Next Homebrew Competition

[Matt Downer]

Gathering of ideas! Please offer some feedback. The attractive idea of reducing the amount of time for planning and stuffing around on the day has taken over. The last few competitions have been held in a very air tight fasion and I'm wondering how we would be if we loosened it up a bit. Instead of keeping the brewers of each beer secret, why don't we make it open knowledge to who each brewer is and what beers they have entered? That could make it more social if you are tasting Joe Blogs' beer and have questions or comments about it. I would reduce the time it takes to get prepared before the competition because we always have late entries on the day to organise before we start. Late is not a big deal though because we want to cater to as many people as we can so as to have as many entries as possible. Might have some more ideas down the track but there's one I'm chucking out there... Feed my back!

[Christian]

Hi Matt,

I understand your desire for less effort but wonder if you can achieve this as well as make things more 'formal'. I worry about everyone getting a 'fair go' and this may indeed require more strictness on behalf of the organisers - i.e. judges tend to drift off towards the end of tasting so not every one's beer is judged by the same number of people. This isn't easy when you want to welcome anyone and keep it casual but overwise it may just become a 'beer gathering'. My suggestions:

- Must register and pre enter beer before comp (gives time for preparation prior to event).

- Limit on entries per brewer (less entries to judge).

- Entry and judging according to style guidelines (avoids 'hoppy crowd pleasers' always being judged highly and makes judges commit to qualitative feedback).

- Only entrants can judge though others can taste (less bias even though meant to be blind tasting).

Please don't take these as a criticism of previous events and I understand that this would change the nature of the competition + require being rather anal with entrants.

My other 'out there' suggestion is to have an entry class based on an ingredient package - everyone gets the same thing and must brew whatever they want with it (maybe like a mystery box in cooking competitions). Obviously requires someone to supply package and a good lead in time.

[Matt Downer]

Some good thoughts mate! I would welcome the criticism actually because with that we can make better events. We'll keep this topic rolling and check it here and there leading up to the next comp so we can see what we need to work ok etc. I'd say the MUST register before date X is a goodie but we'll have to give more warning I guess haha.

[Evan Davies]

Yeah more than 11 days would be a great start lol

 

[Matt Downer]

Yeah true that b

[Adam Tristram]

Some great suggestions Christian! I concur

[Gareth Kerr]

Yeah all of these are good ideas. As long as people know the date well in advance and word gets around well, then it should reduce the late entries (in theory). Also love the mystery ingredients box idea too, that would be awesome. Gotta keep it all anonymous too.

[Aidan Curran]

Hey Matt,

Just to throw my point of view and suggestions into the ring, I actually liked the informal approach of the last competition - makes it less intimidating and more fun for newish brewers like me. But I do agree with some of Christian's points.

You can judge beer by style guidelines or you can judge it by how you like it personally. I have a feeling that the majority of brewers at the comp would be going by the latter approach and that would be my approach too as the former would require more of an educated pallate. Having said that, better categorisition of the beers might not be a bad idea. But you would need to define the style categories in advance or choose an existing style categorisation system. And qualitative style-based feedback from those with more advanced beer judging skills would be a welcomed by most home brewers.

I second Christian's suggestion of pre-registering. Look at the comment forms from last time, a lot of people used the comment space to write in the name of the beers that were entered late instead of using it to write a meaningful comment. And I think it would easier for you organiser guys on the day.

Regarding your suggestion on doing away with the secrecy, I dunno, I'd be open to it but I kinda like the idea of having it blind as it might be fairer that way and there is a bit more intrigue.

Other suggestions:

- Specify a minimum volume for each entrant, last time there was enough of most beers to go around but there were a few came in short

- Encourage better feedback on the forms and everyone to try everything. There was less than 50% comments filled in the last time. You could make a legible, meaningful comment mandatory in order for a judges score to be counted, it doesn't have to be a professional beer judge type comment, just an honest impression.

- Nobody should enter a score for their own beers!

Cheers,

Aidan

[Matt Downer]

Thanks for the feedback mate! Some really good points in there. Will be good to have all this discussion in the one location for when we have the next one.

[Aidan Curran]

Hey Matt, Any update on when the next competition is happening? Bill mentioned at the last beer swap meetup that it might be happening this month.

[Matt Downer]

That would obviously be late notice so I'll check in with him and see if we can plan one soon that isn't too soon if you know what I mean.

[Matt Downer]

We are thinking about the next homebrew competition and want to know what everyone thinks about having it in early November. It will be at McCashins, at this stage. A look at the calendar shows that November 11th might be our day... Please let us know. We won't be able to please everyone but we'll try...

[Matt Downer]

Had a good discussion at SOBA meeting tonight about the next comp and we are really looking at and penciling in Sunday 11th November at McCashins. Some more notes that we came up with which we may incorporate:

- Max number of entries per person limited to three

- Incentive to register for the comp early and maybe an extra fee for people entering on the day

- Attempt to keep the comp running every March and September to try and make the event roughly the same times each year.

- Bring in a special/secret guest like a judge or brewer who will mingle and be able to professionally judge beers along with everyone else's judging

- September events would be like a Pre-Nationals event to give bearing on whether you should enter your beers into Nationals and give you an idea of how they might go

- Spot prize for just entering as incentive to get more novices/amateurs to enter

- Keeping the competition airtight like it has been so the competition side of things is still well kept in stead of people knowing who brewed what etc