Southern New England Regional Homebrew Competition

Just wanted to see who's going/entering. This will be my first competition in four years of brewing and I am entering an oatmeal stout and a Belgian specialty ale. Since I live an hour and a half from the competition site, I also volunteered to be a steward, but since I just passed the BJCP Entrance Exam I sent an e-mail to one of the organizers to ask if I could sit in with a judge to get some experience. I know I would get points for stewarding and not for sitting in with a judge, but in the long run I think sitting with a judge would be more valuable experience.

Very cool! I'm thinking of entering in a contest soon. Good luck

I'll probably enter a few entries. I might steward as well. I'll let you know if I go. It's nice to meet other hbt'ers in person

I'll probably be entering an American Pale Ale. I've volunteered as a steward once, and I was with the judges the whole time, sampling side by side with them, and even giving some feedback when they requested. Stewarding was pretty much judging without filling out the score sheets, you just have to keep track of the entries, and record the scores for each round. Some things I found interesting were the judges adjusted their final scores higher or lower to come within 5 points of eachother. Another thing was how close the scores were for the placing beers, often only 1 or 2 points higher than the other entries. One last thing was how the beers were served, all of the beers were brought out of the fridge just prior to that round of judging, so just imagine the temperature differences while bottles were sitting at room temp during judging, which seemed to take 5-10 mins per entry.

Very cool to see others who will/might enter in the competition. I would love to meet up with some fellow HBTers. We can all wear name tags that say "Hello, my name is (insert your screen name)"

Good luck on your entry.
The organizer says so far they have 334 entries to judge.