National Competition - Some Issues

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

AHA, UK, Sweden, We all do it the same. I woke up at 4am this morning with endless thoughts about this 3rd bottle !

Its important that we stick to the standard rules.

I'm glad you brought this up. It's certainly mentioned in the BJCP rules. There are 2 bottle competitions and 3 bottle competitions. Others in the US I have spoken to were surprised we only have 2 bottles for something as big as the nationals.

The cascade brewers (USA) just did a 280 entry competition and their rules are:

Each entry will consist of three 12 ounce capped bottles that are void of all identifying information, including labels and embossing. Printed caps are allowed, but must be blacked out completely.

To be more specific, the AHA nationals require:

How many bottles do I need?
Send two (2) bottles for each entry competing in the First Round. One bottle is used for the score sheet judging, the second bottle will be used for entries advancing to the mini-best-of-show judging to determine the category winners.

Three (3) additional bottles will be required for each entry that advances to the Final Round competition in June. One bottle is used for the score sheet judging, the second bottle will be used for entries advancing to the mini-best-of-show judging to determine the category winners, and the third bottle will be used for the best-of-show beer, mead, or cider if your entry placed first in its category.

If I read that correctly, they really require 5 bottles overall. They split their rounds further apart. That would cut down on immediate bottle issues but require more overall time as once round 1 is over, round 2 bottle collection begins.

I don't mean to be anal about this but we are not doing things the way it's recommended by BJCP or what other associations do. Not even close.

[Will_D]

I think we are outgrowing our logistical capabilities.
Also I know that the same tired old faces have organised the first 3 comps and they will be standing down.

It is time for a rethink along the lines of the US National model:

Regional heats:

Enter 3 bottles
These are judged locally and the top 3 from each category (or one or two if thats all that was entered) go forward (2 bottles) to the Nationals.

If there are say 4 regional events then that means at most 12 beers per category for the Nat. Finals.

It will cut down HUGHly on the need to drive bottles of beer around the country.

What think ye?

[mr hoppy]

Do we have enough judges regionally? I'd say it could get very incestuous with out very careful handling.

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

Will, for an old codger, you talk an awful lot of sense sometimes 

All joking aside, this sounds like something we may need to look at.

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

That leaves one big day out where the entrants can show up for the ceremony. The BOS event.

[Rossa]

The idea of a BJCP sanctioned competition is education. Giving the entrants feedback on how to improve their beer. This has to be at the heart of what we do.

Regionals is a non runner until we have 70+ BJCP judges on this island.

We are not of the size where regionals need to be even thought about. Limiting entry numbers is a far easier and practical way to deal with our bottle number problems.

The method we use has been tested over 30 years in the states and beyond.
It works.

There is some luck in where your beer is judged in a flight but there is no bias and everyone's beer is treated alike.

We had some issues this year as judges finished a whole bottle of beer in round 1. That is unacceptable.

What is more pertinent is how can we make sure the  judges give better feedback. Some of the score sheets were very poor and these were from judges who did the BJCP course.

[pob]

The cascade brewers (USA) just did a 280 entry competition and their rules are:

Each entry will consist of three 12 ounce capped bottles that are void of all identifying information, including labels and embossing. Printed caps are allowed, but must be blacked out completely.

How many bottles do I need?
Send two (2) bottles for each entry competing in the First Round. One bottle is used for the score sheet judging, the second bottle will be used for entries advancing to the mini-best-of-show judging to determine the category winners.

12oz = ~350ml x 3 bottles = ~1L or 2 x500ml bottles as per our rules.

I'm guessing that our Nationals are somewhat equivalent in size to a regional feeder event in the US, so their First Round rules are probably more appropriate.

Do we have enough judges regionally?

When would you schedule the events, e.g. over a couple of weeks in February, would there be enough judges to get to all clubs.

If spread over a number of weeks, with a BOS held 3/4 weeks later (when all clubs have held their events), the beers that were brewed to time the conditioning for maximum freshness/hoppiness would be at a disadvantage for a beer judged by the first club maybe 6/7 weeks earlier, than one judged by the last club.

By having a singular judging date as current it gives a level playing field for all brewers.

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

Sorry Pob, I'm guessing you haven't read the other posts. The volume is irrelevant. It's opening a fresh bottle each tasting that I see a need for. The fact we mostly use 500ml bottles doesn't matter.

It's one of those things that has progressively annoyed me for the last 4 days (two competitions) of national level judging I have been a part of.

[DEMPSEY]

Looking at the different Category's which ones would have benefited from an extra bottle not withstanding Saruman's point about freshness. 

[Bubbles]

-  Youd be surprised at some of the bottles we get !

Out of the 12 beers I judged:
- 3 had distinctive markings/writing on the crown caps
- 2 were in clear, tall swingtop bottles (!)

Thankfully, none of those beers made it to mini-BOS and so we didn't have to disqualify them. Why aren't people reading the guidelines before submitting beer?? I just don't get it.. 

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

Getting back to what Thomas said:

Perhaps, as a compromise the 3rd bottle should only be required for the bigger categories e.g. Stouts, American Ales. Basically, the ones who then have a mini BOS. Failing that, judges should be advised to leave enough in the bottle for the mini BOS.

Not all categories should need a 3rd bottle, only the ones we know will require a mini BOS.

[irish_goat]

-  Youd be surprised at some of the bottles we get !

Out of the 12 beers I judged:
- 3 had distinctive markings/writing on the crown caps
- 2 were in clear, tall swingtop bottles (!)

Thankfully, none of those beers made it to mini-BOS and so we didn't have to disqualify them. Why aren't people reading the guidelines before submitting beer?? I just don't get it.. 

Writing on the caps can be dealt with. I can understand some people like to label an entire batch so they can identify bottles in storage. Next year I'll bring a permanent black marker or something and cover any caps that are identifiable.

There were 3 or 4 bottles that were in bottles similar to Bulmers/Spaten with lots of gold foil plus there was one Smithwick's Pale Ale bottle with the full label intact. No excuse for the Smithwicks one as those labels peel off really easy. There was also one 750ml bottle I think we need to draw the line somewhere here and just say these bottles don't make it past the bottle sorting from next year onwards.

[DEMPSEY]

Agree on the bottle types. 3 years on and there is no reason that people entering should not know that the type of bottle is clearly defined .

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Anyone heading to the London & South East beer festival?

http://londonandsoutheast.brewcompetition.com/

It's the biggest regional in the uk, and the scale is about the same as the uk nationals.

Unusually there is a big guest element. Joe public pays an entrance fee and can sample the entries.

In order to provide this, competition entrants must provide 1 bottle for judging, and another 4 for the public.

Logistically that's over 1000 bottles of beer when there are around 200 entries.

If anyone is about, we could share some tricks? Reply here or PM me, we could get you into the non public session, especially if you are willing to steward or judge

[Rossa]

We disqualified a number of bottles this year for not removing labels and not following the rules just in case anyone was interested to know.