East Coast-West Coast Brew Off WTF?!?!?!

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Airborneguy

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CANCELLED?!?!?!

Anyone else enter this competition? It was scheduled for this coming weekend. They required 3 12oz bottles to be sent to them and a $5 entry fee. I sent my entry and a friend's, which cost me $12 on top of packaging and the loss of the beer (insignificant? Screw you I didn't brew it for these dudes).

Well I get an email today refunding my $5 with an apology, but what about my beer, my time, my shipping... And the excuse is they cancelled it because of the holiday? Well I know the pilgrims surprised us with this BRAND NEW Thanksgiving holiday and all, but... WTF kind of excuse is this? I'm EXTREMELY pissed right now if you can't tell :mad:.

I realize that there's no options here but I'm heated that some dude in Maryland has hundreds of beers, including mine, that he just got shipped to him for free.

Is there a way to complain to the BJCP about this? Maybe take away their ability to have a sanctioned comp in the future?

West Coast Vs East Coast Organized By Ocean City Maryland Home Brew Club (ocmhbc) > West Coast Vs East Coast Entry Info
 
That's weird. Since the beer is there, why don't they just run the competition next weekend? Write to the guy and tell him you want a refund on your shipping costs, just to see what happens.
 
Yeah I'd let AHA know...

Then again, it was probably cancelled because they tasted one west coast beer and realized the easr coast beers wouldn't stand a chance. ;)
 
And the excuse is they cancelled it because of the holiday? Well I know the pilgrims surprised us with this BRAND NEW Thanksgiving holiday and all, but... WTF kind of excuse is this? I'm EXTREMELY pissed right now if you can't tell :mad:.

lol

i'd be heated too. first at the requirement of 3 12-ozers....wtf for??

definitely convey the stupidity to the AHA
 
I'm weighing what to do right now. I'm definitely going to email the organizer asking for a better explanation. After that, I'm going to email some of the sponsors and the AHA and BJCP. This was a very serious mistake on their part even if it was an "honest" mistake. You don't solicit entries before knowing that the structure for the competition is in place.
 
I entered the competition as well and was pissed when I found out it was canceled. I live in MD where it was taking place so I got a little inside scoop from my LHBS. Apparently the organizer and the brewery that was staging the competition had a bit of a falling out and so the organizer canceled the competition. Shame on both of them for pulling this **** at the last second!
 
Email sent:

Art,

As I am sure you understand, I'm very perplexed and quite frankly, mad about this cancellation.

The entry fee of $5 is nothing compared to the time and effort to produce the beer, the packaging and shipping and the time involved in that process, and just knowing that my beer is now free for someone to drink which wasn't the intended goal of my shipment.

The Thanksgiving holiday is obviously something to be expected long in advance, and failing to have an adequate number of judges in place before soliciting entries is completely unacceptable.

I would like to pay for the shipping to have mine and my friend's entry returned to us. I know that sounds silly, but I am truly angry thinking about my beer being given away for "free" under circumstances under which I would not have normally given up there beer.

You response is appreciated. I would rather avoid having to contact the AHA to voice my displeasure over this unacceptable situation.

Sincerely,

"Airborneguy"
 
Apparently the organizer and the brewery that was staging the competition had a bit of a falling out and so the organizer canceled the competition. Shame on both of them for pulling this **** at the last second!

Now I am even more pissed. If this is the real reason, that's TOTALLY unacceptable.

I'm really wondering how willing to get involved the AHA would be. Hopefully I can get this club's sanction revoked or something. They should not be allowed to have organize a competition in the future.
 
Airborneguy,

Maryland Homebrew is my LHBS, litterally right across the street from me. They sponsored but had nothing to do with the cancelation. They are a great store with helpful and friendly staff.
 
Just sent this email to the AHA. I sent it to the events coordinator and Gary Glass:


Cheers!

I hope I'm sending this email to the correct people. I just recieved word that an AHA competition which I entered had been suddenly cancelled. I'm referring to the West Coast vs. East Coast Brew Off which was being held by the Ocean City Maryland Homebrew Club.

This competition required 3, 12oz bottles for each entry, and in my case, required me to ship to the competition organizers. As I'm sure you realize, this doesn't cost a bank-breaking amount of money, but certainly enough to make me take notice when I find out it was all for naught.

The excuse offerred by the organizer was that he could not arrange for an adequate number of judges to attend due to the thanksgiving Holiday weekend. I do not find this to be an adequate explanation being that the organizer chose the date of the event, and should have had these arrangements in place before soliciting entries, many of which would be shipped as mine were. While the organizer did refund the $5 entry fee, they are now in possession of a very likely large amount of homebrew which people like me believed would be judged as per BJCP guidelines, not enojoyed at unknown organizers' Thanksgiving dinner tables.

The intent of this email is to notify the AHA that they have sanctioned a competition (and thereby, the club organizing it), which has been run in a completely unacceptable, and possible even criminal manner. I would hope that the AHA would be interested in sanctioning this club in some way, so as to maintain the integrity of the AHA-sponsored homebrew competition circuit in this country. When I look to enter a competition, I always ensure that the AHA has sanctioned it so I can rest assured that I am entering a professionally organized and judged event. The situation at hand does not at all reflect the values of the AHA and our hobby in general.

Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you regarding this matter. In the least, I do not believe that this club should be able to in the future hold a competition which receives AHA support.

Sincerely,

"Airborneguy"
New Brighton Homebrew Society
Staten Island, NY
 
Sending a message to the AHA is probably a good idea, but don't you think you should have given the organizer a chance to respond to your email before sending it?

I know you're upset, and with good reason, but you did tell them you'd give them a chance to make things right before you contacting the AHA...
 
Very, very disappointing situation -- unacceptable. You're doing the right thing. Even if you get your $12 back, the AHA still needs to know about this.
 
Sending a message to the AHA is probably a good idea, but don't you think you should have given the organizer a chance to respond to your email before sending it?

I know you're upset, and with good reason, but you did tell them you'd give them a chance to make things right before you contacting the AHA...

Unless they make things right with every single entrant, the AHA needs to be informed, regardless of the wording of his email to the organizer.
 
Good point. I guess I was a little more upset than I realized.

You have a right to be. We all do this because we have a passion for this hobby, it's something we care about. Having someone screw around with something you care about is going to lead to discontent.

I wonder what criteria the AHA uses to sanction an event, perhaps there's an opportunity for them to improve upon that process.
 
They are in trouble now. They already refunded the entry fees, and can't ship beer back without paying a LOT of money. They look bad if they simply keep and drink the beer, and could possibly have their club affiliation revoked.

The best thing would have been to extend the judging day out until it could be done, and held the event anyway. But we don't know if any of the sponsors backed out, taking the winnings with them.

Whatever, the club needs to be honest and open with the information. There is nothing on their site indicating a problem with the competition at this point.

It's going to be bad for them if they stick their head in the sand on this.
 
Sent this just to see how'd they respond :D

Looking forward to seeing the results from this competition. There are rumors about it being cancelled after receiving contestants entries and costing them the money to ship their entries. All for the bogus reason of it being the Holidays. As if the Holidays weren't scheduled already when the event was.

I know this can't be true from a respectable AHA sanctioned Homebrew club.
 
They are in trouble now. They already refunded the entry fees, and can't ship beer back without paying a LOT of money. They look bad if they simply keep and drink the beer, and could possibly have their club affiliation revoked.

The best thing would have been to extend the judging day out until it could be done, and held the event anyway. But we don't know if any of the sponsors backed out, taking the winnings with them.

Whatever, the club needs to be honest and open with the information. There is nothing on their site indicating a problem with the competition at this point.

It's going to be bad for them if they stick their head in the sand on this.

Absolutely agree, they should have taken action quickly here. If I'd been a member of the club, I'd have recommended postponing the competition, instead of just cancelling it. That would give them time to find new judges and sponsors.

In reality, there's no way they'll be able to refund postage to people, unless they find a sponsor to cover that expense.
 
Would this be a beer Ponzi scheme or a beer Pyramid scheme.
I kinda like it.
Everyone on HBT send me 3 beers and I'll tell you how I liked em!!:mug::drunk:
 
The plot thickens:

First of all we had enuff judges in place but with
5 .backing out at the last minute we had no choice .if you want your beer that's your right send a call tag ill make sure we don't judge it what judge it that's right being we don't have enuff aha approved judges we can't give out the aha award but can still give out all the medals and other prizes . That we had intended to give out ill what for you call tag ..

Art

I wrote back asking for complete clarification on what's going on. The refund email stated that the comp was totally cancelled, now he mentions judging. I'm suspicious that they are going to be doing some half-assed informal judging just to fulfill their requirements so no one goes down there and lynches them though. Either way, this whole thing stinks to high heaven.
 
Airborneguy - This thread is very interesting. I also entered the competition. I originally sent my entries to the address published in the "Entry info section" on the BJCP competition site, only to have the enters refused upon delivery. I contacted Art via email to ask what was going on and was told that the published address was his business address, which was damaged during the storms and is now closed. He apologized and gave me a new address... his home. I noticed too that shortly after the conversation, the address on the website was updated. ($12 FexEx down the drain). I received my shipment back and sent another shipment to the new address ($16 this time since it is residential). Today I received the paypal refund with the same explanation. I was totally pissed given what I've spend in shipping. I have not yet reached out for an explanation, so I'll be interested to see how this goes. Nothing I have states that beers will still be judged. I jumped up on HBT to see if anyone else had posted and sure enough....

BTW, this was the explanation that was given in the refund email....
Note from merchant
Attention all particapants entred into west coast east coast home brew compition November 27 2011 it is with sad regreat that i must inform you that the compition has been cancelled do to the holiday and a lack of judges we fill we can no longer put on this compition acording to AHA rules and regulations. all entry fees will be refunded to all particpaints all checks will be returned. if payed by paypal your acct will be credited Im trully sorry Art
 
Please send him an email and post here what he replies. His latest email started with "Dude, give me a break", definitely not the response I expected.

After what you said, I'm wondering if my entry was delivered at all! I sent to the business address also. I believe the first line was "OC"?

This is a very disappointing situation to have to go through, as it will definitely affect my decisions on whether to enter certain competitions in the future.
 
Art,

So what's going on with the comp? There is no comp at all? How did this all just happen?? I don't think it's right that we go through sending the beer for a BJCP event and have this happen.

What gives???

That's what I just sent....let's see what kind of response I get.
 
Sent to participants last night:
west coast east coast cancellation

hello by now most of you have received the notice that the home brew competition was canceled early this morning. do to circumstances be on are control i had no other option but to pull the plug. we had 4 judges pull out of the competition in the last 4 days with the holiday coming i could see were this was going.

we had one of are judges on Monday that was to bring down the beer from are drop off point in Baltimore tell me their was only a couple of entry's their when in fact they had over 30 entry's that we didn't now about with no help and no time to drive 6hr to pick up the entry's that we didn't have enough judges for the anyway we felt that we couldn't hold this competition to the highest standards of an AHA competition and be fare to every one an award the AHA certificate.

All of you have been given a refund via the method you payed pay pal,personal checks, or cash this was done this morning.

if you want to pick up your entry's you can do that any time just let me know when is good for you.

OK with all that said I'm going to confuse you.

west coast east coast competition is no longer sanctioned by the AHA and west coast east coast is dead being that we didn't have enuff judges to be sanctioned AHA and award a certificate .

ocean city home brew club still plans on judging any entry that wants to be judge it just wont be by a sanctioned AHA judge. your beer is all ready here it cost you nothing for this feed back everything is the same except we wont be doing it at the brewery and we wont be giving out the AHA certificate.

we still plan on awarding 1st 2nd 3rd place medals for all the categories listed on the competition page. we still plan on giving a BOS trophy it just wont be this Sunday. your entry will be judge by a fellow home brewer. some of you have all ready contacted me with the go ahead to enter your beer and some of you have told me to ..... .... hey that's your choice. if you want your entry back we will pack it you just need to have ups pick it up.

some of you may not want to have your beer judge or sent back in that case we will trash it at your request.

I'M sorry for the confusion earlier i wanted to send out this email with your refund so you would understand but it been that kind of day so if you still want your beer judge by your fellow home brewers i will need an email back from you by Monday Nov 28

if you want your beer back let me know and we can help you arrange that.

if you don't want to enter and you don't want your beer back please let me know

if we do not here back from you by Nov 28 will discard your entry

ATTENTION IF YOU DROPPED OF YOUR ENTRY AT MHB YOU MUST PICK IT UP THEY WILL NOT SHIP IT BACK TO YOU

i hope this has cleared some off the air

please let me know what you would like to do

art
 
Wow, I've learned a big lesson from all of this, and I didn't even submit an entry. In the future, I'm going to ensure that I have some communication with any event in order to ensure that everything feels kosher. Not that it is anyone's fault in this on this site, but if I'd had an email exchange with this guy in advance of the competition, there's no way I would have mailed him an entry.
 
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