National Competition - Some Issues

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

I think someone suggested it but any cons?

What about 2 bottles for competition, one for judging, one for mini-bos but with an understanding that the brewer must provide a 3rd bottle on request for BOS if they wish to progress that far.

The brewer keeps it in reserve. If it gets that far, they have the option of providing it in the weeks between round 1 and 2.

[pob]

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.

I totally appreciate the freshness part, I thought that the recapping issue was the suggested solution.

The volume is quite relevant, it is to do with non-distinct, anonymous bottles in a practical size to keep the judging as anonymous and fair for all.

As 1 Litre is the volume required for judging, there are really only 3 x 330ml or 2 x 500ml as options.

The 500ml bottle issue mainly relates to the logistics of hauling 3 x 500ml per entry, essentially another 1/2 trailer load per judging location and the fact it would be the common bottling size in use by both commercial and homebrewers. If 12oz/355ml was the prevelent size available here, then it would be probably the size used both by homebrewers and competition.

This year there were 452 entries, so over 900 bottles, make that 3 bottles it becomes over 1,350 - lots of extra work in bottle sorting.

If there was a third bottle requirement, until all the beers were registered, we wouldn't know which required a mini-BOS extra bottle, i.e. a category with 8 entries mightn't need it, a larger category like stouts with 47 would. Then a follow up email, back to the entrant requested a third bottle would have to be submitted.

At bottle sorting, an extra layer of "Does this entry have 2 or 3 bottles?", would be a nightmare. Does a beer missing the 3rd bottle get eleminated for this? What happens when people just send in 3 bottles just in case, more sorting, and waste disposal required.

A system that everyone follows is fairest to all, when managing such a large event with limited resources by volunteers giving up their time will always have compromises, by debriefing & improving the process year on year, it tries to maintain a level field for all entrants.

[Rossa]

Going forward most categories will have a mini bos. Even categories where 1 table was doing the whole thing can have a mini bos. This happened quite a bit this year as there was very close scoring.

[DEMPSEY]

On the issue of having a paying public I think we would run into issues with Revenue as this is homebrew

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

That would be covered by this no?
http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/rates/decision-detail-03183.jsp

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

It's explained in the remarks. Social clubs and non profit organisations. Vat needed on bar and food.

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

John looked in to it for Beoir in the beginning. All good there and I see no reason for NHC to be any different.

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

Anyway, that's off topic. Fees for competitions, not so much:
http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/rates/decision-detail-03355.jsp

[Damien M]

I realise I am late to the party and Will_D has succinctly stated most of my points bu..... I'd started off line so I'll finish.


1.   The volume of entries needs to be considered as primarally  it leads to Judging fatigue and are we giving the 1st and the 25th beer equal appraisal. I realize that we don't want to preclude entries but both this year and last more than one a Judge said to me I hope this is a good one, somewhat implying that the last one wasn't, and this makes Judging difficult and speeds up palate fatigue. I don't think that our National Competition should be used as the first point of contact for getting feedback on a beer. At National level we should be judging, and expecting, the Best. I realize it may put additional pressures on our system but there would be benefits to a prequalification at Club or province level,  a Club or Provence probably won't up score a entrant as it would reflect badly. It would be interesting to look at the statistics of points scored over the past few years to see where our average is and perhaps could be the cutoff point for qualification to the next National Event. It is a National Event and should showcase our best, not whatever is under the stairs. Is there any other National Event (in any field, including the green ones!!!) that doesn't require prequalification?  It would: reduce the volume of beers at the National Event potentially facilitating the 3 bottle requirement. Increase our Judges, both in numbers and Judging frequencies as they would get opportunities to critically asses a Beer and give feed back to the Brewer directly throughout the year. They could also mentor locally to bring on new judges and demystify the black art of judging. Not too many Club meets use the BJCP score sheet to assess a beer but perhaps it could be done on a more regular basis.

2.   Increase the entry fee. A lot of people, put a lot of effort, into organizing and running the competition which should be valued. Granted this should not be a revenue generating exercise, but if we value our beer enough to be appraised by National and International Judges we should be prepared to fund it appropriately. Key people should have their costs covered Committee/International Judges/ Pro Brewer Judges (if necessary) and it may fund a few other prizes like the amazo one this year.  Another interesting statistic would be: what were the average number of entries per entrant and were there many high volume individuals. Granted what's high volume? The statistics would perhaps tell a different story.

3.   We try to make the process as anonymous as possible but there are failings. We should designate a competition bottle and cap that entrants order from the Homebrew shops. Anything else gets put aside at sorting. This year and last there was such a variety of bottles and some had very distinguishing marks and as stewards we had to make subjective decisions on distinguishing marks/lables/tags/caps. Nobody wants a bottle to be disqualified and Stewards had to, as well as their other jobs, scrape/remove distinguishing marks.  We buy the best of ingredients to make our beers, surely we can buy a competition standard bottle to showcase our efforts.
4.   There should be a Media blackout for the duration of the days competition by all Judges and Stewards, or as a minimum a designated Tweeter and Facebooker on the Competition staff to give an impartial and appropriate update of the days proceeding's to keep people informed. Obviously this will be hard to police on the day, it is a free country!!! but if the rule was there I believe it would be adhered to.
5.   Judges should move categories from year to year. This is perhaps the hardest due to the limitations we have on numbers of Judges, but again in an attempt to improve our Judging panels experience and depth of knowledge it would take them out of their comfort zone and ensure they refresh their skills. I am guessing..... but it feels like there are people that will only judge a particular category and the rest have to fill in around them and do the required research for the category that they have been given.  I know this will be a hard one to implement and there will always be exceptions but it is a effort to broaden the skill set.


I offer no apologies for the above other that the mad ramblings of an Interested Brewer, Steward and Want to be Judge!     

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

Some interesting points, and I agree for the most part.

I believe that the nationals should only receive entries from beers that have already gone through a regional or club contest. Only medal winning beers or beer over a certain score should be considered. We could require submission of the BJCP score sheet for said competition. It would not only verify eligibility, it could be used to compare to the scoresheet from the national competition in order to help with calibration. If I was judging in the nationals, I would like to know later on that my scoresheet is not too dissimilar to the original. Things can happen, beer can change over time but it would still be useful.

Regarding special bottles. That's not really practical as it means all brewers would have to brew for competition and bottle accordingly. It would be fine for keg brewers but not for bottle brewers.

[Damien M]

Regarding special bottles. That's not really practical as it means all brewers would have to brew for competition and bottle accordingly. It would be fine for keg brewers but not for bottle brewers.

Not sure why it wouldn't work. As a mostly bottling brewer  I could easily fill 4 or 6 bottles from each batch that I made, and set aside as potential competition entries. If they don't make the grade  they get put back in general population!!! 

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

Not everyone is as organised as you 

[delzep]

3.   We try to make the process as anonymous as possible but there are failings. We should designate a competition bottle and cap that entrants order from the Homebrew shops. Anything else gets put aside at sorting. This year and last there was such a variety of bottles and some had very distinguishing marks and as stewards we had to make subjective decisions on distinguishing marks/lables/tags/caps. Nobody wants a bottle to be disqualified and Stewards had to, as well as their other jobs, scrape/remove distinguishing marks.  We buy the best of ingredients to make our beers, surely we can buy a competition standard bottle to showcase our efforts.
 

Can custom NHC bottlecaps be printed? If so maybe give, say, 100 NHC branded caps as part of the members fee each year along with the membership card and you must use these caps for your entries with no exceptions. The only drawback to this (assuming it can be done and done cheaply) is it excludes non-paying members....but its a good excuse for them to sign up 

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

This also excludes international members. Did we have any this year?

[delzep]

Why if they are a member?