

The point here is you've earned your slot in the Nationals - limiting the number of "casually entered beers" (for lack of a better term) and can afford to take a third bottle for BOS.
It will also make the Nationals a more prestigious event overall so having an entry in will be an achievement in itself.

While it might  be adding a level of complexity to the over all competition, from the organisers perspective, the fact that the club comps organizing can be delegated to interested clubs it's still Business as Usual for organizing the Nationals - just might need to validate an entry against a club result here & there. . Could also add a rule that if you got a medal last year, you automatically get into the National's next year in the same category.

Benefits:
Clubs hold more local competitions where possible
An added prestigious status to the Nationals
An even higher quality of entries in the Nationals
Less casual entries, bring more room for more bottles

Drawbacks:
Require's buy-in from local clubs


Anyway - that's my 2cents on this, probably a ludicrously controversial idea (aka a load of BS) in some folks eyes but worth putting it out there in case it caught someone's eye. Maybe not for next year but 2017+.