HBT.com homebrew competition?

I think it was Todd_K who proposed this idea in the "Resolutions for 2007" thread, so I'll give him his props first.

Toot got me thinking about this with the whole "Lobuck / $3.41/gallon" proposed homebrew contest.

What I think we should do is have a full-bore homebrew competition this year. Target the middle part of the year, maybe May 31st or June 30th, for a deadline, so that people have time to develop recipes, experiment, do lagering, etc. This would also give time to maybe get some prizes together, maybe try and get mentioned on some podcasts, get the word out generally.

Include the "Lobuck" competition as a separate category; "Beers Costing Less Than $10 Per Batch". To really do that right, people are going to need a lot of time to play around with recipes and procedures. No other major rules other than defining what gets included in cost. A style must be specified, and each "Lobuck" beer is judged versus its style, with one winner. Define two price limits, one for AG, one for extract, otherwise, leave that as open-ended as possible.

Judge more-or-less according to established guidelines, but with common sense applied as well. Stouts versus stouts, pale ales versus pale ales, etc.

Twist the arms of some of the respected folk around here to act as judges; BrewPastor, I'm sure, would be more than happy to judge all wheat and Belgian-style entries.

Perhaps in lieu of an entry fee, participants must be paying members of HBT?

I've never sent beer to a competition, I've never been involved in a competition, so I don't know everything that would be involved. But, I'd be more than happy to do whatever was necessary to get something going.

Any thoughts? Take Toot's idea and make it BIGGER?

Awesome. And instead of creating a set of rules amongst ourselves (proving to be a PITA in the Lobuck threads), we can steal rules from already established competitions.

What are the stakes? Pride? Lifetime Membership upgrades (TxBrew?)? If we decide on an entry fee, there could be cash and/or brewquipment prizes...

Does anybody know the laws on sending beers from Australia to America?

I can always judge my own beers and sent you the results! I will be a harsh, harsh but fair critic.

Um, no thanks.

dibby33 said:

Does anybody know the laws on sending beers from Australia to America?

I can always judge my own beers and sent you the results! I will be a harsh, harsh but fair critic.

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I do know there's some customs rule that states all beer must pass through a central customs agency:

Orpheus
592 Steeple Road
Lancaster, PA

This is a great idea. I would never enter beer into a competition, but to be honest, I'd have no trouble submitting one to this one. Everyone here is so supportive and great that it'd be more like sending brews to friends for kicks.

That's the thing. I would expect that whoever we would nominate to be our judges, we would trust that that the beer's taste would be the dominant factor, as long as it basically held true to the style's parameters.

As to the entry fee question - I'd propose a stainless steel conical as a prize; something that we all covet, but that so very few of us can justify making the investment in.

We'd have to figure out how to best get the beer fairly judged; maybe convene panels of folks in different regions to judge the beers together, so that we could get an average score?

Generally, getting things done over the internet is like herding cats. It's not a very good medium for this type of mass collaboration. It's far too democratic of a system.

Let me tell you. The reason I believe that the Lobuck Challenge will work is that I am running it more or less like a dictator. I am taking peoples suggestions and listening honestly, but then I drop the hammer and make a decision. Fortunately, it's easy with the Lobuck challenge because no grown man is going to take it *too* seriously and that keeps arguments and disagreements to a minimum. But you're still seeing them pop up from time to time, aren't you? Fortunately, I'm not taking it too seriously either. Just seriously enough, I think.

If you wanted anything like this to have a chance of succeeding, you would have to nominate about 3 people to make all the decisions and do all the work and basically tell everybody else what to do. If you let everybody in on the process and take everyone's suggestions, it will never come to fruition. In other words, you need to let people do the work they are willing to do and trust that they will do a good job with minimal supervision or input from the masses.

Every time someone "on the outside" throws out a suggestion and it gets rejected, they will turn into a nay-sayer and start to talk about why your idea is stupid. Once you get about 10 of those people publicly posting that your idea sucks, everybody else who was on the fence will start to think that there is a group of members out there who don't care about your effort. All of a sudden, they don't need to join in to be "a part of something"... they can do nothing and "be a part of that". And it's a lot easier to do nothing so most of them will. From there, it will start to falter.

You really have to keep things positive and, in my experience, that means that the bigger your aspirations, the less public they should be. The rules shouldn't be debated, they should be dictated... and so forth.

Just my $0.02.

Yeah, but you can't compare us to the average place on the Internet. We got the Secret Santa off the ground in virtually no time at all (granted, a very small project). There's a great deal of trust in the people here. The "dictator" approach doesn't really go with the whole vibe of this place.

Why not utilize the AHA nations and have people submit their result to HBT and see who pulls the highest scores? That way the AHA does all the work and we simply celebrate the results. Something along those lines perhaps?

I have no idea how that works. The problem that I can imagine is that so many people don't like how most homebrew competitions are judged. The example that I used was that people's experienced seemed to be that homebrew contests were like dog shows, the dog is judged whether it meets the "breed standard" rather than whether it liked to curl up on your feet on a cold night.

I'd rather have people judging the beers on whether they really TASTE good (granted, very subjective) rather than whether they strictly fit all the parameters for the style and are completely devoid of any "flaws."

That is a very hard way to judge. I don't think wheat beers would fair very well on the drinkability standard if I was judging, but they would get a fair shake if it was on a style basis.

Another idea would be to target a Judging during the AHA Nations in Denver this June. Send the brews there to one of our members and then have a judging done by the HBT folk who happen to be in town for the festivities. Sort of like a side event that would actually be a main event for the lucky few who could attend.

Yeah.....




I mean, a beer needs to be within the style guidelines, more or less, and it needs to be free from flaws, more or less, but it still needs to taste great to be judged highly. Can't we just kind of skew how we would weight those considerations, place more emphasis on the latter?

Maybe I need to read up on judging guidelines. BP, are you a certified judge? Do we have more people around who are?

Brewpastor said:

Another idea would be to target a Judging during the AHA Nations in Denver this June. Send the brews there to one of our members and then have a judging done by the HBT folk who happen to be in town for the festivities. Sort of like a side event that would actually be a main event for the lucky few who could attend.

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Good idea....

I was also thinking that maybe "judging committees" could be formed among the little clusters of folks in various areas. The North Carolina folks could get together and judge a batch of beers together. There's a Virginia clan. We've got Glibbidy, Kai, and some others up here in the Northeast. S.N.I.Z.Z.L.E. should be good and soused by now tonight.

I didn't mean my comments to be negative. I really like the vibe of this place and that is why I pitched my Lobuck idea... because I'd be happy to give what I could to this community. But I stand by my herding cats comment.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done... but look at my 2 threads. in 24 hours, we have 15 pages. And anybody who wants to participate meaningfully has to read all 15 pages before even thinking about clicking the "new post" button. Now do that every day for 4 months until the threads get so long that newbs to the board see the length of the thread and say, "No way am I reading all of that!" and things will start to slow down.

Something of that magnitude should be in the hands of a small cadre of individuals with the wisdom of solomon and the temperament of mother theresa.

I like the Lobuck idea, I think it's very cool on a theoretical basis - but I think it would be better with far fewer restrictions, and I think it could fit very nicely into a bigger competition. I'm not trying to knock what you've put together, I just think you're not allowing enough room for people to really BE creative. Lots of rules make me go "ugh."

BTW: change the number of threads you view per page to 40; your threads are (currently) only three pages and one page long

Much easier to read.

Toot said:

It's far too democratic of a system.

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Toot,

I fully agree with your assesment of the situation and this open-source thing doesn't seem to work well for anything but software. And even there you need standards.

Bird,

As BP pointed out, judging by taste may not be fair enough. BP doesn't like wheats and I don't like anything over 40 IBU or with more than 5% roasted malts. Maybe we can focuss on some select styles or style groups of beers to give brewers a target to shoot for.

And then there are the logistics. How many local groups of HBTers do we actually have that could assist in that and are the judges exculded or at least forced to send their beers to another group of judges?

The price is another thing. The bigger you make it the more serious the cometition has to be. I think that simply having the honor of winning or getting a lifetime membership would be sufficient. Once you have that shiny new coniocal hanging out there I don't want to be a judge b/c I would be afraid of messing up and not being as fair as I could be.

Kai

Ok, forget the conical; I was thinking that TOO nice a prize might end up hurting feelings. I think most people would be happy with pride and some good feedback. Lifetime membership's a great idea, too (and how about a t-shirt? )

Here's my proposal (I need to get to bed).

1. Establish 5-6 tasting panels; Virginia, North Carolina, New England, S.N.I.Z.Z.L.E, etc.

2. Each panel is assigned a group of brews (stouts and porters, pale ales, IPAs, wheat, etc.)

3. All entries funnel through me (or someone else), to be numbered so that they can be identified but remain anonymous to the judges.

4. I forward a big ol' package of beers to each panel.

5. Panels convene two or three weeks before the AHA convention, and judge (have to figure out the standards to be used) the top three beers.

6. The winner of each group (or the top three) are send to Colorado to be judged, Best-In-Show style, by those HBT members who can make it to the convention.

Assuming there was enough interest, we would need to get groups organized, define the judging standards (I will certainly bow to your and BP's collective wisdom), and figure out what groups were judging what.

But hell, this is do-able, isn't it? We were thinking about a get-together in the Spring, we could do a tasting/judging then, couldn't we?

Kaiser said:

are the judges exculded or at least forced to send their beers to another group of judges?

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Would it be too easy to say that if you're on the "IPA" team, don't submit an IPA? If everyone sends plain, brown bottles, would you necessarily know for absolute certain that it was YOUR beer you were tasting? If you did, could you be trusted to not pass that knowledge to the other group members so that they would not be unduly influenced? What if we required everyone to use completely unmarked bottles, other than the numbers that I attached?

I put a poll on top. Methinks we'd need twenty to thirty people to participate to make this a worthwhile venture. If there's no interest, I'll drop it, no hurt feelings.

I just think this could be cool, not a ton of work (we'd just need some people to volunteer to taste beer and give honest, critical assessments). I'll deal with as much of the admin stuff as possible.

People interested, or no?

EDIT: I would expect there to be a nominal entry fee, to cover shipping costs and if we wanted to award any kind of prize to the winner(s).

Sure, what the hell!

sonofa.....

I guess Im going to have to bottle again

the_bird said:

EDIT: I would expect there to be a nominal entry fee, to cover shipping costs and if we wanted to award any kind of prize to the winner(s).

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The " Mine is better than yours" bragging rights isnt good enough?

Chimone said:

The " Mine is better than yours" bragging rights isnt good enough?

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We could have a "Biggest Beer" category, with the winner getting a homebrewtalk t-shirt with the logo "Mine Is Bigger Than Yours!"

Of course, Lorena and some others might object to that....

I would think prizes would be nominal; have some t-shirts printed, maybe a small gift cert to Northern Brewer, maybe a lifetime membership (if Tx agreed). Certainly, pride would be the primary motivator.

Plus, if you got on a tasting panel, you'd get to sample lots of people's beers!

So how would that work....the multiple judges thing?


Each contestant has 5 beers of each kind they want to submit, and ship one to each judge?

I respectfully request that you read post #19, and let me know what you think of those proposed procedures.

This sounds like a logistical nightmare.

Count me in if you get something halfway easy figured out.

Oh that sounds great....

Send all beers to you for processing. Yea I can see it now,

HBT Poster: hey wtf happened to my beers

the_bird : *burp* what beers??


LoL jk

Sounds good to me, Ill ship you a couple extra ones just for your troubles.

How long we going to have before the competition? 2 month notice?

the_bird said:

We could have a "Biggest Beer" category, with the winner getting a homebrewtalk t-shirt with the logo "Mine Is Bigger Than Yours!"

Of course, Lorena and some others might object to that....

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From her own admission hers are pretty big!
Change "Mine Is Bigger Than Yours!"
to
"Mine ARE Bigger Than Yours!"

See, I don't think it would be.

What I would need would be for you, Todd, and whoever else is in your vicinity to agree to get together and do some judging of beers. We'll just have to get together a few little groupings of folks to agree to act as tasting panels, guys like you that I respect and whose opinion of my beer I would trust and value.

You as an entrant would only have to send me - to just one address - four unmarked, unlabeled beers, just like you would to any other competition. I'll be responsible for tracking which is which, assigning numbers to the beers, and putting together packages to each of the tasting panels. Not that big a deal, IMHO. Sticky label with a number that corresponds to the entrant and the style.

I will send each panel a single package that includes two of everyone's beers. They will only be numbered. You will judge them and report back to me. I'll have to make sure that you don't judge your own beer, but that's easy enough to handle.

One your panel has judged first place, second place, and runner up, you convey that info to me. I then take the remaining two beers for the 1st and 2nd place finishers, package THOSE up, and send those off to Rich or someone else in Colorado. Whoever from HBT can make it to the AHA convention will get together and judge all of THOSE beers (the 1st and 2nd place finishers from each panel) and report back to me.

Then, I post the winners and take care of the prizes.

Does that make sense?

Chimone said:

Oh that sounds great....

Send all beers to you for processing. Yea I can see it now,

HBT Poster: hey wtf happened to my beers

the_bird : *burp* what beers??


LoL jk

Sounds good to me, Ill ship you a couple extra ones just for your troubles.

How long we going to have before the competition? 2 month notice?

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I was thinking a lot longer than that - maybe by June? Give people plenty of time to develop receipes, to lager, to age their beers properly. I was thinking the GABF was in around that time, but it looks like it's not until October, so that part of the plan will need to be modified.

OK, since the GABF is so far off, slightly modified proposal.

We convene the panels for the initial round of tasting. The winners of those panels only will be packaged and sent to three of our most highly esteemed members (we'd have to do some secret balloting) to rate. I'd get the scores, average them, and we'd have our winner. Even easier!

If we become a recognised AHA club and sanction the contests we hold, the BOS winner gets an Auto entry into the Aha nationals.

Brewpastor said:

If we become a recognised AHA club and sanction the contests we hold, the BOS winner gets an Auto entry into the Aha nationals.

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We should be hearing back on that soon. I believe TxBrew sent out an e-mail to the AHA a couple of weeks ago.

I'm with BP here. I like the idea of getting AHA club certification and doing this like a real competition. Let's find a way to put together a BJCP panel.

This idea of a competition, locbuck or not, can become a great institution over time. It would be a lot of fun to do this in such a way that it can continue.

Let's limit it to 4 or 5 styles and either make some of them lobuck only or all of them lobuck only. Have fun AND learn more about making our beers better!

I know that some folks have expressed concerns with formal competitions and want this to be informal because they feel it will be more supportive. I suggest looking at some judging sheets they are almost always very supportive and the process they have for certifying judges means the feedback will be much more valuable than anything "we" amateur judges can do.

I like it. I mean hey, we're brewing anyway right? Might as well mail a few off and make someone else happy...then there's the chance of some recognition on top of it.



What's not to like?

:cross:

I'm not brewing yet...I know, I know...hurry up and buy the stuff already...

Anyway, as for judging in something such as this, if possible I think it'd be better to have say 2 judges who are versed in judging styles/character/aroma etc, and another judge (such as myself) that have drank beers around the world, and just enjoy a good drinking beer. Not necessarily the best in class, but knows a good all around product. Then combine the scores. Or some such nonsense like that. Make it a combined score.

OK, what the hell. I officially volunteer my pallet. For the drinkability portion anyway. LOL.

So that's 2 judges and one who just wants to drink and enjoy the beer?

Make that 2 none judges!