Brewing Competition Rules

Hey everyone,

I am organizing a brewing competition at work. But I have never done this before and I have no idea how to start.

The competition is for about 10 teams; they have to brew and make a commercial for the beer.

I have to supply all the teams with the beginners kits as well.

Can you please help me... with some basics...
- what should be the rules
- places where I can buy the kits
- anything else that might be of help...

Thx in advance..... Appreciate all your help!!!!!
-B

Is it all going to be extract or is AG allowed?

What's the budget?

Have you brewed before?

www.howtobrew.com

Where do you work?

Here's loads of info.

http://www.bjcp.org/compcenter.html

Is this a work assignment, or a free-time thing with friends?

If its a work assignment, do you have a budget for purchasing equipment and supplies? Timeline?

Does anyone have any brewing experience at all?

There are several online retailers that have pre-assembled equipment and ingredient kits; two of them are http://morebeer.com/ and http://www.austinhomebrew.com

Give us some more details so we can give you better advice.

This is a work assignment. we have a budget, but m looking at kits worth 70$.

Nobody has any prior experience brewing.

I would start by looking at www.howtobrew.com; it has a wealth of information on the basic process. Since no one has any experience you are most likely going to follow the extract brewing technique. That site will tell you everything you need to know about brewing such as what the minimum equipment requirements are ect... I would also suggest that you purchase ingredient kits from one of the online retailers rather than having people try to develop their own recipes.

Thanks all for your help...

At this point I am more concerned about how to organize the competition.. than brewing itself....

I am the formulating the rules n anything else that I might need....

Thx again.. n sorry for the confusion...

I would suggest that everyone brew the same beer. That way you'll be comparing apples to apples.

Pick a simple equipment kit, an extract-based recipe kit, and give one to each team. Often, beginner equipment kits will come with a recipe kit. Plan on bottling the beer, not kegging.

Give the teams something like 6 weeks to produce their beer and commercial.

As for judging the best beer, I'm not so sure about that. Someone else will have to chime in. But I suggest you keep it really simple. Like a five point scale from very bad, bad, ok, good, really good.

To obtain your starter kits, look for a reputable local homebrew supply shop. That will save you shipping cost and you can see what you are getting before you buy. Otherwise, compare the kits on morebeer.com, Austin Homebrew Supply, Northern Brewer, and Midwest Supply. Each of these places has good starter kits.

If you get 10 batches of good beer, that will work out to about 20 cases! Sounds like the makings of a rockin' after-work party! :rockin:

It would be cool to have them all make the same style from the same ingredient kit (see austinhomebrew.com or morebeer.com or similar). Then it would be really cool to get a BJCP certified judge to score them all. This is really the only way to have it done fairly. Of course, I'd let all the employees judge the commercial section.

Bobby_M said:

...Then it would be really cool to get a BJCP certified judge to score them all. This is really the only way to have it done fairly.

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Bobby_M has a good point. You might be able to find actual beer judges by contacting a local homebrew club or store. If you have a mircobrewery or brewpub nearby, maybe the brewer there would help out as well.

I don't think it would be nearly as much fun to have everyone brew the same recipe; this is their first go at brewing, it doesn't need to be a serious contest. I might limit the styles, though; maybe let them brew either a pale ale, IPA, porter, or a wheat beer, somthing like that. Don't leave it COMPLETELY open-ended, but let people have some flexibility in what they make.

Please post your experience whrn this is over and post the vids to youtube.

If you decide to judge this on your own, look at our forums on sampling and critiqueing as they range from formal to casual.

Is the point of this exercise to brew some good beer, like who can make the best beer ? Or is the point more like who can make the best commercial ?

Tell us more what you're trying to accomplish and we can get a better idea what good rules would be.

This is how I'd handle it.

Give people a basic kit
Give people a very basic list of instructions.
Give people a very basic set of ingredients plus some optionals.
Give them a set of recipes to choose from.
Give them a list of resources to check out. www.howtobrew.com etc.
Give them a dead line

For the kit they need

Two pails, one lid One air lock and bung
One piece of tube
One thermometer
One Hydrometer
Instructions on what to use as a sanitiser and how.
One case of swing top bottles

Ingredients.

3.3lbs of Liquid Malt Extract (pre hopped)
4lbs of sugar.
A selection of 2 or 3 steeping grains
Some hops to use for aroma (optional)
One pack of dried yeast.
A list of common adjuncts they can supply there selves.

Judge on:

presentation (Label)
Look in the glass
Taste.
And of course the advert.

The smart ones will brew 2.5 gallons of beer and use all malt rather than brewing 5 gallons and using sugar.

orfy said:

The smart ones will brew 2.5 gallons of beer and use all malt rather than brewing 5 gallons and using sugar.

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Great twist! Tells you right away who did research and took initiative.

what about just giving every team the same budget and making them buy the ingredients theirself. This is if you have a homebrew shop close. If not I'm not sure its a good idea to make them all order online.