National Brewing Championships 2016

[delzep]

Who makes all decisions regarding the national competition? Is it one person or a group in agreement? Who is this person/group?

[Bubbles]

I think having a qualifying score for a medal is a great idea that way there's no medals given out for a poor beer. If there was 3 or 4 beers in one cat and only one scored above the threshold for a medal then it would be fair to me that there's a medal for that beer and that would limit pointless medals given out just because there was only a few beers entered. What do ye think?

The problem is that different sets of judges will have a different "level" of awarding points. One table's bronze medal-winner beer might be a 32, whereas another table might give the same beer a 40. It's happened in the past where medals were awarded for good beers, but they just happened to have been awarded low-ish points.

38 pointer won IPA fest last year even though there were 46 & 48 point beers. When it gets to mini BOS & BOS rounds scores dont matter much.

I'm surprised that a 38 pointer made it into a mini-BOS alongside 46 and 48 points. Was there no scores in between?

[Bubbles]

that stuff is like syrup and a judge would struggle to finish that amount

aha! Not necessarily so! Sack mead is heavy and sweet, but there's light-bodied and dry meads too. Even session meads (hydromels).

The problem with a single bottle is that the judge might need to keep sampling in order to properly evaluate the mead and end up with little or nothing for mini-BOS or BOS.

Also, if mead is in its own category this year, or judged alongside the wines, it potentially means that there won't be a fresh bottle opened for the BOS. This puts the mead winner at a disadvantage in the BOS.

[Will_D]

Re wine bottle sizes:

Surely you mean a standard wine bottle of 75 cl?

[Leann ull]

indeed Will you can tell how much of it I drink!

[Leann ull]

Who makes all decisions regarding the national competition? Is it one person or a group in agreement? Who is this person/group?

Like Brewcon, there was a call to arms there 3 months back by Irish Goat, there is a whats ap group with 8 bodies in it including 2 of the Belfast members. Decisions are made by the collective and we all help each other out across all areas with ideas.
This year Rossa has stepped back and it will be interesting to see how it runs without him.
This will be our 4th comp so we know the formula and a lot of it is just repeat or common sense.
The plan is always to deliver the comp as professionally as possible and make sure everything is done to the best of of our abilities.

We still have to be reasonably flexible in some areas, like a litre of Mead isn't necessary, but there will be no compromise on bottle sizes for the mainstream cats this year so if somebody provides a magnum bottle or 3x330ml, which has happened in the past for IPA, its disqualified.
The reasoning behind that is simple, it won't fit into a standard bulmers crate and or we always have 1 crate for initial judging and another for BOS.
We try to keep cats in their own crates, last year we had 90 crates to hump around, if we had big or more bottles it gets unmangeable for handling when it comes to stacking or logistics etc.

I know the Swedes even insist on a specific style of 500Ml, but that is a bit extreme in my view.   
Competition Boss will post shortly fuller details of 2016 comp so its time now to brew and get a fully conditioned beer

[Leann ull]

that stuff is like syrup and a judge would struggle to finish that amount

aha! Not necessarily so! Sack mead is heavy and sweet, but there's light-bodied and dry meads too. Even session meads (hydromels).

The problem with a single bottle is that the judge might need to keep sampling in order to properly evaluate the mead and end up with little or nothing for mini-BOS or BOS.

Also, if mead is in its own category this year, or judged alongside the wines, it potentially means that there won't be a fresh bottle opened for the BOS. This puts the mead winner at a disadvantage in the BOS.

Fair point but having done the stuff myself in DJ's and knowing the time effort and energy it takes to do I don't think its  appropriate that we ask an entrant for 1L? I wouldn't enter and waste that amount in a comp.
We will specifically ask judges to take it slow on the mead and as we all know 100Ml is plenty to judge of any liquid.
I don't believe we have ever had a petulant entry which definitely would require 2 bottles. 

Maybe the approach would be that you can if you want submit 2x500's or for this cat, especially if its sparkling, but only 1 will also be accepted?, 
http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Mead.pdf

[Bubbles]

I don't think its  appropriate that we ask an entrant for 1L? I wouldn't enter and waste that amount in a comp.

I admit I'd be fairly torn about giving away 1 litre of mead for a competition. I also do 1 gal batches of it and you typically end up with 4-4.5 litres of finished mead. >20% is a lot of it to give away.

I don't believe we have ever had a petulant entry which definitely would require 2 bottles. 

Think you mean "petillant" fella...  Is that the best typo of the year?!?!

Mind you, there's been plenty of petulance around here over the years too... 

[Leann ull]

Oh no I got it right 
Cut me some slack I single handed balanced the trade deficit with the UK last night through Irish Whiskey consumption, just doing my bit..

[Bubbles]

oh alright, I'll go easy on you, just this once. 

Go get yourself some Dioralyte and you'll be grand. 

[Leann ull]

Thanks for the advice I tend to save that stuff for the day after judging

[Leann ull]

There might be only 7 Monday's to Christmas but there's only 12 weeks until the doors close for entries to the Nationals!
Get them starters on!

[delzep]

Any restrictions on entries per category per person or stuff like that?

[nigel_c]

Starters? Brews lagering already. 

[Leann ull]

Any restrictions on entries per category per person or stuff like that?

As is previous years only 1 entry per sub category.
So in the case of Cat 21 IPA's up to 8 according to new BJCP guidelines