2013 NHC first round results?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I dunno my NHC entries last year were damaged during shipment--the status changed from "out for delivery" to "shipment exception" so I guess the driver dropped something heavy on my box. I got the package back a week or so later and they had taken the unbroken bottles out and repackaged them in a different box and sent it back to me.

I didn't file a claim as I was just happy that they didn't try to charge me for shipping alcohol without doing all the extra paperwork and paying the higher rates, etc.
 
PistolsAtDawn said:
My American Brown was sent to Atlanta. I expect that it will get middling scores. It was good, but not great in my opinion (my girlfriend, for whom it was really brewed, disagrees).

It was a modification of a previous batch's recipe to move it into style guidelines, and I honestly believe that it lost key flavor just to get it lighter in color. I didn't personally notice any flaws in it (but hey, I'm no certified judge), however I just don't think it's flavorful enough to advance past what I'm sure is pretty stiff competition.

If it gets above 30, I will be satisfied.
Click to expand...

I may get some flack for this, but I have to ask, why send a beer off to an NHC regional if you felt it was not that good? I helped at the Atlanta judging by stewarding and judging and the overall feeling was there were too many mediocre beers. I knew of many who could not get registered because of the server issue AHA had. It made it extremely disappointing to know people with really good beers were excluded and so many average beers were not.
 
Phunhog said:
I don't think you get anything for the first round but you bring up a good point. What do you exactly do you "win" at the NHC? It seems like there should be some pretty rad prizes for those who place....other than a 2 dollar medal and bragging rights.
Click to expand...

If you are doing this for the prizes, maybe it's time for a new hobby.
 
planetscott said:
If you are doing this for the prizes, maybe it's time for a new hobby.
Click to expand...

I think you missed his point -- it's a national contest with TONS of participants. Surely there's some good prizes, right?

I believe most of us enjoy winning contests and prizes, am I right?
 
nickmv said:
I think you missed his point -- it's a national contest with TONS of participants. Surely there's some good prizes, right?

I believe most of us enjoy winning contests and prizes, am I right?
Click to expand...

We do, but the exact discourse was "....It seems like there should be......"

My feeling is, it would be nice if there are nice prizes. My reward was being to advance. I was very surprised when I got a ribbon.

Call it a difference of perspectives.
 
With a national contest you have to be cognizant of laws that may make prizes with a monetary value illegal. It's easy to handle with local competitions, but with all 50 states plus Canada I expect there would be more than a few potential trip ups
 
planetscott said:
I may get some flack for this, but I have to ask, why send a beer off to an NHC regional if you felt it was not that good? I helped at the Atlanta judging by stewarding and judging and the overall feeling was there were too many mediocre beers. I knew of many who could not get registered because of the server issue AHA had. It made it extremely disappointing to know people with really good beers were excluded and so many average beers were not.
Click to expand...

I think its a fair statement, but as a judge, I will say that nhc entries are generally higher quality than most other competitions. Given the time from when you sign up to the time you send entries out, in some cases you may not have the beer ready when signing up to make that evaluation, especially if you timed your grew to catch peak freshness. So in the original posters case, he made tweaks to try and better match the style , but the end result wasn't as awesome as he wanted.
 
planetscott said:
If you are doing this for the prizes, maybe it's time for a new hobby.
Click to expand...

I am not doing it for the prizes that for sure but all told I have probably spent 60 plus dollars on entering the NHC. That was only for two beers but 1 has made it to the second round. My county fair homebrew comp is BJCP certified and you actually win money for placing!! Granted it's not much but I won't turn down 10 bucks for winning 1st in Category.
 
Shockerengr said:
Given the time from when you sign up to the time you send entries out, in some cases you may not have the beer ready when signing up to make that evaluation, especially if you timed your grew to catch peak freshness. So in the original posters case, he made tweaks to try and better match the style , but the end result wasn't as awesome as he wanted.
Click to expand...

Good point. There was so much lead time between registration and shipping/dropoff dates that I still had two of my entries in primary when I entered them. If I'd waited to see how they turned out, I couldn't have entered them.
 
Phunhog said:
I am not doing it for the prizes that for sure but all told I have probably spent 60 plus dollars on entering the NHC. That was only for two beers but 1 has made it to the second round. My county fair homebrew comp is BJCP certified and you actually win money for placing!! Granted it's not much but I won't turn down 10 bucks for winning 1st in Category.
Click to expand...

I entered the Babble Brewoff in the Chicago area this year. They listed their sponsors and every thing that had been donated on the contest website. A lot of nice stuff was donated... from brewpots to regulators to gift certificates. I finished 3rd in best of show and only got the rosette. Kind of a bummer since they had so many items donated. Wouldn't have been to difficult to slide a gift certificate in with the rosette and scoresheets.
 
planetscott said:
I may get some flack for this, but I have to ask, why send a beer off to an NHC regional if you felt it was not that good? [...]
Click to expand...
I can't answer for him, but I have a fair number of beers that I make that 'aren't that good' from my perspective, but others love them and think they're great. Just as an example, I usually make a fruity wheat beer once a year for my wife that I rarely drink more than a pint or two of simply because I don't like fruit beers. Seems this is similar that he made it more to style than a previous version and he didn't like it that much, but his girlfriend disagreed, so he submitted it since it was in line with style. You never really know how well it's going to hit the judges tastes. One man's insanely great coffee stout may be another's overpowering way too much coffee stout.
 
AmandaK said:
That increased price was to provide more funding for the regional judging centers.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I got that. They could have just mailed them with the score sheets. It's really not a big deal, but it just seems less meaningful printing them myself. It really wouldn't have cost them much. They found the budget before.
 
gmcapone said:
Yeah, I got that. They could have just mailed them with the score sheets. It's really not a big deal, but it just seems less meaningful printing them myself. It really wouldn't have cost them much. They found the budget before.
Click to expand...

Check the spelling as well.
 
irwinben said:
Do score sheets for the final round get sent out to participants?
Click to expand...

That was my understanding. They're not the standard score sheets though. They are the quicker checkbox style ones.
 
irwinben said:
Do score sheets for the final round get sent out to participants?
Click to expand...

If you log into the final round site it will tell you your score and if you made it to the mini BOS. Scoresheets should be out in about 2 weeks.
 
Phunhog said:
If you log into the final round site it will tell you your score and if you made it to the mini BOS. Scoresheets should be out in about 2 weeks.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that tip. I just checked and my oatmeal coffee stout scored a 37.3 and made it in to the mini bos. So close.
 
I just got my second round scoresheets, I can see how these sheets made it a bit easier to judge so many entries in such short amount of time.
 
got mine today as well from final round.

I have seen some comments that are critical of the version of the scoresheet . . . as there are fewer written comments than folks are used to. To me, they are fine. Basically allows judges to just "check" things like "phenol" or "Cloying" or "Caramel" instead of taking the time to write out words and phrases that say the same thing. I too can see how it would be a bit of a time saver - especially once familiar with the sheet.

Especially for bigger comps like NHC...... where the comp. starts to be more about winning/placing than about 'just getting feedback' - I think these score sheets are a good idea.
 
Braufessor said:
got mine today as well from final round.

I have seen some comments that are critical of the version of the scoresheet . . . as there are fewer written comments than folks are used to. To me, they are fine. Basically allows judges to just "check" things like "phenol" or "Cloying" or "Caramel" instead of taking the time to write out words and phrases that say the same thing. I too can see how it would be a bit of a time saver - especially once familiar with the sheet.
Click to expand...

If they're filled out, it's not a bad method. At Mazer Cup this year, none of the fields were filled out for my entries. Just a score and maybe a word or two. That's not very helpful for feedback.

Braufessor said:
Especially for bigger comps like NHC...... where the comp. starts to be more about winning/placing than about 'just getting feedback' - I think these score sheets are a good idea.
Click to expand...

Yeah, especially for a comp with two rounds. If the beer advances, you're not really looking for much feedback, just trying to beat everyone else. :D
 
Any idea where they are being mailed from? I contacted the AHA and they said they hoped to have all of them mailed out by the end of July.
 
I just noticed that if you login to the Philly competition site (http://www.brewingcompetition.com/final) there will be a PDF letter available for download. Mine is dated today, so I'm guessing that mine were mailed out today. Anyone else have any different dates?

I had a second and third place in the first round, then had 1 beer get a 37.5 and advance to mini-bos, so I can't wait to see comments. So close. My other beer scored a 31.
 
I had a brown ale that scored 39 and made mini best of show.... as you said - "so close":) It really exceeded my expectations for it, so I was pretty pleased overall. All 3 judges checked the "I would pay money for this beer" box on the score sheet - that was a pretty good compliment coming from folks who probably drink an awful lot of beer.
 
Braufessor said:
got mine today as well from final round.

I have seen some comments that are critical of the version of the scoresheet . . . as there are fewer written comments than folks are used to. To me, they are fine. Basically allows judges to just "check" things like "phenol" or "Cloying" or "Caramel" instead of taking the time to write out words and phrases that say the same thing. I too can see how it would be a bit of a time saver - especially once familiar with the sheet.

Especially for bigger comps like NHC...... where the comp. starts to be more about winning/placing than about 'just getting feedback' - I think these score sheets are a good idea.
Click to expand...

I judged in the second round as lead judge for fruit beers & specialty cider. The thing to understand is that the second round is about determining a winner, not so much about feedback (as you have said). I'll say that I hate the check sheets as they don't allow me to focus in the same way and kind of write what I'm tasting and feeling. For me, I'm probably slower with the checksheets. That being said, I totally understand the purpose and once filled out, you can see what you thought of the beer and validate your score pretty easily. On a side note, cider & mead don't use the check sheets.
 
Coff said:
I just got my second round scoresheets, I can see how these sheets made it a bit easier to judge so many entries in such short amount of time.
Click to expand...

Actually, it wasn't so much the scoresheet. We had 200 or so judges for the morning session and did all 23 beer categories. Each category was split into 3 groupings (lots of 3 person teams) and then ~11 beers/judging team. A few more than I've been used to lately as most comps around here get the numbers under 10 but it wasn't bad at all. Also, 54% of all judges at the final round were National or higher so a lot of national judges weren't even on the mini BOS panels. Pretty awesome, IMO.
 
Shockerengr said:
I think its a fair statement, but as a judge, I will say that nhc entries are generally higher quality than most other competitions. Given the time from when you sign up to the time you send entries out, in some cases you may not have the beer ready when signing up to make that evaluation, especially if you timed your grew to catch peak freshness. So in the original posters case, he made tweaks to try and better match the style , but the end result wasn't as awesome as he wanted.
Click to expand...

I've found that entries tend to be worse on the whole but the best are better. Talking with organizers, they are inundated with questions from first time entrants. I don't quite understand why you'd make a $15 competition (or however much it costs) as your first competition. 2 of the worst flights I've ever judged have been at the first round, though both also produced an exceptional winner.

As to being in the wrong hobby if you want prizes, I've gotten to the point where I'm confident in my beer/mead and want to win. There's nothing wrong with that at all, imo. Why else have COMPETITIONS? We could just have evaluations with no winner but what's the fun in that?
 

Similar threads

oldschool
NHC 2023 First Round
2
Replies
48
Views
3K
kingmatt
kingmatt
J
My First Competition: Results, Disappointments, Improvements
Replies
15
Views
2K
mashpaddled
M
Rob2010SS
Difference between certificates and ribbons at National Homebrew Competition...
Replies
4
Views
662
Rob2010SS
Rob2010SS
F
Entering a Homebrew Completion? Tips?
Replies
30
Views
2K
fendersrule
F
C
My First Decoction Experience
Replies
24
Views
2K
BigEd
B
SSBrew 300

Latest posts

Back
Top