unpopular categories for competitions

[jpoder]

Do any competitions post details around all entries (rather than just listing the winners)? I'd like to see a breakdown of enteries per category especially if the data is available for a number of years. I think it would be interesting to see if/how popularity of categories has changed over time (IPA, IIPA anyone?!).

It might also be interesting for folks trying to place in competitions to know which categories are less crowded...

 

[unionrdr]

From what I've seen of various competitions,many brew beers that fit multiple categories. The latest from Ohio Beer Week is a good example. http://www.craftbeer.com/pages/stories/craft-beer-muses/show?title=athens-ohio-hosts-6th-annual-brew-week

 

[uncommonsense]

I would guess the least popular is american light lager. Just a guess though based on the common view of the style. I think people would brew a helles instead.

 

[LVBen]

This page has the number of entries entered into NHC 2011:
http://www.homebrewersassociation.o...homebrew-competition/winners/2011-nhc-winners

European Amber Lager and Fruit beer are the lowest # of entries with 140 and 143.

Stout, American Ale, and IPA have the highest # of entries with 566, 493, and 462.

 

[jpoder]

The NHC data is somewhat helpful. I'm not too familiar with competitions (I don't often brew to style, and have only ever entered 1 competition), but a couple of interesting things from the NHC data.

1) Stouts and American Ale seem to be far and away the most popular categories (and seem to always have been...at least for NHC between 2005 and 2011)

2) IPA, Belgian and French ale, and Belgian Strong Ale round out the top 5

3) Cider and Mead are the least entered categories...guess I'm not suprised. I think I heard an episode of Brew Strong where Gordon was talking about how winning the Ninkasi Award requires (to get enough points) brewing a bunch of meads and ciders (in addition to beers)

4) The least popular (in recent year) categories of beer are European Amber Lager, Dark Lager, and Fruit Beers.

Other interesting notes:

1) there seems to have been a big change in categories in 2005...the 2004 data can't be included, and there is no category entry data for 2003 (and nothing prior) from the link.

2) What happened to the NHC competition in 2009? Every category (except for Fruit beer and Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer) dipped that year.

If I can get this into some pretty charts of something I think is useful to anyone else I'll share it. If anyone has other data (especially year-over-year) it would be cool to compare trends.

 

[LVBen]

2009 was a bad year for the economy. A lot of people lost money on investments and a lot of people lost jobs.

 

[Mrclasen]

It might also be interesting for folks trying to place in competitions to know which categories are less crowded...

I believe that it would be very unfortunate if a person would use this information soley for placing in a competition. I think that we have alot more to learn from embrassing competition rather than running away from it.

 

[bigbeergeek]

I believe that it would be very unfortunate if a person would use this information soley for placing in a competition. I think that we have alot more to learn from embrassing competition rather than running away from it.

I respectfully disagree. One might glean more meaningful notes on a brew entered in a category with less than 200 competitors (as in the NHC example). Also, I don't find anything "unfortunate" about the OP wanting to place in a competition for bragging rights, cash prizes, etc. in addition to quality tasting notes. Entering a brew in any category of a beer competition is in fact "embracing competition." If anything unfortunate is at hand in this post, it's that a single category of beer out of 28 would have three times the average number of entries... brewers might need to embrace these less utilized styles, not run away from them.

I was going for cute there, not snarky. As I said, just a respectful difference of opinion.

 

[davefleck]

Sand bagging low entry styles to medal will increase your chances however, at times no medal has been given if non of the entries are of top quality. If you want to focus in winning, become an expert on the style, your method, and work back your brew schedule to optimize when the beer will be at its best

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

brewers might need to embrace these less utilized styles, not run away from them.

I was going for cute there, not snarky. As I said, just a respectful difference of opinion.

IF said brewer were to base the desire to brew said style because it is a less appreciated style and were to make the efforts to brew it as stylistically as possible and THEN enter said product into competition for feedback and possible gains, then, yes.

But IF said brewer just wanted to improve their chances to win based solely on the ratio of entrants............then you might as well just bottle something from a commercial keg because you aren't really brewing the beer to the best of YOUR ability.

And that is the point of competition.

 

[Mrclasen]

Gila- I couldnt have said it better myself.

 

[gclay]

When I finally enter a competition I'll want to enter a category with the most entrants, then If I win it's because I made The best beer. And I also love stouts.

 

[bigbeergeek]

IF said brewer were to base the desire to brew said style because it is a less appreciated style and were to make the efforts to brew it as stylistically as possible and THEN enter said product into competition for feedback and possible gains, then, yes.

But IF said brewer just wanted to improve their chances to win based solely on the ratio of entrants............then you might as well just bottle something from a commercial keg because you aren't really brewing the beer to the best of YOUR ability.

And that is the point of competition.

Why must you use a straw man argument to try to make your point? No one is talking about submitting poorly crafted homebrew (or re-labeled commercial brew, sheesh). We're all talking about brewing to style to the best of our abilities and submitting them for competition. Many factors influence a brewer's decision making process when choosing what to brew for upcoming competition X. There is absolutely no shame in selecting categories of brew that are underrepresented, regardless of whatever collage of internal motives influencing the brewer's choice. The factors that influence your competition entry choices are no better or worse than anyone else's. No one is considering brewing anything less that "to the best of their ability," and there's no fault in wanting to win competitions. I hope no one is offended by the notion that qualified judges' tasting notes are great, but accompanied by cash or a ribbon they become a little better.

In brief: there is more than one "point" involved in any competition, and it's not necessary to prove how righteous your points are here.

 

[LVBen]

If you win a category with 100 entrants or a category with 500 entrants, either way, you probably made a damn good beer!

Winning a category with 500 entries is likely to be more prestigious, but even winning a category with 100 entries is still a pretty awesome accomplishment!

Like someone said earlier, many competitions have minimum point requirements, so even if your beer is the only entry into that category, you won't win anything if your beer sucks!

 

[bigbeergeek]

If you win a category with 100 entrants or a category with 500 entrants, either way, you probably made a damn good beer!

Winning a category with 500 entries is likely to be more prestigious, but even winning a category with 100 entries is still a pretty awesome accomplishment!

Like someone said earlier, many competitions have minimum point requirements, so even if your beer is the only entry into that category, you won't win anything if your beer sucks!

My point exactly: no one is going to win anything if they don't brew to the best of their ability, categories be damned.

 

[jpoder]

i don't really give a Sh!7 about medals or competitions (if others do that's really up to them...that's one of the things I love about homebrewing, there are so many different facets to it that no two brewers are interested in the same things)

...I'm really curious about popularity of styles among homebrewers, and how those styles have come in and out of popularity.

Does anyone else know of other data sets that go back at least a few years (2005 I guess would make it easy to compare apples to apples)?

 

[Mrclasen]

My point exactly: no one is going to win anything if they don't brew to the best of their ability, categories be damned.

As long as everyone is bringing their best then I have no problem with people entering the underrepresented style. Also, this has been a great discussion I have really enjoyed everyones input.

 

[jpoder]

Found some other data... am still trying to comb through it, but wanted to compare/post the 2011 entries. This is from the War of the Worts competition in Pennsylvania. This is a large (765 entries in 2011) competition that is close to me.

http://www.keystonehops.org/wotw.htm

so, for this year:

1) top categories were: 1) IPA 2) Stout 3) Spice/Herb/Vegetable and 4) "Specialty"

2) bottom categories were: 1)Light Lager 2) Pilsner 3) Bock and 4) Amber hybrid.

This competition had a HUGE difference between the most popular and least popular categories: 70 entries in IPA and 7 in light lager compared to NHC where there were 566 Stouts and 84 traditional meads.

So, do you think the difference in category popularity is regional?

 

[trigger]

One of my favorite styles is roggenbier, which sucks for me. It's cat 15 d, and it's not a big one. In my limited comp experience it's been lumped in with all cat 15's every time. I've been working on a recipe for a while. At NHC 1st round it got a 40, and a 39.5 and 38.5 at a couple smaller comps. The HBT comp was the only time it's made it to a mini BOS (I think it had another 38.5 there). So go ahead and enter under represented catagories, but you'll still have tough competition.

 

[Airborneguy]

I'm very interested in Bock, and I've always noticed that the category gets very little attention, BUT, I believe that is due to the time and effort required to produce a bock. What that says to me is that even though the category might only have a few entries in a particular competition, those entries are more than likely coming from people who put a lot of time, attention and care into that beer, making the category much HARDER to place in rather than easier just because there are less entries.

 

[LVBen]

I'm very interested in Bock, and I've always noticed that the category gets very little attention, BUT, I believe that is due to the time and effort required to produce a bock. What that says to me is that even though the category might only have a few entries in a particular competition, those entries are more than likely coming from people who put a lot of time, attention and care into that beer, making the category much HARDER to place in rather than easier just because there are less entries.

That's a good point!