remilard
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Those kids are on the ball.
2011 AHA NHC - whatcha got?
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Those kids are on the ball.
KevinW
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Got my scoresheets in the mail today!!
My American Brown received a 35!! I am very happy! (not bad for an extreme novice)
Please correct me if I am wrong but we will not know until all the regions are completed if a beer gets a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in the first round? I am not sure I am interpreting the rules correctly!
My American Brown received a 35!! I am very happy! (not bad for an extreme novice)
Please correct me if I am wrong but we will not know until all the regions are completed if a beer gets a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in the first round? I am not sure I am interpreting the rules correctly!
wonderbread23
Well-Known Member
I believe the place you receive (if any) will be written on there. My wit placed 2nd (2 in the 'Place Awarded' box) so I believe it is going on to round two.
remilard
Well-Known Member
Yeah, if there is no "place awarded" it didn't go on.
35 is a good score but category 10 is going to have around 50 entries per region, really need to be in the 40s in a category like that.
35 is a good score but category 10 is going to have around 50 entries per region, really need to be in the 40s in a category like that.
bovineblitz
Well-Known Member
They finish two weeks after they started?
dwarven_stout
Well-Known Member
I got a 37.5 in 16E for a Saison + Brett, along with a Master ranked judge's comment that I'll treasure for quite some time:
"Frankly, I would keep this beauty to myself. Competitions will not do justice to how elegant this beer is to enjoy."
The beer itself did not advance... go figure.
"Frankly, I would keep this beauty to myself. Competitions will not do justice to how elegant this beer is to enjoy."
The beer itself did not advance... go figure.
Normally that is true, but I snuck into 3rd with my 10A Pale Ale with a score of 39.5
Also got a 3rd with my Cal Common at 38.5 points and had my German Hef get a 39. The Hef is not listed as placing, but is listed as going on to the mini best of show, in which case it still might be an advancer.
bovineblitz
Well-Known Member
I got a 37.5 in 16E for a Saison + Brett, along with a Master ranked judge's comment that I'll treasure for quite some time:
"Frankly, I would keep this beauty to myself. Competitions will not do justice to how elegant this beer is to enjoy."
The beer itself did not advance... go figure.
Nice! It's probably that your beer is one of those beers that a relatively small portion of people will absolutely love but when it comes to competition it doesn't wind up doing well because of differing palates.
dwarven_stout
Well-Known Member
It's a very tasty beer, but the brett subdues more of the saison than I would like. The other judge thought the brett was perfect, but the Master judge thought it too high for the "style". Another guy in my club actually advanced an Orval clone that I gave him the yeast for, and got very similar comments on brett presence from what I assume were the same judges.
I was afraid of that. There's a Rhode Island competition this coming weekend. I wonder if judges needed for that competition are playing a role in why the NHC NY will not finish until the 17th.
Congrats to everyone on their great scores from WA. That's awesome.
From what I hear, they couldn't finish in time ( probably judged my entries and started barfing :cross: ) so they had to schedule another date, which is now April 17th.
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This leads to the question, will they mail the score sheets from the beers that were already judged or wait until all are done? In a one bottle competition with no BOS there should be no problem splitting up the judging and realeasing scores as they become available.
I bet they will hold on to everything until the get all the results to Janis at the AHA in case something blows up or comes up missing.
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That and I didn't think about the additional cost of having to do multiple mailings to brewers with beers scored on different dates. Oh well, wishful thinking.
EarlyBirdBrew
Well-Known Member
Supposedly the Dallas judging didn't finish on time either and were rescheduled. Guess I should have learned patience by now being a homebrewer and all.
Mischief_Brewing
Well-Known Member
The delays suck for those of us who entered hop-forward beers. oh well.
remilard
Well-Known Member
They only judged 375, which is half. I don't see how they can finish next weekend since they had a large proportion of out of town judges, many of whom likely won't be back. Maybe I'll be proven wrong but if this thing gets delayed another week I'll be asking why they weren't judging evenings this week. At some point you just have to get the job done.
I judged in Denver, ran like clockwork. The stories coming out of NY aren't very impressive either (no stewards). I don't know how close they were to finishing but given they delayed two weeks, I assume not very.
I know the AHA's stated plan was to get rid of the regions so it is easy to add more sites. If you ask me a couple of the existing sites can't handle the task and adding more would be a mistake. Very few cities can judge with local judges so the more sites you add the more you thin the pool of travelling judges. The competition should go back to two bottles in the first round and put the premium on quality (of judging) and not quantity (of $9 entry fees).
Agreed with remilard. They really want to be able to grow the competition each year, but at max capacity this year they seem to have struggled in a couple of the regions. They need to realistically asses the amount of available judges in each region and cap those regions at the appropriate number of entries they feel can be judged to quality.
Perhaps it is time to place a cap on the amount of entries per brewer as well. I know everyone would like the opportunity to chase Jamil of Gordon Strong for the Ninkasi award, but those guys were fielding 40+ beers when they were making their runs. Our local Pro-Am comp in Seattle has capped the max entries per brewer at 12 to attempt to not overload the judge pool in Seattle. I don't know what a reasonable cap is, 12, 15, 20 whatever makes sense.
Until they grow the judge pool, this will remain an issue as they attempt to grow the competition. I understand the amount of judges available is wildly unbalanced across the US with CA and CO having the most, and the west having more than the east. Capping the regions individually would encourage local homebrew networks to register more judges in their regions and perhaps alleviate the pressure.
Perhaps it is time to place a cap on the amount of entries per brewer as well. I know everyone would like the opportunity to chase Jamil of Gordon Strong for the Ninkasi award, but those guys were fielding 40+ beers when they were making their runs. Our local Pro-Am comp in Seattle has capped the max entries per brewer at 12 to attempt to not overload the judge pool in Seattle. I don't know what a reasonable cap is, 12, 15, 20 whatever makes sense.
Until they grow the judge pool, this will remain an issue as they attempt to grow the competition. I understand the amount of judges available is wildly unbalanced across the US with CA and CO having the most, and the west having more than the east. Capping the regions individually would encourage local homebrew networks to register more judges in their regions and perhaps alleviate the pressure.
I thought the two maxed out regions last year did a great job on judging, one of which was the Northeast ( Philly ). Don't know why this year is different.
No Stewards in the Northeast? I don't remember seeing a call of judges or stewards anywhere on the homebrew forums for this region. Might be something to look into for next year.
No Stewards in the Northeast? I don't remember seeing a call of judges or stewards anywhere on the homebrew forums for this region. Might be something to look into for next year.
remilard
Well-Known Member
No stewards per someone who was there. My assumption is that they thought they had stewards but had every warm body judge when they figured out they didn't have enough judges. That ought to be wonderful for the quality of the scoresheets.
To be clear I am not criticizing any of the organizers. They all did, I am sure, a lot of work doing what the AHA asked. I am criticizing the judges who aren't turning up. There are around 6000 (since non BJCP judges are used as well the total judge pool is much larger than this) BJCP judges in the country. Nearly one for every entry. The participation rate for the one competition where they are most needed is horrible. I know not everyone can manage to travel but then I know there are enough judges within a short drive to Dallas to have finished there in one weekend, same for NY. I am also criticizing the AHA which I believe is pursuing entry growth to the detriment of the quality of the competition.
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SpanishCastleAle
Well-Known Member
Are there any tangible incentives for judging the NHC? I've only been a part of a local comp and there were gift bags given to judges/stewards but I'm not really talking about a little gift bag. Maybe a discount on NHC tickets or something might help. Double the judging points?
bovineblitz
Well-Known Member
To be fair, idk if it's really a short drive. NY and Texas are pretty big states. Albany (Saratoga area) isn't exactly a very big city, and it's well over two hours to each next decent sized city (NYC 3.5, Boston 3.5, Worcester 2.5, Rochester 3.5, Manchester 3.75, Syracuse 2.5, Burlington 3). I was a little surprised at the location to be honest.
remilard
Well-Known Member
The good news is that NY is now scheduled to finish only 28 days after they started. Not the worst news as the story is they had a flight that they stopped judging one night and finished the next day. Those of you that know what mini-bos is and that the first round is a one bottle competition can do the math.
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So, my IPA with lots of late hop additions might end up being judged either hoppless or dead flat!
Hopefully not that big a deal since they're all treated equal.
remilard
Well-Known Member
So, my IPA with lots of late hop additions might end up being judged either hoppless or dead flat!
Hopefully not that big a deal since they're all treated equal.
Well thats the problem with one bottle. In a normal round of IPA when you get to BOS some entries (those judged first) will have been open for around 3 hours as it is a big category. Others (the last judged) may have been open as little as 15 minutes. When you break a category over two days, change 3 hours to 12 hours and you get the drift.
I don't know which category this happened in. Presumably a larger one (the last of the night to finish) so it could have been IPA but also stout or specialty.
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SpanishCastleAle
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Just got an e-mail that I got 2 in the second round. They sent me the entire list for DFW. remilard has a bunch in the second round.
doctorRobert
Well-Known Member
Very surprised my hefezeizen is advancing to my the 2nd round. Was not one of my best beers, but the first beer I got judged.
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SpanishCastleAle
Well-Known Member
My Mild that took third in it's category scored 27 in the HBT competition (but it was from a seperate bottling 'session'). Fortunately that beer is a perfect candidate for a rebrew.
fishkid
Well-Known Member
Has anyone that submitted to Madison heard anything yet?
remilard
Well-Known Member
7 by my count along with my wife who posts here as KCWorthog.
I am very proud to have repeated first place with an American Lager (light this time, got first and second with premium and standard respectively last year). While I did not repeat in IPA the 2nd place fruit beer and 1st place specialty both had IIPA as the base style. So we reinforce our reputation as being able to brew things with a lot of hops or no hops but nothing in between.
Thanks for the shout out and congrats on getting two through. With all the sites maxing out I think it is getting harder and harder to even get to the second round.
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SpanishCastleAle
Well-Known Member
I noticed that. I had a Helles in that category that had previously won a silver medal in a local comp. No dice here.
bovineblitz
Well-Known Member
Any idea when we'll hear from NY? I was excited it was one of the first to be judged, now it just seems silly.
remilard
Well-Known Member
Hard to say. They are required to have results to the AHA by the end of the month and the AHA should publish results a few days after that. Whether you get them sooner I couldn't say. Usually the question is: does the AHA publish first or do you get scoresheets first? Dallas send those of us that moved on the results in an email so we don't have to wait for scoresheets, or the AHA posting. In the email, they said some other sites had done the same. So hopefully whenever NY finishes they can let you know of any beers that moved on the next day or so. Ultimately this only matters in terms of rebrewing as those who have beers that can or should be rebrewed have a huge advantage if they have results sooner. If rebrewing isn't an issue, it basically comes down to patience. I do understand just wanting to know.
remilard
Well-Known Member
Per Janice on the AHA Forum, scoresheets were mailed Saturday.
fishkid
Well-Known Member
Had my results from Madison in the mailbox when I got home from work today. My 14B scored 39.5, made it to the mini-BOS but there's no indication of it moving on from there. My oatmeal stout scored a 32.5, no moving on.
Good fun, great feedback on the scoresheets.
Curt
Good fun, great feedback on the scoresheets.
Curt
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SpanishCastleAle
Well-Known Member
I had my scoresheets e-mailed to me last night. Very pleased with how the DFW region got the info out quickly.
I had one stinker (a 19.5 pt RIS that had no real 'flaws' but was just way out of style), one average (a 32 pt American Amber Lager I entered in 23, had slight vegetal but no other flaws), one decent (a 37.5 pt Vienna lager that went to mini-BOS but failed), and three good ones (the 42 pt Mild and 41 pt Strong Scotch that advanced plus a 41.5 pt Munich Helles that went to mini-BOS but failed).
That damn remilard raised the bar in Cat 1 so a 41.5 got nada.
Very well filled-out scoresheets for the most part.
I had one stinker (a 19.5 pt RIS that had no real 'flaws' but was just way out of style), one average (a 32 pt American Amber Lager I entered in 23, had slight vegetal but no other flaws), one decent (a 37.5 pt Vienna lager that went to mini-BOS but failed), and three good ones (the 42 pt Mild and 41 pt Strong Scotch that advanced plus a 41.5 pt Munich Helles that went to mini-BOS but failed).
That damn remilard raised the bar in Cat 1 so a 41.5 got nada.
Very well filled-out scoresheets for the most part.
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