Is it just me or does the Sam Adams Longshot Competition seem like a scam?

If you win you only get $5000.00 and free airfare to a beer festival. In exchange, they get your recipe, license, name, likeness, and recipe name for anything they want royalty free.

"If the product is brought to market and made available to American beer drinkers, the homebrewer will receive a one time royalty of $5000.00. If you are a Grand Champion of the Contest, you agree to disclose your complete recipe to The Boston Beer Company and grant to The Boston Beer Company an irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to all commercial and intellectual property rights to your winning beer, subject only to your right to receive the $5000.00 one-time royalty. Entering the Contest, constitutes permission to The Boston Beer Company and its agencies to use your recipe, the name of your recipe, your name, likeness, picture, signature, voice, audio and video recordings and biographical information in any manner or media whatsoever (whether now known or hereafter devised) anywhere in the world in perpetuity for the purpose of manufacturing, promoting, advertising and trade, of any product by The Boston Beer Company without further compensation, unless prohibited by law."

Basically they give you $5000+$2000 for the trip and they make a ton of money off of your image and recipe which makes the $7000 seem like chump change.

So, if you take a recipe off this site and send it to a competition and win, do you pay royalties .... By the law of averages almost every 'recipe' has been done already. Over thousands of years and millions of brewers...how original are these recipes anyway? What were these people getting for their beer before they entered the long shot? Nothing. Hell for farting around in my garage, if they are willing to give me a couple of grand....I'll take it. I would think that people are looking for validation when they enter these things....not money.

If it seems like a scam to you, don't enter. My guess is that 99.9% of brewers that enter will never turn pro and "need" that recipe and even if they did, you can just rebrew it under a different name. You just couldn't sell it as "the recipe that won the longshot comp".

Most brewpubs that run a similar contest have entry fees and the prize is to brew on their system. Sometimes the prize includes a $50 gift certificate.

I don't think a recipe is very valuable.

Plus, I have heard interviews with Jim Koch and he said they basically were told to add that from the legal department. It is to protect Boston Beer in case some jerk enters the comp and then sues them when they brew/sell his/her recipe. It is unfortunate that they have to protect themselves against such people, but not surprising.

The truth is that there are only so many ways to put hops, malt, and yeast together and that just about every recipe you can think of has been made before by someone. Most recipes that are good are put out there for free for people to do (check out our recipe database). Tasty McDole and Jamil Zainasheff give their recipes away all the time. I'd be quite surprised if your beer was better than Tasty's.

My grandma's spaghetti sauce was awesome. I don't think she would have balked a bit if someone gave her $7000 for it.

It's a publicity thing for Sam Adams, and it's fun for homebrewers. If your recipe is worth more than $7000, and you can get more for it from a brewery somewhere else, then by all means don't enter. The rest of us dummies give our recipes away for free.

I can't wait to see yoopers keg picture on the longshot bottle But I think Hugh would pay better

YooperBrew said:

The truth is that there are only so many ways to put hops, malt, and yeast together and that just about every recipe you can think of has been made before by someone. Most recipes that are good are put out there for free for people to do (check out our recipe database). Tasty McDole and Jamil Zainasheff give their recipes away all the time. I'd be quite surprised if your beer was better than Tasty's.

My grandma's spaghetti sauce was awesome. I don't think she would have balked a bit if someone gave her $7000 for it.

It's a publicity thing for Sam Adams, and it's fun for homebrewers. If your recipe is worth more than $7000, and you can get more for it from a brewery somewhere else, then by all means don't enter. The rest of us dummies give our recipes away for free.

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I've been reading Brew Like a Monk and I understand the point, but I believe the process is really the key to brewing. A recipe can turn into anything in the right/wrong hands. Of course it will be macro-brewed by Sam Adams, and they'll brew it the way they see fit.

Belgian beers in particular go far beyond the recipe. Ramp-up temperatures, lower mashing temps, pitching additional/second yeast strains, and adding additional sugar during fermentation are all secrets that Belgian brewers use to perfect their beers.

rexbanner said:

I've been reading Brew Like a Monk and I understand the point, but I believe the process is really the key to brewing. A recipe can turn into anything in the right/wrong hands. Of course it will be macro-brewed by Sam Adams, and they'll brew it the way they see fit.

Belgian beers in particular go far beyond the recipe. Ramp-up temperatures, lower mashing temps, pitching additional/second yeast strains, and adding additional sugar during fermentation are all secrets that Belgian brewers use to perfect their beers.

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Oh, I agree! That's why I said that the recipe itself isn't anything new. I didn't mean to convey that just anybody can make an award-winning beer with just a great recipe. Just the opposite is true- you can make a terrible beer with a great recipe. That's why I don't believe any recipe is really worth $$$$$$.

YooperBrew said:

Oh, I agree! That's why I said that the recipe itself isn't anything new. I didn't mean to convey that just anybody can make an award-winning beer with just a great recipe. Just the opposite is true- you can make a terrible beer with a great recipe. That's why I don't believe any recipe is really worth $$$$$$.

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Yeah. That's why homebrewers make the best beer. :rockin:

...and the worst too, heh.

I didn't mean the recipe was the part that seemed scammish. It's the fact that they take your likeness and image royalty free to market the beer. The recipe isn't what I was referring to. I see all of your points, and it does make more sense now.

Honestly, no one buying the beer gives a crap about who's picture is on the bottle. Really, how much do you think your likeness is worth? By the way, you owe me 2 cents every time you look at my avatar.

Bobby_M said:

Honestly, no one buying the beer gives a crap about who's picture is on the bottle. Really, how much do you think your likeness is worth? By the way, you owe me 2 cents every time you look at my avatar.

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lol your check is in the mail! I am not talking about me personally. I just mean others. I am not competition ready yet. I just perused their contract since I am a law student. I am not trying to hate on the contest or anything. I was just curious what people thought about that clause.

bhamade said:

Basically they give you $5000+$2000 for the trip and they make a ton of money off of your image and recipe which makes the $7000 seem like chump change.

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i agree with the OP. their intent is to market it and potentially make millions of dollars off of the winning recipe, and the only payment to the person doing their research for them is $7k.

seems exploitive to me, but to each their own.

spatman said:

i agree with the OP. their intent is to market it and potentially make millions of dollars off of the winning recipe, and the only payment to the person doing their research for them is $7k.

seems exploitive to me, but to each their own.

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Please explain to me how a contract entered into freely by two adults is exploitive. If one does not like the terms of the contract, one is free to decline to enter into it.

jeffmeh said:

Please explain to me how a contract entered into freely by two adults is exploitive. If one does not like the terms of the contract, one is free to decline to enter into it.

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ok, so maybe "exploitive" was a poor choice of wording. hopefully this will make my opinion clear:

i think the deal sucks and i wouldn't enter the contest.

spatman said:

ok, so maybe "exploitive" was a poor choice of wording. hopefully this will make my opinion clear:

i think the deal sucks and i wouldn't enter the contest.

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Perfectly reasonable.

You really have nothing to lose by entering the contest, unless you hate the idea of your face on a beer bottle.

And I really doubt SA would care if you kept using the same beer with the same name, even though they technically "own" it or whatever. Like that other guy said, they just put that there to protect themselves against jerks that'd sue them.

Bad deal for some but for one person down on his luck it could be the difference between making their mortgage or not.

I agree though, that the money awarded is low compared to celebrity spokesmen or unionized creative agencies.

rexbanner said:

I've been reading Brew Like a Monk and I understand the point, but I believe the process is really the key to brewing. A recipe can turn into anything in the right/wrong hands. Of course it will be macro-brewed by Sam Adams, and they'll brew it the way they see fit.

Belgian beers in particular go far beyond the recipe. Ramp-up temperatures, lower mashing temps, pitching additional/second yeast strains, and adding additional sugar during fermentation are all secrets that Belgian brewers use to perfect their beers.

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+1

I was just going to say something to that effect myself.

Absolutely. You could follow the same recipe as your buddy, and your dubbel could taste like last year's fruitcake where your buddy's has all the best characteristics of the style (plum, toffee, raisin, rum, etc.)

Brewing is like cooking in that way - just because you are following a Julia Child recipe doesn't mean you can cook like Julia Child.

I dunno, if I were able to win a contest like that I'd probably use it as a resume bulletpoint to apply to work at a brewery, and/or take the prize money and put it towards coursework at Siebel

I think Sam Adams would want to see my face before deciding to use it in any marketing for their product! I'm not worried about it. I had to sign a form when I won a PSP from McDonalds that said the same thing about Sony and me. Basically they could use my name and image in any commercial for the PSP, forever. I'm not waiting by the phone.

However, expect to have your picture taken for SA if you win. I would think that in the very least they would want to put your picture on their website shaking hands with Koch.

And like everyone else says, the recipe is no big whoop. If you can come up with something extraordinary and unique, then you should want to share it with everyone. If not, then screw you! LOL!

My take on this contest is that it's a very nice way to encourage homebrewers to take their craft seriously and to strive to become better brewers. It gives them a chance to feel like part of a greater community. I doubt that Boston Beer Company is making much on the few Longshot sales they make. Not after you deduct the cost in setting up a contest of this size.