As it stands, a brewer can brew one batch of beer in a vacuum, pay $12 and win a gold medal. You seasoned contest circuit homebrewers might think thats unlikely, but its certainly possible. Under the invitational concept, that same brewer has to brew multiple batches of that one beer, enter multiple contests paying multiple entry fees and multiple shipping costs in the hopes of placing well in one of those contests so that they can then pay the NHC entry fee, ship that beer and possibly win a gold.
Certainly not impossible! Although, very unlikely.
The NHC is already two rounds. You're paying to ship beer twice in the current format. If it were to switch to a qualifying format, you would have likely have to ship beer to three locations instead of two. You would also have multiple ribbons from that beer because it would be judged in up to three competitions (if it would were to place in top 3 in the second round of NHC).
Technology failed. Obviously they need better methods to manage registrations, but its important to remember that those people that didnt get their entries in werent screwed by the people entering average beers. They were screwed by the technology failing. The average entries per person were not 15, they were not 10, so limiting entries to 5 fixes a problem that doesnt currently exist.
Numerous people had their entries limited to a 2 - 3, if they were lucky, while others were completely shut out. Still, you did have a few people, including one person early in this thread, who registered all 15 beers. That's not fair to everyone else. Perhaps all 15 of his beers are truly amazing and will score well, but the odds of that are not great.
Also, the fact that you think one of your competitors beers might not be as good as one of yours doesnt have anything to do with the fact that you couldnt access a website in time. If you say different, then youre just being butt-hurt.
Hmm...I was one of the those people who logged on immediately at 1 pm mountain time. It took me three hours to register, submit my three entries, and pay the fee. I was fortunate that I was able to do this from work, but still my entry site filled up within a few hours. I'm very fortunate that I got my entries in. Many other people did not.
Also, you might get your point across better if you didn't characterize people who disagree with as "butt hurt". Just a suggestion on my part.
Fixing the technology means guaranteeing a web solution that provides equal access to the limited number of slots that exist. If the competition sells out in 45 minutes but everyone has equal and clear access to the solutions that register those slots, then the competition is fair. If youre not logged in at your computer at 3PM eastern time (like I was) then its your fault for not getting in. However, if servers crash, availability reporting is inaccurate, communication is non-existent and people are unable to even get a page to load, then theres nothing fair about that process.
Obviously, the process was not "fair". Some people were very, very fortunate and were able to register up to 15 entries. Many others were completely shut out. I was certainly at my computer ready to rock and roll at 1 pm mountain time - literally two minutes later the servers starting to time out and couldn't handle the traffic. It seems like you were one of those very fortunate ones who were able to register and pay with fairly minimal inconvenience.
The only other problem is that there is growing demand and limited capacity. The only two solutions are limiting demand and increasing capacity. If you want to limit demand you have to do things to make the contest less attractive, like increase prices, eliminate prizes and do away with awards. People would be less inclined to enter, but it would also be a pretty pointless contest then. The only real way to provide remedy here is to increase capacity, and only way to increase capacity is to add judging centers or increase the limit per center. This years contest allows for 8250 entries over 11 centers. If the model of the contest were to change from a regional 1st round to a state 1st round, each state would be responsible for managing only 165 entries. I think thats such a reasonable number that it could easily be increased to 250 entries per state for a total of 12,500 entries. Could that be a better solution compared to what exists now? Maybe, maybe not.
No disrespect meant, but do you really think you can find enough BJCP judges to do 50 nearly simultaneous competitions across 50 states or, even better, 50 people will to organize events to the same standard and at the same time? You also need to include Canada as well.
First of all the pool of BJCP judges is not deep enough for this idea. It may work well for states like California, New York, or Texas but smaller states like Rhode Island, Maine, etc it's not feasible. Additionally limiting submittals down to 165 per state is completely unfair to the larger states and it would shut out many more brewers from the competition than the current format.
I will also be honest in that I am not very interested in driving long hours, paying for gas and hotel stay, to judge a competition that has decided it's more interested in bulk volume than quality.
If you decide that you'd rather avoid BJCP judges and open judging up to anyone, than good luck with that as well. As an entrant, I would be incredibly angry if the $17 entry I submitted was judged by some Joe who had no clue what the styles were that he/she was judging.
Sorry for the rant, but it really offends me when people take something that is such a plebeian and inclusive affair and want to turn it into something elitist and exclusive.
Perhaps in the early 2000's I would say you have a very great point. But the hobby is so large now that there is really no other to handle a "National Competition" than to either somehow restrict or limit entries, in a fair manner, or vastly increase the size and scope of the competition.
If you want to make a real difference than become a BJCP judge. It's not an easy process nor should it be, but it's far from impossible. If you want people to judge a massive amount of beer to keep this competition "open" then perhaps you should become a judge and learn what you're asking people to do.
