Local home brew competition

[herc1354]

I'm trying to set up a local home brew competition, need suggestions on how get it going
In addition to entering your beer do we charge a small $5.00 enters fee?
Do we charge people at the who enter for the event?
Need some suggestions

 

[jbaysurfer]

As a brewer who would prospectively enter such a competition, I'll tell you straight up that I would not pay an entry fee unless the competition was BJCP approved. So I'd start there. Find a BJCP certified judge in your area and consult with him or her. If you're already BJCP, take the steps to get your competition compliant with the BJCP requirements and try to rally a few of your colleagues to help with the judging. If the contest is bjcp with bjcp judges, I'd gladly pay $5 per entry for a contest.

If you're talking about charging entry fees to the competition for individuals, I think you can only pull that off if you're serving beer, in which case you need to let your contestant brewers in for free on the condition they bring beer to serve. But tbh, I'm a bit unclear of your intent based on the one paragraph.

Basically, start with the AHA and the BJCP. There's lots of stuff on both sites about this topic.

 

[herc1354]

As a brewer who would prospectively enter such a competition, I'll tell you straight up that I would not pay an entry fee unless the competition was BJCP approved. So I'd start there. Find a BJCP certified judge in your area and consult with him or her. If you're already BJCP, take the steps to get your competition compliant with the BJCP requirements and try to rally a few of your colleagues to help with the judging. If the contest is bjcp with bjcp judges, I'd gladly pay $5 per entry for a contest.

If you're talking about charging entry fees to the competition for individuals, I think you can only pull that off if you're serving beer, in which case you need to let your contestant brewers in for free on the condition they bring beer to serve. But tbh, I'm a bit unclear of your intent based on the one paragraph.

Basically, start with the AHA and the BJCP. There's lots of stuff on both sites about this topic.

Thanks for the reply, that helps a lot.

What started this was a coworker who is the president of a local military club, kind of like a VFW, as he knows a bunch of us are in to home brewing he thought it would be a cool idea to have a home brew competition. Start off small just to gain interest. The club features a pay bar as well as a large banquet hall. At first this is meant to be a very laid back event having all who attend judge the bear, nothing serious and very small. The event would feature food and of course beer, anyone who attends the event, not including the brewers, will submit a ballot for every beer they tasted, after judging the entered beers would be Consumed by all who attend the event. If all goes well the first round we would plan for a more serious event with proper judging. Think of this as a bunch of local home brewers who all know each other showing off what they have brewed with each other. The ballots would have category's worth a certain amount of points, the brew that scores the highest points wins.

Oh and what is BJCP sant for, sorry for my ignorance but I'm new to the whole home brew competition.

Thanks
Corey

 

[jbaysurfer]

beer judge certification program.

In what you described, I wouldn't charge an entry fee for the contest beers. You want to encourage attendance from your brewers. This is basically a club meeting (even if your club is informal in nature). Charge each person what their share of the costs of the meeting (food etc) and maybe let your brewers in for free in exchange for serving their beer.

I don't think it sounds like you're doing this, but I'd not have any illusions about actually making money off an event like this. I'd use it as a reason to get brewers together and get a club started. If the turnout is great and there's extra money afterwards, contribute it to getting the club started and elect a pres, treasurer, secretary asap.

 

[herc1354]

beer judge certification program.

In what you described, I wouldn't charge an entry fee for the contest beers. You want to encourage attendance from your brewers. This is basically a club meeting (even if your club is informal in nature). Charge each person what their share of the costs of the meeting (food etc) and maybe let your brewers in for free in exchange for serving their beer.

I don't think it sounds like you're doing this, but I'd not have any illusions about actually making money off an event like this. I'd use it as a reason to get brewers together and get a club started. If the turnout is great and there's extra money afterwards, contribute it to getting the club started and elect a pres, treasurer, secretary asap.

Yeah there is absolutely NO intent to make money. You hit the nail on the head, this well be way to get all us local home brewers together, just a fun time of eating and drink good beer. I really appreciate your input it has helped a lot.

 

[jbaysurfer]

NP man, happy to help. My club meeting is tomorrow. To give you an idea of how we do it on an ongoing basis, we collect dues in the January meeting for the year. That covers all the costs (generally speaking). Then members volunteer their homes for meetings and we hold one every month. We put a beer schedule out a year in advance and have a different beer contest every month. The medalists at the monthly contests earn points toward a "Brewer of the Year" contest, and the brewer with the most points after the Dec meeting wins that title. Which, is just a red t-shirt with the title on it, and bragging rights for the whole next year.

It's fun and get brewers to brew stuff that they normally might not have.

 

[herc1354]

NP man, happy to help. My club meeting is tomorrow. To give you an idea of how we do it on an ongoing basis, we collect dues in the January meeting for the year. That covers all the costs (generally speaking). Then members volunteer their homes for meetings and we hold one every month. We put a beer schedule out a year in advance and have a different beer contest every month. The medalists at the monthly contests earn points toward a "Brewer of the Year" contest, and the brewer with the most points after the Dec meeting wins that title. Which, is just a red t-shirt with the title on it, and bragging rights for the whole next year.

It's fun and get brewers to brew stuff that they normally might not have.

Very cool, sounds like a ton of fun.

 

[Yooper]

Yeah there is absolutely NO intent to make money. You hit the nail on the head, this well be way to get all us local home brewers together, just a fun time of eating and drink good beer. I really appreciate your input it has helped a lot.

Keep in mind that it may be against the law to have a homebrew competition (serving homebrew) in a place that has a liquor license. The VFW has a liquor license, I"m sure, but since it's a private club it may not be illegal in your state.

It would also be illegal in most states to charge entry for people to taste homebrew (it would be considered a form of selling homebrew, unfortunately).

Check with your state law on the American Homebrewers Association link, here: http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/government-affairs/statutes/united-states

You just want to be careful to not alienate the VFW and the people who are so supportive of homebrewing and drawing attention to the craft.

 

[herc1354]

Keep in mind that it may be against the law to have a homebrew competition (serving homebrew) in a place that has a liquor license. The VFW has a liquor license, I"m sure, but since it's a private club it may not be illegal in your state.

It would also be illegal in most states to charge entry for people to taste homebrew (it would be considered a form of selling homebrew, unfortunately).

Check with your state law on the American Homebrewers Association link, here: http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/government-affairs/statutes/united-states

You just want to be careful to not alienate the VFW and the people who are so supportive of homebrewing and drawing attention to the craft.

Great point, this is a concern of ours too, the person in charge of this is going look into the legalities of this.

 

[Phunhog]

Sounds like a nice event. I don't know if I would call it a competition though as much as a homebrew tasting. To encourage brewers to share their beer you might want to throw in some extras. Maybe free food for the brewers or prizes for Best Beer, Most Interesting Beer, etc...

 

[herc1354]

Sounds like a nice event. I don't know if I would call it a competition though as much as a homebrew tasting. To encourage brewers to share their beer you might want to throw in some extras. Maybe free food for the brewers or prizes for Best Beer, Most Interesting Beer, etc...

Our plan is to have a ton of food, basically kind of a Oktoberfest party with a home brew tasting going at the same time.

 

[herc1354]

So I just found out that there is a cost guard brewers guild, and official AHA club, we are going to have our first meeting of the Elizabeth City NC chapter on August 5th. Our plan is to have a club tasting and discuss having an official home brew contest next spring. All are welcome, you don't have to be in the Coast Guard to become a member.