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

[usfmikeb]

Looks like Art's already started getting into those entries...

 

[neovox]

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

 

[Airborneguy]

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.

 

[neovox]

The business address was:

Ocean City Cigars (OCC)
9305 COASTAL HWY
OCEAN CITY, MD 21842

The updated address was:

36288 SUNFLOWER BLVD
SELBYVILLE, DE 19975

 

[CaptKiRkLeS]

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.

 

[neovox]

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

 

[usfmikeb]

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.

 

[MalFet]

do to circumstances be on are control i had no other option

hukt on fonix wurkt for me!

 

[usfmikeb]

I was impressed that he managed to spell "circumstances" correctly!

 

[MalFet]

I was impressed that he managed to spell "circumstances" correctly!

His letter is exactly what every teacher in America has been fearing since the introduction of spell check.

 

[luke2080]

That is pretty bad on their part. If you are going to send an email to lots of people stating why you just ripped them off, there should probably be some thought behind it. As well as a better "make it right" plan.

Now it just looks like that homebrew club gets lots of free beer.

They should be putting ground labels and shipping everything back. How did they not know about 30 "hidden" entries they had at some obscure location?

 

[dlittle29]

Everyone who entered the competition had to fill out an online form in order to print the labels for their beer. Therefore they had to be able to track how many entries there were by following the online registration database. they would have to be completely retarded to not know how many entries there were.

 

[kh54s10]

His letter is exactly what every teacher in America has been fearing since the introduction of spell check.

And he wasn't even professional enough to use spell check!

 

[sudsmcgee]

Everyone even has this clown's address. I hope he's tough, LOL.

 

[usfmikeb]

they would have to be completely retarded

Have you seen his grammar and spelling? :cross:

 

[usfmikeb]

Everyone even has this clown's address. I hope he's tough, LOL.

Roselle, IL. Wow, that brings back memories, lived there as a teenager. Went to Lake Park...

 

[Homercidal]

This is just a bummer all around.

To make things better, I offer to host an AHA sanctioned homebrew comptetition in it's place. Just send 3... no make it 4, homebrews to my house along with a $5 entry fee and maybe $2 for drinking I mean handling.

Please don't send any sours beers. yuck!

 

[passedpawn]

Wow. What a crappy situation.

That response letter is awful. That is middle-school grammar and spelling at best.

 

[Airborneguy]

I got another email this morning asking that all participants respond whether they want their beers judged by homebrewers. I'm not even responding. Hopefully, I get a response for the AHA after the holidays. Everyone else involved in this mess should email the AHA also.

I might write him again tomorrow but I'm not ruining my Thanksgiving thinking about this nonsense any more.

 

[sudsmcgee]

Roselle, IL. Wow, that brings back memories, lived there as a teenager. Went to Lake Park...

Cool! I love this little town.

 

[bottlebomber]

I didn't enter this comp, but this Art guy is such a tool I can't help but feel that he is personally to blame. I can't imagine 5 BJCP judges saying "Yes I will judge Thanksgiving weekend", and then all deciding "Oh wait, I'll be at moms" at the last minute.

My instinct is that the judges were never properly notified, they maybe got something like "hey dood cud yu juj a competishun in a wile?". They said yes so he set the thing up and then last weekend he called them and got "Are you ****ing nuts? Its Thanksgiving retard!" So that's how it got to this point.

The point is that this is an insult to every homebrewer and it is unacceptable. This guy is obviously a complete moron and isn't going to want to take direct responsibilty so that means there's going to have to be some kind of action taken. I would want to know which judges were going to be involved. I kind of doubt that they are personally responsible when it comes down to it, but there's got to be some way to sully this guys reputation to the point that nobody in the beer world will have anything to do with him. It will take some energy to make it happen though.

 

[CaptKiRkLeS]

I told him to judge my beers. I'm not worried about getting my beer back so I might as well make him work for it.

 

[usfmikeb]

Make sure to post back with whatever tasting notes they share with you, as I'm certain they'll be the best quality tasting notes any of us has ever seen...

 

[dlittle29]

Make sure to post back with whatever tasting notes they share with you, as I'm certain they'll be the best quality tasting notes any of us has ever seen...

The bier wuz gud

 

[ZamaMan]

I bet he's "filling" good. Seriously what moron can't spell feel!

 

[neovox]

I told him to judge my beers. I'm not worried about getting my beer back so I might as well make him work for it.

I asked if any BJCP certified judges would be participating or if it's just the homebrew club members that will be judging. The answer was that it will just be the homebrew club members.

I too opted to participate. I figure I'm not local so I can't pick them up and I'm sure as hell not paying again to have them shipped back. It's pretty disappointing, but it is what it is.

 

[Airborneguy]

I chose to ignore him. My beers were with Kirk's, so maybe they will get "judged", maybe they won't. I don't care either way. Based on the emails we have been receiving, I'm in no need of the feedback they will provide. "Neds mer choclet" isn't going to do me any good. Neither will "Plese sind fur mer botlles fur Best of Showe. My dog will b juging it."

I am more concerned with getting a response from the AHA. Both emails I sent returned automatic responses regarding Thanksgiving, so I am hoping for a response next week. As long as I don't see "East Coast vs West Coast II" next year, I'll be happy.

Until then,

Peas ought, dueds! Happie Thxgving, da newst holdaye en da wurld!

 

[neovox]

Plese sind fur mer botlles fur Best of Showe. My dog will b juging it."

 

[Homercidal]

Needs moar hops!

 

[Airborneguy]

Gary Glass responded to me today:

Thanks for bringing this situation to our attention. The BJCP handles all competition registrations, so I checked in with David Houseman, the Competition Director for the BJCP. David indicated he had received a complaint about the competition and had checked in with the competition director. Here’s David’s response:

“They had about 40+ entries but only got one BJCP judge to sign up so they cancelled the formal competition but agreed to refund the entry fees and to go ahead and judge the entries and provide feedback to the entrants.”

From David’s response, it sounds like they are going to go ahead with the judging, but didn’t want to take the entrant’s money given that they did not have as many BJCP judges as they had intended.

Neither the AHA nor BJCP have direct control over any competition. The purpose of the Sanctioned Competition Program is to provide a framework for running competitions, including forms, procedures and awarding points for judges. If a competition fails to meet the few requirements of running a sanctioned competition, we can decline to sanction the competition in the future. There is nothing in the sanctioning guidelines dealing with cancelation of competitions and no minimum requirement for BJCP ranked judge participation, so no specific rule that has been violated in this case. As such, there is not much we can do other than refuse future sanctioning if this becomes a pattern for this particular competition.

Cheers!
Gary

Gary Glass
Director

On top of that, my package was returned! As Neovox stated, the address I shipped to (provided by the idiot running the comp), was for a closed business. At least I got my beer back! All told, I'm out $11 and I now know that the AHA responds personally to emails regarding problems.