2007 Lobuck Rules Committee

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Sir Humpsalot

Sir Humpsalot

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Ok. This thread is for debating the rules for the 2007 LOBUCK HOMEBREW CHALLENGE.

Here's what I have so far. Feel free to make suggestions, comments, or ask questions. This thread is ONLY about defining the rules. A thread for competitors will come later.

The Concept
People say homebrewing is more expensive than buying beer from the local store. People say that quality beer is expensive. People say that homebrewing is an inefficient, expensive way of attaining a buzz. This contest is designed to prove them wrong.

A keg of Budweiser/Coors/Miller, purchased retail, costs about $3.42 per gallon. For that price, any number of great home recipes can be brewed, but we can go even cheaper than that! The goal of this contest is to encourage brewers to develop recipes which create the best possible beer for the lowest possible price using ingredients commonly available to the homebrewer. Cheaper than buying Budweiser/Miller/Coors. Cheaper, even, than bottled water! And better tasting too!


The limit for this year is (tentatively) set as follows:
$2.07 per gallon of beer made from extract
$1.80 per gallon made from a partial mash recipe
$1.35 per gallon made from all grain

If you go over the limit, points will be deducted


DEADLINE:
Judging will commence on April 1, 2007



THE RULES

1. The winner will be the homebrewer who brews what the judges deem to be the best beer, both in flavor and in adherence to the rules and judging guidelines. There are no style guidelines. Every beer, whether it’s an experimental, American lager, IPA, stout, ESB, etc will be judged against all other beers. Consideration will be primarily given to the brewers skill at producing something that tastes most like a commercially-produced brew. The brewer may, but is not required to, state the style or brand which his beer most resembles.


2. The brewer may buy his ingredients from any supplier and the actual price paid for these supplies is irrelevant. Your ingredient price is to be computed as the cost charged by (fill in the name of the sponsoring homebrew website here), exclusive of shipping or taxes. In the event that this sponsor does not have your desired ingredient, you may use (insert the name of other homebrew sites here) to find the price. In the event that your desired ingredient is not available through any of these websites, peapod.com will be used. In the event that Peapod doesn’t have your ingredient, you must contact the judges for a ruling.

3. You may certainly use close-out specials, out-of-date ingredients, etc., however for the purpose of computing cost for this contest, all ingredients will be deemed to have been purchased at the regular advertised price.

4. For all brewers, specialty grains will be priced by the pound.
For Extract and Partial Mash Brewers, standard malts (DME or LME) will be priced on the assumption that you are purchasing 25 pounds. For All-Grain brewers, standard malts will be priced on the assumption that you are buying a 55lb bag.

5. For all brewers, hops will be priced by the pound.

6. Water is a “free” ingredient. The brewer has the choice of using tap water, or else filtered water costing under $1.00 per gallon. Because water quality varies significantly, the purpose of this rule is to permit people living in locations with awful water to compete on a level playing field. Any use of mineral water, flavored water, or spring water that does not normally come out of the tap will require the brewer to include the entire cost of the water in his cost computation.

7. The cost of the yeast shall be computed as per rule #1 except the cost of the yeast will then be divided by three to account for the possibility of repitching the yeast cake a time or two.

8. There is an ABSOLUTE prohibition on the addition of alcohol such as vodka or everclear to increase the alcohol content or for added “flavor”.


THE JUDGES
The judges will comprise of experienced beer drinkers and hopefully an experienced judge or two. Applicants should contact “Toot” on homebrewtalk.com. I intend to be a judge, and I would like maybe 2 others.
Click to expand...
 
Toot,

I've been writing something small up myself. Maybe combining the two would be good.


Mission:
The goal of this contest is to motivate creative brewers to develop recipes which result in the best possible beer for the lowest possible price using ingredients commonly available to the homebrewer.

Basics:
This contest is all about how to brew a drinkable beer at the lowest price possible. Anyone can create a super cheap 'beer' by adding fermentable grains and yeast, the goal is to have a beer that tastes good for less than you can buy a large brewery beer.

The Contest:
Homebrewers will create a recipe using the following ingredients available to homebrewers: Grains, Adjuncts/Flavoring, Hops, and Yeast. The brewer must submit a copy of the recipe and a drinkable sample (1 - 12oz or larger bottle) to each of the judges for adjudication. Judging will not be based upon style, but will be based upon recipe price, alcohol content, and taste. Beer of any style may be entered, but entries are limited to BEER. Ciders, meads, wines, and/or other spirits are strictly prohibited. Recipe and samples must be provided to the judges no later than midnight, April 1, 2007. Late entries will NOT be judged. If enough entries are provided, 2 sub-categories will be created for judging All-Grain and, separately, Extract recipes. Partial Mash recipes will be judged as All-Grain for this purpose.

Price will be judged at a price per gallon formula based on a total of all ingredients. You may get your ingredients from any place, at any price you choose. However, for judging, prices will be computed based on the average price of your ingredients as listed at online homebrew sites listed below. Any grocery style ingredient not found on those sites will be based upon the peapod.com price for the item. Price of yeast will be averaged, and divided by three (assuming you can use 1 vial of yeast to brew 3 batches of beer).

Grain/Malt Extract prices will be priced on the BULK purchase price. For grains, cost per pound will be the cost of a 50 (or 55 if that's the only price you can find) pound bag, divided by total weight (IE: $32.00 for 50# of 2-row = 0.64/#). For malt extract, cost per pound will be the cost of a 50 pound bag/can, divided by the total weight (IE: $155 for 50# of Amber DME = $3.10/#).


Rules:
1. Brewer must submit a copy of the recipe plus 1 sample to each judge no later than April 1, 2007
2. Recipe must include a complete list of all ingredients used in the brew, including grains, adjuncts, hops, and yeast, as well as mashing instructions for your grains (AG/PM only).
3. All recipes/samples must be 'beer.' A subjective term, but this means no ciders, meads, wines, or other spirits.
4. Alcohol content in your recipe must come 100% from yeast attenuation of fermentable sugars. No ABV boosters or use of alcoholic spirits permitted.

Rating:

Points will be awarded based on the following categories:

ABV-

< 3.5% = 1 points
3.5% - 4.5% = 3 points
> 4.6% = 7 points

Price-
All grain and Extract will be rated separately. Partial Mash counts as all grain.

AG
> $2.07 = 1 points
$2.06 - 1.45 = 3 points
< 1.44 = 7 points

Extract
> $3.41 = 1 points
$3.40 - 2.08 = 3 points
< $2.07 = 7 points

Overall Taste/Body/Mouthfeel rating: 1 to 10 points
 
I like a LOT of that, jezter. Unfortunately, I have to run for a bit and may not be back until late. I'll start to incorporate your stuff into mine and we (and whoever else wants to be involved) can hash out the differences when I get back. It looks good.

Or.. heck. This contest is quite a bit bigger than me. You guys can debate without me! :)
 
I'd like to add the following (subject to debate):

Rule 5: All beer must be BOTTLE conditioned. Cost of priming sugar should be included in your recipe. No beer guns. (This levels the playing field for those of us without kegging systems)

Prohibited Ingredients List:
Alcohol Boosters
Irish Moss
Any other clearing agent
Filters of ANY type once the beer gets put into the primary. That means you can filter out all you want out of the kettle, but once the yeast is in...it stays. Again, only to level the playing field for those without advanced equipment.
 
I agree on everything except for irish moss. If the brewer wants to spend part of his budget that way, he should be allowed to do so.
 
Alcohol boosters are just corn sugar; isn't part of the point of this to figure out what kinds of cheap adjuncts can still contribute to a good brew?
 
Yes. Alcohol boosters are ok. I think jezter was thinking of boosters made of alcohol. IOW, dropping in a few shots of Jack Daniels or something. that would not be allowed.

Corn sugar, creamed corn, corn on the cob, wheat, cream of wheat, wheat bread, rye, whey, switchgrass, etc are all acceptable adjuncts.
 
This sounds like fun. I don't understand the limit to only bottle conditioned beer. The end product has to be in a bottle to be mailed for judging, but other then that I don't see a need to limit how it gets into the bottle. I don't like that rule.

Also, I don't see how clearing agents are a problem. If somebody wants to clarify their brew and have it in the cost, why not? Isn't the idea to see who can come up with a great beer within a certain cost limit?

I would say we make it so you can use whatever you wish as long as you list it, calculate the cost fairly and make it yourself. The judges should be able to sort out the funky adjuncts and additives.
 
The only reason I suggested it is to level the playing field between some of the newbies and the rich professionals with all the cool beer toys. I don't have a kegging setup or filters, and don't think it's right to have other 'outside' costs not reflected into the competition. It costs you more to make that beer with your extra toys, but that can't be factored in logically.

However, since this a group discussion, I'm more prone to listen to those who agree or disagree.

Unfortunately, nobody will ever agree on all the rules, so at some point Toot needs to just make a decision and make a ruling so that we can get started. Hell, I'll brew this weekend if there's a clear ruleset for this.
 
I don't think anybody here filters their beer. As to the bottle-carb only proposal, easier still would be to ignore the cost of priming sugar (more complicated would be to require keggers to pro-rate their CO2 usage).
 
I am just thinking of the other contests I have judged and how equipment has never been the key factor in succesful beers. More often then not it is a quality beer, made simply that wins. I see the basic idea behind this to be cheap, quality homebrew.

I think if we start trying to make equipment rules we will really unloose a Pandora's box.
 
Between the last two posts...I wholly agree. Beer is beer. Tastes good or it doesn't. Since there's no bonus style points for clarity or anything, it's a moot point. Plus, if we don't include the cost of priming sugar, that balances out the cost (somewhat) of the guy who had to buy all the CO2 stuff to keg it.

That's why we need good level headed people on the rules committee. Maybe I'm not level headed enough. :)
 
Ok. Let's exclude carbonation cost too... whether bottle primed or CO2'd.

Maybe we should knock a nickel off everybody's cost per-gallon limit to accomodate that.
 
beer4breakfast said:
Are you setting unnecessarily low targets for homebrew here?
Click to expand...

Go ahead and try to invent a beer recipe for $5.80 a gallon. Your procedure will look something like this:
Step one: Go to any homebrew supply shop.
Step two: Ask them for a 5 gallon kit to make any kind of beer you like.
Step three: Make the kit.

There's nothing to it. My idea was to start cutting down the costs, stripping away the excess ingredients until it became a challenge. Frankly I didn't even think $3.42 would be much of a challenge. This, I feel, is a challenge. If you've been following the other thread on this, you'll notice that nobody's even managed to hit 5% ABV yet. That's what I call a CHALLENGE!!!! :mug:
 
All this talk of carbonation rules and ingredient prohibition is kinda putting me off on this otherwise excellent idea for a friendly brew competition.

Let's leave things as unrestricted as possible - i.e., clarifiers, any means of carbonation, and even filtering are ok. Remember, we're talking about making a very economical beer based on ingredients alone, not equipment. Any recipe that calls for filtering or force carbonation could just as easily be duplicated by using a bright tank (i.e., secondary) and bottle conditioning.

The rules should be VERY simple - set a price limit and loose style guideline (i.e., make beer), and create a fair scoring system where flavor and low price dominate the scale, and appearance/BJCP style criteria mean little to nothing. I do agree with this single restriction: the addition of alcohol via vodka, other spirits, or other non-beer, non-homebrewed means is prohibited.
 
I also think that the rules need to be very simplified. The criteria are cost & taste. Anything beyond that starts to get too cumbersome. The only area that needs details defined are the judging criteria and any penalty points for going outside the judging criteria (i.e. if the cost is 4 cents over, what penalty is assessed, how will the judging determine the score of the beer, etc.) Otherwise, I think this is a great idea.
 
Thanks for all the positive feedback, ladies and gents! I know that the rules procedures seem awfully tedious, but it seems to me to be a small price to pay in exchange for a fair contest. The only thing worse than a bunch of silly PITA rules would be someone who "wins" the contest through some stupid loophole.

I know. We're all mature adults. We're all above that. But let's face it... some of us just like to win!!! So to me "keeping it simple" is not as important as "spelling it all out so there are no opportunities for misunderstanding".

Right now, there are 8 rules, IIRC. When we finish there will probably be twelve or so. And I will make a checklist for everybody- yes or no questions- that will tell you whether you are within the rules.
 
And hopfan- I was discussing this with jezter. One of the reasons that "style" IS a consideration is so that the judges can recognize beer.

For example, at what point does a cheap beer become "a zima with some hops"? I don't know. In order for this to truly be a BEER competition we need to require that the contestants attempt to mimic a beer style. It doesn't matter which one, but they have to be able to say, "This is a beer that is intended to be in the style of...."

Of course, contestants will only LOOSELY be graded on this and it probably won't count for much. You certainly won't get nailed for being too cloudy or clear or using the wrong type of hops. But you will get nailed if your "beer" tastes like zima.

In other words, it's just a way of the judges saying, "This is what beer is... this is what beer is NOT". It seems ridiculously simple, but it gives people something to shoot for.
 
The original, original premise - can you make beer cheaper than BMC? - is easy to prove as a "yes" without comprimising on quality as an AG brewer. Even factoring in energy costs and effectively "depreciating" my equipment, it's cheaper to brew than to buy.

So, that's out the window. Now, the question is - how MUCH cheaper can you go?
 
Agreed. Although I proposed some of the more PITA rules, I think less is more in this case.

I'm beginning to think 'screw the rules.' For most of this. If someone sends you a zima, it's a 1 on the taste scale. Open it, sip it, call it a day. Don't worry about rules to prevent it.

New rules (lite) proposal:
(1 and 2 removed)
3. No use of spirits to increase the ABV of your beer.
4. Styles? What style? If it sucks, the judge rates it low. End of story. Beer is rated 1 - 10 on taste/body/mouthfeel. Totally subjective. It's what tastes good and what doesn't.
5. Total cost per gallon must be below $3.40/gal. Each 10c below that gains an additional 1pt for AG/PM brews, 1.5 points for extract. (Those numbers are arbitrary)
6. Must be at least 3% ABV. For each 0.1 ABV you get 1 point. This goes for all types (AG/PM/extract).
7. You must submit a full recipe with your beer, including all ingredients, mash steps, projected OG, actual OG, projected FG, actual FG, ABV, IBU, cost of each ingredient, brewer name, contact information. An actual form will be created later to fill out and send.
8. Costs will be calculated by the following method -
Malt priced at average cost per pound of bulk (50/55 pound bags) from 3 online retailers. (morebeer, northern brewer, austin homebrew supply)
Hops priced at average cost per oz of bulk (1 pound) from 2 online retailers. (freshops, hopsdirect)
Adjuncts priced at average cost of non-bulk pricing from 3 online retailers. If it cannot be found on those 3 sites, peapod.com will be the final price for grocery style items. (morebeer, northern brewer, austin homebrew)
Yeast priced at average cost of single use yeast type divided by 3 from 3 online retailers. (morebeer, northern brewer, austin homebrew)
Other ingrediencts (Irish moss, clarifying agent, etc) priced at average cost for non-bulk pricing from 3 online retailers. (morebeer, northern brewer, austin homebrew)
Priming sugar is free, as long as it's only added at bottling time.
No costs will be associated for any equipment/time/etc.

Edit: removed 1 and 2 per Yuri, and redefined #3 because I forgot to include rating scale.
And since #3 was...screw it, let the judge decide, it defeats the purpose of the old 1 and 2. If you send in something other than beer, prepare to get 1 point just for entering. No more. No less.
 
Now we're talkin'! Except for these two rules:

jezter6 said:
1. You must use a minimum of 1 of each ingredient (malt, adjunct, hops, yeast).
2. You must use at least 50% of your grain bill in malt.
Click to expand...

Rule one begins dictating ingredients again. You can make a GREAT beer without adjuncts...why require the use of one?

Rule two dictates amounts - what if I can somehow make a great beer with corn and rice as the primary sources of fermentables, using only a minimum of the traditional barley malts?
 
I see the point. I'm willing to scrap em. :)

I'm just trying to find a way that enforces 'BEER' as the concept. Somehow I think a 90% non-malt 'brew' isn't really beer anymore.
 
I also want a rule requiring quarter ounce increments for hops and quarter pound increments for malt/LME/DME.

I don't want to be reading any recipes that call for 0.39 ounces of hops to skirt their way under the price point. :cross:
 
I would agree there. I would also agree that, while the chances of an out of country brew are slim, that everything is in ounces and pounds. My brain hurt just trying to do the math to see how much orfy was actually putting into his recipe. :)

Also, not so much a rule, but an honor system guideline: Include the cost of your starter wort in the recipe. Please don't make a 1 gallon starter to a 5 gallon batch with a pound of DME to get around the cost. :)
 
Most of the work goes into the issue of pricing. I think once a system is set in stone (after I've contacted potential sponsors), that will become a lot more clear. But in the mean time, I've got the rules whittled down to five.

Yep. FIVE (sorta) SIMPLE RULES. Everything else is a matter for the judges.



The Rules

1. The limit for this year is (tentatively) set as follows:
$2.07 per gallon of beer made from extract
$1.80 per gallon made from a partial mash recipe
$1.35 per gallon made from all grain

If you go over the limit, points will be deducted

2. Each entry MUST contain Malted grain, barley, hops, and yeast.

3. The brewer may buy his ingredients from any supplier and the actual price paid for these supplies is irrelevant. Your ingredient price is to be computed as the cost charged by (fill in the name of the sponsoring homebrew website here), not including shipping or taxes. In the event that this sponsor does not have your desired ingredient, you may use (insert the name of other homebrew sites here) to find the price. In the event that your desired ingredient is not available through any of these websites, peapod.com will be used. In the event that Peapod doesn&#8217;t have your ingredient, you must contact the judges for a ruling. All ingredients, regardless of source, will be deemed to have been purchased at the regular advertised price.

a. Extract. For Extract and Partial Mash Brewers, standard malts (DME or
LME) will be priced on the assumption that you are purchasing 25 pounds.
b. Grain. For All-Grain brewers, standard malts will be priced on the assumption that you are buying a 55lb bag.
c. Specialty grains. Specialty Grains will be priced by the pound.
d. Hops. All hops will be priced by the pound.
e. Other. Other ingredients (Irish moss, clarifying agent, etc) priced at the non-bulk pricing from the specified online retailers.
f. Priming sugar. Priming sugar is free, as long as it's only added at bottling time.
g. Water. Water is a &#8220;free&#8221; ingredient. The brewer has the choice of using tap water, or else filtered water costing under $1.00 per gallon. Because water quality varies significantly, the purpose of this rule is to permit people living in locations with awful water to compete on a level playing field. Any use of mineral water, flavored water, or spring water that does not normally come out of the tap will require the brewer to include the entire cost of the water in his cost computation.
h. Yeast. The cost of the yeast shall be computed as per rule #1 except the cost of the yeast will then be divided by three to account for the possibility of repitching the yeast cake a time or two.
i. Time and Effort. No costs will be associated for any equipment/time/etc.

4. Only quarter-ounce increments can be used in the measurement of hops. Only quarter-pound increments can be used for malt. Ounces and pounds and gallons, and quarters thereof are the only acceptable units. In other words, you cannot add 1.387 ounces of hops to squeak under a price threshold. Just add 1.25 ounces and that&#8217;s it.

5. There is an ABSOLUTE prohibition on the addition of alcohol such as vodka or everclear to increase the alcohol content or for added &#8220;flavor&#8221;.
Click to expand...
 
Rule #4 is still unnecessary, IMHO. #2 probably is, too. What if someone wants to make a spruce beer, for example, and not use any hops? Isn't that the whole spirit of the thing, to make a beer that's cheap and creative? Is it not fair that a "cheap" way of brewing is to take advantage of things that are natually available to you?

No rules other than the price limit, no grain alcohol additions, and how things are priced. Otherwise, have at it. That's what I think would be most interesting.
 
Why rule 5? I would never do it and would think the resulting product would blow, but if it was figured into the costs and shown in the recipe would there be any harm, other then giving everybody else a better chance at winning? Like I said, I won't be doing this either way the rule goes, but it just does not seem like a needed rule.
 
Rule #4 is still unnecessary, IMHO. #2 probably is, too. What if someone wants to make a spruce beer, for example, and not use any hops? Isn't that the whole spirit of the thing, to make a beer that's cheap and creative? Is it not fair that a "cheap" way of brewing is to take advantage of things that are natually available to you?
Click to expand...

If you want to make a spruce beer, that's fine. Just add a quarter ounce of hops and then use spruce. I could get rid of it, but I think it helps make this more of a "beer" contest to tell people to at least use a token amount of the "right" ingredients. That one's still open to debate though. You may be right about it.

As for #4, the point is just to keep the measurements even. Again, the point is to make these recipes accessible to homebrewers. If you start taking weird funky measurements (1.368 ounces of Fuggles, 0.11 tsp of irish moss, etc), it makes your recipe stupid and ridiculous because nobody is ever going to follow it to the letter. People might split a bag of hops in halves or quarters. Nobody's going to take it down to the hundredth of an ounce and if you are cutting it that close just to win the competition, you're really taking it in the wrong spirit.


Brewpastor said:
Why rule 5? I would never do it and would think the resulting product would blow, but if it was figured into the costs and shown in the recipe would there be any harm, other then giving everybody else a better chance at winning? Like I said, I won't be doing this either way the rule goes, but it just does not seem like a needed rule.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking about the addition of neutral spirits to fortify the beer. I don't think that is within the spirit of the competition.
 
I agree but still have a hard time imagining anybody bothing to do it related to this comp. More alcohol does not equal better, just stronger.
 
You're assuming that people here are going to "game" the system any way that they can.

I agree with BP, #5 is unncecessary. As an example, people use bourbon to soak oak chips in, for example; not likely to happen in this competition, but if someone can figure out how to make an bourbon-oaked porter for this low a cost, as long as they add in the cost of the bourbon, who cares?

If you want people to be creative, you need to have virtually no rules. Otherwise, it's just figuring out how to get the highest efficiency so you can use the least amount of malt, and using the highest AA% hops you can find to get the beer bitter. Might be drinkable, but where's the fun in that?
 
Brewpastor said:
I agree but still have a hard time imagining anybody bothing to do it related to this comp. More alcohol does not equal better, just stronger.
Click to expand...

But the ability to ferment a minimal amount of fermentables is a large part of this competition. I understand that, say, vodka, would add no flavor... but it would also tend to give the impression of a greater yield.

Tell me that everclear is far too expensive to use as an adjunct in this competition and I will feel much better. :)

Otherwise, sleep on it, think about it overnight, and tell me the same thing tomorrow and I'll give in. I don't think it's a major point but I am afraid of someone achieving an impressive ABV with beer-flavored vodka-water.

Then again, on the other hand, it would be interesting if somebody gave that a try... :tank:
 
How about 4 categories: golden, amber, brown and black and then let creativity rule. Extremely Cheap Extreme Brewing. No hole barred, let the games begin.
 
beer4breakfast said:
I calculate my hops by AAU, not round numbers. If I want 11 AAUs of Chinnok, that'll be .93 ounces.
Click to expand...

Ok. This is ultimately about developing recipes. So let me ask you...

If you went to your LHBS to buy an ounce of hops, would you hold back .07 ounces? Throw them away? Put them back in the freezer?

If you say yes, then that's cool, but let me ask you another question: Do you think that's common amongst brewers?
 

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