Entering Home Brew Contests

I am interested in entering some beers in home brew contests that provide feedback and the like. I am fine with mailing the beers in, driving within a few hours of Tucson AZ or anything like that. Any advice for a first timer? Thanks!

if you want good scores, brew to style. If you're shipping, don't tell em it's beer.
The feed back is cool, but take it with a grain of salt, some judges are better than others.
Don't let it get you down if you don't score high, you're the best judge of your beer, if you like it, thats all that really matters. I've only entered one contest so far and got some fairly complimentary feedback, made me feel good, and gave me some bragging rights around the neighborhood.

Have a thick skin. Sometimes the comments seem harsh, but they are usually an impartial evaluation of the beer. Send the same beer to several contests for a more balanced overall evaluation of the beer.

What they said. Don't try to ship via USPS, that's illegal, you have to use a private seller like UPS or FedEx, which is legal, however, the person helping you might not know. I just sent 2 bottles to a contest via UPS. The guy was cool. I just said I needed to ship these 2 bottles and he started measuring them. When he was about finished he asked if it was homebrewed beer and I told him yea and it was for a contest, and he was like "cool".

But yea, you have to brew to BJCP style guidelines to get good scores. If you do that, you never know, you may win. My first recipe, Foreign Extra Stout, tasted great, so I entered it, and it won 3rd place. Still waiting on the scoresheet. I was pleasantly surprised. Good luck!

Brew to the extreme of the style. If the high end of the OG is 1.060, your beer should be 1.060. High IBU is 50, you're beer should be 60. Why? Cause the ******* in front of you in the tasting did that and now I can't taste anything especially you're clean perfect to style beer.

If you can't tell I hate it when people do that. Put a IIPA in a PA category oh why thank you for destroying my palate.

Good notes, thanks! To be honest, I just thought it would be neat to try and enter a contest and get unbiased feedback. In the end, my friends love our beer and I love our beer.. mission accomplished.

So you guys just recommend finding one of the contest and mailing the suckers off (not via USPS of course) and thats that? Simple enough... now to get my clearing process down a bit better. Thanks fellas... I love this hobby!!!

RBChallenger said:

Good notes, thanks! To be honest, I just thought it would be neat to try and enter a contest and get unbiased feedback. In the end, my friends love our beer and I love our beer.. mission accomplished.

So you guys just recommend finding one of the contest and mailing the suckers off (not via USPS of course) and thats that? Simple enough... now to get my clearing process down a bit better. Thanks fellas... I love this hobby!!!

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try to find a local one and sign up to steward.. and enter your beers.

Competition Schedule

If you know any of the local brewers you can ask them to give you feedback.

Doesn't this site have one coming up? I swear that I was planning on entering later this year. Is is only open to members? Can't remember.

RBChallenger said:

now to get my clearing process down a bit better. Thanks fellas... I love this hobby!!!

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Polyclar aka PVPPP is great stuff and a touch harder to find. Use the correct amount and no more as it will start to strip all kinds of things from your beer. In high enough quantities you can take color out. But it really is a great clarifier.

All good advice above. Just be prepared to be disappointed in your scores (I know I was the first couple of comps that I entered). You could very well end up scoring off the charts, who knows. But if you get a score that you're not happy with, use the judging notes to help you identify how you can make your beers better the next time.

ohiobrewtus said:

All good advice above. Just be prepared to be disappointed in your scores (I know I was the first couple of comps that I entered). You could very well end up scoring off the charts, who knows. But if you get a score that you're not happy with, use the judging notes to help you identify how you can make your beers better the next time.

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I figure I will get disappointing scores as you mentioned. That is exactly what I was wanting was to identifying ways to improve the beer.

RB,

the Greater Arizona Homebrew Competition would be a good one to enter next year. you can drop off the bottles at the brew stores in Phoenix in February

ohiobrewtus said:

...Just be prepared to be disappointed in your scores...

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BierMuncher said:

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What took you so long?

BierMuncher said:

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I like it, did you make it yourself :cross:

z987k said:

I like it, did you make it yourself :cross:

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Yepper.

Born out of personal experience way back when.