2013 NHC first round results?

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ColeR

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Well, today in the mail was the results from the first round of the National Homebrew Competition.

for my IIPA i got a score of 30.5, i knew this batch wasn't as good as the last one which got a 38.5 in a different comp.

and i got a 28 for my Old Ale, basically it was a SnowCap clone (but better :D) .

not thinking i am going on to the 2nd round....

any others out there get your results back yet?

CR-
 
Nope.

What Region were you in? Seattle?

Yet another one of my frustrations with NHC is how they handle scoing roll-outs for the first round...
 
Sweet!! My entries went to Seattle so I should know in another day or two.
 
The form letter that comes along,

says that a 2nd letter will come after all the 1st round beers have been judged AND that will contain any awards and further instructions if your beer has advanced.
 
*Shakes head*

I still don't get how giving a brewer an extra week or two to brew a beer for a second round at the very end of June offers any competitive edge, but I don't want to derail your thread any further. Your scores are good, and hopefully the judges provided good feedback for improvement.
 
not thinking i am going on to the 2nd round....

CR-

I think the minimum score (going by my memory) to advance is 30, but I'm pretty sure that your 30.5 score will be beaten, as the 14C category is very competitive! That's a pretty darn good score and you have reason to be proud of it.
 
My beers are going to be judged this weekend, I believe. I hope I get results in time to know whether I should be saving anything before I haul them off to the Southern California Homebrew Festival for mass consumption.

One entry was a nearly 2 year old mead, and another was a lager, so it's not like I have time to rebrew either one. I suppose I might be able to get the lager done in time for a second round entry if I brewed it this weekend.
 
I also got my score sheets back, Seattle.
I don't enter in competitions very often, brewing since 2008 and first time last year on a WA state match got a bronze, felt good.
This year, started with another WA state competition and did a gold and a silver. Even knowing that entries were not many, felt like I may had some chances on the NHC. Scored nothing with 4 entries :(. Oh well, so many more entries and possibly much higher quality beers. Comfort would come with the valuable feedback from the score sheets. That's where my disappointment is.
In most entries and where I can translate the hand writing, very mixed notes from the judges. On one brew for example, one say coriander is not noticed while the other stated it is perfectly balanced. Also, I wonder how judges evaluate bitterness. My amber ale had, as per calculation, 36 IBU's, late additions + dry hopping, which is within BJCP guidelines for an amber. I got judges saying it needed extra IBU's. Last year's NHC gold for American Amber Ale gives his recipe as having 66 IBU's. Isn't this out of style?
I know, number of available judges are limited and perception vary, but these score sheets doesn't help me much to improve my beers.
Anyways, preparing for the next WA state match in few weeks.
 
Regarding IBUs in Ambers, I judged American Ales in a competition a month or so ago, and got into an argument with my co-judge on that topic. One of the entries we were judging was (IMO) way too hoppy and bitter for the style, but he was contending that there were several recent commercial examples of American Amber that are more bitter, and that the IBUs were in line with those beers. Which was true...the IBUs WERE comparable to those beers.

HOWEVER, none of those beers are commercial examples in the style guidelines, and per the guidelines the beers that are listed are much lower IBU than these other more recent examples. So, anyway I think maybe there are some folks out there whose conception of the style is clouded by a lot of the more recent beers which call themselves American Amber/Red, but which are way more bitter than the BJCP guidelines for that style.
 
They would have filled 1, 2 or 3 in the "Place Awarded" section on the coversheet if you had advanced. That's what we were doing in St. Paul at least.
 
So, if I read it right, there were four regions scored last weekend. It looks like only Washington has returned score sheets so far. Anything to report from KC, St Paul or NY?
 
So, if I read it right, there were four regions scored last weekend. It looks like only Washington has returned score sheets so far. Anything to report from KC, St Paul or NY?

I heard KC was scored last weekend, mailed scores this week.
 
They would have filled 1, 2 or 3 in the "Place Awarded" section on the coversheet if you had advanced. That's what we were doing in St. Paul at least.

Not necessarily. Last year the Philly region sent the scoresheets back and didn't write in these boxes. I almost drank all the Munich Helles thinking it didn't advance (it did with a silver) and I won a silver at NHC with it.

If your score is higher than a 30, then keep 3 bottles aside until the NHC releases all the results.
 
So, if I read it right, there were four regions scored last weekend. It looks like only Washington has returned score sheets so far. Anything to report from KC, St Paul or NY?

The PNW region has their stuff together, and historically have been the ones to get the results out first. They actually posted the results on the Washington homebrewers website, but took it down after a request from the AHA.
 
If your score is higher than a 30, then keep 3 bottles aside until the NHC releases all the results.

The rules say you may re-brew the same recipe and send in to the final round IF you progressed. i hope i do progress, as i wasn't happy with that batch, i didn't watch my water lvl to close, so instead of 10 gal, i accidentally made 11 gal. so i got a 30.5 on a watered down ver. of what i expected.

but i have re-brewed it with the right water levels, still in the secondary ... i can hope...

CR-
 
Not necessarily. Last year the Philly region sent the scoresheets back and didn't write in these boxes. I almost drank all the Munich Helles thinking it didn't advance (it did with a silver) and I won a silver at NHC with it.

If your score is higher than a 30, then keep 3 bottles aside until the NHC releases all the results.

Interesting - well for anyone that entered in St. Paul your scoresheets will indicate if you placed or not as the judges and us stewards were told to make sure that is filled out after Mini BOS. The database was updated based off of the placement indicated on the scoresheets.
 
The rules say you may re-brew the same recipe and send in to the final round IF you progressed.

yes, you're right. I should have mentioned that as well. With my situation last year since it was a lager, rebrewing was not an option. I have 2 entries this year that would need a rebrew it they make it through...a IIPA and a dark mild. The mild is not problem since I can bang that out in about 10 days. The IIPA would probably need to be rebrewed soon. But who has the time :cross:
 
Interesting - well for anyone that entered in St. Paul your scoresheets will indicate if you placed or not as the judges and us stewards were told to make sure that is filled out after Mini BOS. The database was updated based off of the placement indicated on the scoresheets.

I guess it depends on who's running the show. I know there were a couple regions last year that didn't indicate on the coversheet, but there were others that did.
 
I guess it depends on who's running the show. I know there were a couple regions last year that didn't indicate on the coversheet, but there were others that did.

Yea, for sure. You'd think all the judging centers would have specific instructions and there would be more consistency, but maybe there was and no one listened. Who knows...
 
That's what we were doing in St. Paul at least.

Not necessarily. Last year the Philly region sent the scoresheets back and didn't write in these boxes.

The PNW region has their stuff together

I guess it depends on who's running the show. I know there were a couple regions last year that didn't indicate on the coversheet, but there were others that did.

Yea, for sure. You'd think all the judging centers would have specific instructions and there would be more consistency, but maybe there was and no one listened. Who knows...

Consistency from AHA/NHC? Unpossible! ;)
 
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.
 
Sweet!! My entries went to Seattle so I should know in another day or two.

Got my scores back for the two beers I entered. My California Common only scored a 28 but that's ok. First time brewing that style. Judges comments were recipe driven...no brewing flaws. But my Brown Porter scored a 41.5!!:mug: I don't know if it placed or not. What are the chances that it might advance?:confused:
 
Got my scores back for the two beers I entered. My California Common only scored a 28 but that's ok. First time brewing that style. Judges comments were recipe driven...no brewing flaws. But my Brown Porter scored a 41.5!!:mug: I don't know if it placed or not. What are the chances that it might advance?:confused:

It at the least likely made it a mini-BOS if the category was large enough. If it was a single flight, I would say your odds of placing are very high.
 
It at the least likely made it a mini-BOS if the category was large enough. If it was a single flight, I would say your odds of placing are very high.

Do you know if each individual sub-styles is judged individually since it is such a large comp? Or do they just lump all sub-styles together under one style? In other words do Brown Porter, Robust Porter, and Baltic Porter all compete against each other under Cat. 16-Porter?
I looked at last years results and there were a total of 330 something "Porters" entered....or roughly 30 per site. That's some pretty tough competition to face. I doubt a 41.5 would be high enough to go to the second round.
 
Do you know if each individual sub-styles is judged individually since it is such a large comp? Or do they just lump all sub-styles together under one style? In other words do Brown Porter, Robust Porter, and Baltic Porter all compete against each other under Cat. 16-Porter?
I looked at last years results and there were a total of 330 something "Porters" entered....or roughly 30 per site. That's some pretty tough competition to face. I doubt a 41.5 would be high enough to go to the second round.

Maybe a 41.5 is high enough- I've judged at comps where the winning beer of the entire comp was scored at about 41 or 42. That's an excellent score, and uncommon. You should have placed with that score, but you won't know until they are ready to release that info.

Porters are together in the same flights, but they aren't judged against each other- they are still scored according to the BJCP guidelines.
 
They would have filled 1, 2 or 3 in the "Place Awarded" section on the coversheet if you had advanced. That's what we were doing in St. Paul at least.

I know for a fact that two of my four advanced, because of the aforementioned results posting snafu. Got my scores yesterday, and had no places marked. This was the case last year as well, and I had thought that this was intentional since the scores were mailed out before all regions had completed judging.
 
I looked at last years results and there were a total of 330 something "Porters" entered....or roughly 30 per site. That's some pretty tough competition to face. I doubt a 41.5 would be high enough to go to the second round.

You might be surprised. The majority of beers entered in a comp score in the 20-30s. Anything over 40 is a truly special beer.
 
I looked at last years results and there were a total of 330 something "Porters" entered....or roughly 30 per site. That's some pretty tough competition to face. I doubt a 41.5 would be high enough to go to the second round.

Most of the scores in a competition range in the 20s - 30s. Anything in the 40's is usually going to place, unless of course they end up in a mini-BOS. In the mini-BOS scores mean nothing, the top beers from the flight are lined up against each other and judged against each other. I'm fairly confident a score in the 40's will land you in the mini-BOS. If it were a small category than it would more than likely place.

Also you need to realize that while judges are judging each beer in a flight individually, they're also mentally comparing them to others previously judged in the flight to make sure the scores jive with the beers they're tasting.

Regardless of whether he placed and moved on to the second round, the brewer should be ridiculously proud of that score. I'd also hang on to a few bottles for the 2nd round. ;)
 
Got my results today, wheat ipa scored a 36 and my american brown scored a 40 and said it went to mini best of show. Not sure if it was good enough to advance to the second round. But very exciting.
 
Got my results today, wheat ipa scored a 36 and my american brown scored a 40 and said it went to mini best of show. Not sure if it was good enough to advance to the second round. But very exciting.

Nice, gratz man
 

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