2008 SOBA National HomeBrew Championship

[Rob Owen]

Ladies and Gentlemen start your burners! Entries are now open for the 2008 SOBA National HomeBrew Championship. Entries will close on 31 July 2008. Judging will be done during August and results announced at the SOBA HomeBrewFest, which this year will be during the BrewNZ week - first week of September.

For entry forms and more information please see www.soba.org.nz

[Barry]

Yes. Arguably a lot of beers could fall under a couple of categories, but you can only enter a beer into 1. So choose wisely based on gravity/hoppyness etc.

[Ollie]

2 All Grain: Oatmeal Stout and Bushweet specialty kawakawa and horopito infused Witbier.

[vdog]

Probably two all-grain from me - a pale ale (not hoppy enough to call it an IPA) and a robust porter. Although it'll depend whether the porter is drinkable prior to sending off - just bottled it on the weekend so it'll be on the young side.

[denimglen]

A week should be plenty for a courier from Auckland to Wellington aye? Or am I putting too much trust into our postal system...Will they see a package of beers and hold them up just to piss me off?

I assume if entering multiple beers I don't have to fill out the left side of every form?

And what's up with the brewers notes? Do I have to put anything down there? If I do, how specific? What do the judges like to see?

Kinda daft questions, just a competition virgin.

Cheers boys and girls.

[Barry]

Hey Glen,
last year my wife left my box of beer at the post office on a Monday, it was in Wellington $15 and 2 days later.

I've filled in both sides for every beer in case things get seperated. But yeah it's a pain in the arse. I meant to re-design them this year when I did the poster but it never came to pass. Next year I promise we'll have one that is easier to fill out.
For brewers notes, all I put was serving temp and a note to say that my beers weren't bottle conditioned. Personally I reckon gravity, grain bill etc shouldn't be on an entry - the judge should be able to tell you whether or not you've gone outside the borders of the style.

[denimglen]

Awesome, thanks mate. Might give it a week to be on the safe side, I seem to have trouble with the post.

[Barry]

bah.
wife just dropped my box off at the post office, got some grumpy old bitch. $18, no guarantee whatsoever - totally my risk. Her alternative was to pay $40 odd for a courier.
Only last year it was half the price, lots of fragile stickers, and total reassurance that it would be looked after.
what the fuck has happened to NZPost in one short year?
Bloody outrage.

[Martin Bridges]

$13 for ParcelPost for me. My bottles are on their way.

Martin

[Martin Bridges]

Just checked my Track-And-Trace and they were delivered on Friday, so 2 days from AKL to WLG.

Martin

[denimglen]

Awesome, parcel posted mine yesterday. Ended up cutting it down to only three entries, should be more prepared for next year.

[Dan]

Concerning filling in the left hand side of the entry form:
Download nitro pdf or something similar edit the pdf, write your details into the document before you print it, saves alot of handwriting if you have multiple entries.

[Adam]

Sweet thanks denimglen thats just what i was going to ask. Still deciding on what beers to send in many are the first i have brewed the style and have no commercial example i have tried to compare it to. Might just send them all in i mean its only $5 per entry heres the list
American Brown Ale
American Pale Ale
Dunkelweizen
Hefe Weizen
ESB
English IPA
Brown Porter
Northern English Brown
Belgian Blond
Dubble
Irish Red
Northern German Altbier
And maybe a Kolsch but it tastes like egg farts last time i tried it a week ago