Homebrew Competitions

[jhalloran]

Hey all,

So I just went through my second competition and it went pretty well. I did notice a pattern though and I thought I'd see what other people thought. Like the first competition I entered, this one was hosted by a homebrew club. I've noticed in both that 60-80% of the medals go to members of the brew club and I was wondering if this was normal?

I don't think there is foul play, but is it because they all brew for the competition they host, and therefore have more entries then clubless brewers such as myself?

Chime in. Let me know if you've noticed the same thing.

 

[mattd2]

I would say that there would be a large proportion of beers entered by club members so you should see a large proportion of medals go to club members - just statistics . Also if it is a small comp with a limited number of styles the club may have gone over those styles as part of their meetings so are more aware of the subtle factors that can turn a good beer into a great beer - water chemistry probably being the big one; since they will likely be using the same water so can be told add this and that to get the right brewing water without having to actually do any leg work for themselves.

 

[Yooper]

The judges don't see names or identifying information on the bottle so even if they wanted to award the prizes to their own club, they would be unable to.

I have judged some competitions where the biggest winners were mail in entries, but we didn't know that until the organizer announced who the entrants were. Entry #301 by Brewer #104 didn't mean a thing to me!