I've had plenty of sh*&ty beer from "pro brewers". Just because you work/own a brewery doesn't magically give you the ability to make good brew. Bring it on...... 
Pro brewers entering homebrew comps?
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This is something that I always found a little odd. I think most brewers would agree that high tech, professional equipment doesn't equal great beer. Yet that is what is banned at competitions?
I also think that most brewers would agree that it is the competency of the brewer that makes great beer. Maybe they ban using commercial equipment in an attempt to ban/discourage professional brewers?
What's the difference between the guy who went "pro" and the home brewer who's been going at it for 20+ years but never had the ability (or balls?) to go pro if they're brewing on the same homebrewing scale equipment?
Not to mention if you give five different brewers the exact same ingredients, mash times and temps, hop timing ferment temps, etc they would brew a different beer. In fact brulosopher happens to have an experiment on that very topic.
The guy who has won tons of competitions over the last 10 years even, at this point, is likely just doing it for his ego.
If you're entering a competition. To get judged by a bjcp member, you're just as likely to get good feedback from your hb club. There's so much personal preference and perception that goes into beer tasting, why waste the time, effort, and resources to enter that competition unless you want to win? And if you want to win, why not get down all of your techniques and produce a great beer learning from all the longtime brewers first before you enter the competition?
Not to mention if you give five different brewers the exact same ingredients, mash times and temps, hop timing ferment temps, etc they would brew a different beer. In fact brulosopher happens to have an experiment on that very topic.
The guy who has won tons of competitions over the last 10 years even, at this point, is likely just doing it for his ego.
If you're entering a competition. To get judged by a bjcp member, you're just as likely to get good feedback from your hb club. There's so much personal preference and perception that goes into beer tasting, why waste the time, effort, and resources to enter that competition unless you want to win? And if you want to win, why not get down all of your techniques and produce a great beer learning from all the longtime brewers first before you enter the competition?
troy2000
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Lighten up. I think even professional brewers are allowed to go off the clock and do their own thing now and then; their breweries don't own them 24/7. And there's nothing surprising about the notion that maybe their own thing is homebrewing, since that's probably where they started.
I was a professional woodworker, carpenter and general contractor for many years. Guess what I did during my time off? That's right; I built things.
And it's odd that you seem to think people enter competitions mostly just as an ego trip to win ribbons... I doubt that's true for everyone.
This is something that I always found a little odd. I think most brewers would agree that high tech, professional equipment doesn't equal great beer. Yet that is what is banned at competitions?
Commercial equipment can also equal a 10 gallon homebrew setup in a picobrewery. Anything used for commercial purposes. But commercial ingredients too.
I think it's to discourage commercial brewers from trying to market or quality test their beers in competition (which as we already established would be a stupid thing to do anyway), but also to prevent someone from going to a commercial brewer, paying them to produce the beer, and then entering something they only marginally had a hand in actually brewing. Basically brew it on your own gear. I know some comps allow BOP beers, where others expressly prohibit them.
For me, pinning down "the spirit of the competition" is a subjective argument that, while I agree on principle, is shades of gray, as I said earlier.
It's like telling a mechanic or body shop tech, who works in a shop all day, but then goes home and works on his own car (say, refurbing a muscle car) that he can't enter it in an amateur car show because he's a paid tech, vs. telling a commercial shop that they can't enter something. In my mind, one an be both a pro AND a hobbyist, although not a pro and an amateur.
For me, I suppose the line is creative control. At the brewery I'm working for, I have none (and since the gear has literally only been up and running for a short time, I've done zilch actual brewing on it), and it's still a part time occasional thing (most of which has been assembling the brewhouse) until everything is running full force down the line. My job is primarily haul things, clean things, and grain out. Brewing is a side job.
But even though I brew at home, on my gear, with my own recipes, and my process, during my time, as a hobby.
However, if you're talking about the owner, or the head brewer, someone with significant creative control over what happens in a commercial brewhouse (in the case of a nano or pico, essentially everyone involved, but in the case of bigger brewers, it's a very small percentage), then that's a different story. But even then, who am I to tell someone with such passion for brewing that they do it both for a job, and at home, that they're not a hobbyist too?
So what it all boils down to for me, is if the rules say it's ok, it's ok. If the rules say it's not, it's not. And if you don't like it (whether you're a pro wanting to enter, or a homebrewer mad that pros can enter), then tough luck, don't enter, and put on your own competition the way you want.
I'll agree that it can be kind of odd and annoying to have pro brewers entering homebrew comps to test their product (as I said, I've seen it happen), but if someone's genuinely brewing at home for their own purposes, then their entries are as allowable as anyone else's as long as the rules don't say otherwise. As for me, I may or may not keep entering the occasional comp, but I have zero shame in doing so, because like I said this is still my beers brewed by me as a hobby, completely separate from what is essentially a factory job that also happens to involve brewing beer.
or "desire" to work twice as many hours for half (or less) as much pay.......
I think that would fall under the "ability to" category?
I agree. In general, this is what the "rules" almost always say in a BJCP event:
"All entries must be handcrafted products, containing ingredients available to the general public, and made using private equipment by hobbyist brewers (i.e., no use of commercial facilities or Brew on Premises operations, supplies, etc.)"
or:
"Open to all homebrewers 21 years of age and older. Beers must be entered under the name of all brewers who helped. Beers brewed in commercial facilities are ineligible."
I agree that you can be "employed" by a brewery and also homebrew as a hobby. I do think if a person is brewing the beer, as an actual head brewer, with the intent of scaling it up for their brewery.... they are getting into the area of breaking the "spirit" if not the actual rules. But, if you are the book keeper, taproom manager, or cleaning kegs and following directions of those in charge.... I see zero problem with those folks wanting to pursue something they enjoy as a hobby and enter competitions so long as they are "home brewing" in the same sense as everyone else.
ArkotRamathorn
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It Seems a lot of folks seem to think a pro brewer some how has the money to buy a big fancy pro system for their home set up. I've seen some folks on here post stuff that would make a pro brewer say "DAMN".
The pro Brewers might have a really fantastic set of skills but I bet they can't afford the equipment a hobbyist could afford. Yeah it's bullpoop if someone tries to brew on a commercial system and enter it because more commercial systems are so fully automated you press a button and you get beer on the other side. To extend the idea further I bet there's "amateur" Brewers that have systems that they press a button and get a beer on the other side, then it boils down to recipe. Where do we draw the line on automation?
The pro Brewers might have a really fantastic set of skills but I bet they can't afford the equipment a hobbyist could afford. Yeah it's bullpoop if someone tries to brew on a commercial system and enter it because more commercial systems are so fully automated you press a button and you get beer on the other side. To extend the idea further I bet there's "amateur" Brewers that have systems that they press a button and get a beer on the other side, then it boils down to recipe. Where do we draw the line on automation?
madscientist451
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Actually, giving feedback is required in BJCP competitions. The following is from page 2 of the BJCP competition handbook:
Feedback must be given to the brewer/entrant of each entry submitted. The BJCP judging
forms3
are recommended, but not mandatory. Whatever type of scoresheet is used, they
must be returned promptly to the entrants.
I agree that in reality not everyone gets useful feedback. However there are seven requirements for all BJCP competitions and the feedback portion (above) was important enough to make #3 on the list.
If you are entering the competition to win, I would think having the best possible competitors would make your win more meaningful.
But if you are entering for feedback, who cares who else has entered?
I'm a brewer in a mid-size production brewery (70,000 bbls/ year). I say I'm a brewer in the sense that I make wort, cool it, pitch yeast and probably have no other interaction with it until I drink it out of the bottle. I have no say in our recipe design on commercially produced beers. I still homebrew, at home, on equipment I've had since before I was a "pro" with ingredients from the LHBS. While I feel what I've learned in my job has helped me be a better brewer, nothing are subjects I couldn't have learned on my own. I enter BCJP competitions for feedback on my own process and technique. I've only ever come across a few competitions across the country that specifically state "no one employed by a brewery may enter", most of which are competitions I wouldn't enter anyways. Do I feel bad when I win medals, no.
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I think the fact that this takes up 6 pages (so far) on HBT would indicate that the organizers of competitions are discussing it as well. As the numbers of breweries in the US increases (exponentially, you might say), then the number of people who know and love the science (all y'all as we say here) will apply for and find employment in those new brewing ventures. Does this change the way competitions are organized? Probably for some it will.
Fedora
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I don't see a problem with pro brewers entering homebrew comps as long as the beer entered is homebrew. I brew at a commercial brewery, albeit a very small one. The Sabco system is in my avatar. I have complete creative control over recipe formulation and production. I'm the only employee of the brewery.
I also homebrew. I brew extract in a single pot in my front yard. It's a hobby.
I don't brew the same recipes at home as I do at work. What would be the fun in that? I can go to the bar and drink my commercial beer whenever I want, and free of charge.
At home is where I get to experiment and brew whatever I wanna drink without regards to whether I think it will sell or not. Not to say that I dont try stuff out at home , anticipating that I might want to try something similar for the brewery. I do. But it's still homebrew.
I have never entered a competition, commercial or homebrew, but I would hate to think the homebrewing community and it's competitions would ban me from entry just because I brew for money on the weekends.
That said,i still consider myself a novice brewer, even though I brew on a commercial level. There are many, many folks on this site alone who have vastly more knowledge and experience than me, and have never left the garage with their beer. Their homebrew would blow mine away in a competition.
Don't really know where I'm going with this other than to say that it's not right to shun pro brewers from the homebrew scene and it's competitions just because they brew for a living. Pro brewer does not equal great brewer, and if the beer in question was brewed at home, on home equipment, then the playing field is level.
I also homebrew. I brew extract in a single pot in my front yard. It's a hobby.
I don't brew the same recipes at home as I do at work. What would be the fun in that? I can go to the bar and drink my commercial beer whenever I want, and free of charge.
At home is where I get to experiment and brew whatever I wanna drink without regards to whether I think it will sell or not. Not to say that I dont try stuff out at home , anticipating that I might want to try something similar for the brewery. I do. But it's still homebrew.
I have never entered a competition, commercial or homebrew, but I would hate to think the homebrewing community and it's competitions would ban me from entry just because I brew for money on the weekends.
That said,i still consider myself a novice brewer, even though I brew on a commercial level. There are many, many folks on this site alone who have vastly more knowledge and experience than me, and have never left the garage with their beer. Their homebrew would blow mine away in a competition.
Don't really know where I'm going with this other than to say that it's not right to shun pro brewers from the homebrew scene and it's competitions just because they brew for a living. Pro brewer does not equal great brewer, and if the beer in question was brewed at home, on home equipment, then the playing field is level.
This why the "professional equipment" clause is suspect. If you brew on a Sabco for work it is professional but someone who brews on their Sabco in their garage is an amateur? It's the same piece of equipment!!
Could care less whether a pro enters. There are scads of amateurs who know as much about brewing as the average pro, and there are a handful of elite amateurs who are on a level with the most of the best pros, and certainly exceed the knowledge, vision and capability of the average pro.
i've never entered a competition. are the judges completely blind about the beer their tasting except the category it's being entered into?
Judges know nothing outside of entry number, style, and if it's a specialty style (wood aged, fruit, smoke, specialty, etc), whatever special ingredient/process information is needed for judging. If you enter a Belgian Dark Strong, the only thing the judges will know is that it's a Belgian Dark Strong. If you enter in 23 and state that it's an American Pale Ale with Rye, then that's all the judges will know, base style and special ingredient. They don't know extract or all-grain, don't know recipe, don't know process, don't know brewer.
So, yes. It's completely blind. That's also a condition of BJCP sanctioning.
I interviewed the 32-year veteran brewmaster at Sierra Nevada and asked him if he still homebrews. His answer was short and to the point:
"Hell No"
"Hell No"
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kombat
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Just to add one more perspective to this topic, what about the idea of competing homebrew clubs?
I'm not sure about competitions where you are, but most of the competitions I've entered (Canada), they also list your affiliated homebrew club. So each category lists the Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners, in addition to mentioning their homebrew club. There's a friendly, informal rivalry between homebrew clubs to see which club can have their members take the most medals. So even guys who've been brewing for a decade are motivated to submit their beers to country-wide competitions in order to help "represent" their local club, so the club can brag and say "Our members took 23% of the medals in the Vancouver competition this year."
I agree with a lot of the points made here. I think the rules for most homebrew competitions are clear - can't be brewed at a professional brewery, it must be 'home' brewed.
That being said, as others have pointed out, it strikes me as unusual for a professional brewer (someone who spends all of her/his days brewing for a living) to want to enter a competition for amateurs. Apples and oranges.
Nothing is cut-and-dried, of course. Someone who works at a brewery part-time, or has limited responsibilities, might be an inbetween case. But, still, if I were a professional at anything, I don't think I would want to enter a competition in that area for amateurs. It just seems off, to me.
For the professional brewers, there are professional competitions to enter. As for homebrew competitions, it would be great for professional brewers to get their BJCP credentials and judge at those competitions. A friend of mine, a professional brewer, did just that - he's a BJCP judge with a Certified ranking.
That being said, as others have pointed out, it strikes me as unusual for a professional brewer (someone who spends all of her/his days brewing for a living) to want to enter a competition for amateurs. Apples and oranges.
Nothing is cut-and-dried, of course. Someone who works at a brewery part-time, or has limited responsibilities, might be an inbetween case. But, still, if I were a professional at anything, I don't think I would want to enter a competition in that area for amateurs. It just seems off, to me.
For the professional brewers, there are professional competitions to enter. As for homebrew competitions, it would be great for professional brewers to get their BJCP credentials and judge at those competitions. A friend of mine, a professional brewer, did just that - he's a BJCP judge with a Certified ranking.
GarageDweller
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Its not the size of the setup....Its how you use it.
I hear what you are saying, but disagree with the analogy. Not everyone can aspire to be an NBA level Basketball player. The tools there are very much physical. But I believe that anyone making beer at home can achieve beer that can at least rival pro brewers brewing on the same equipment.
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