Message Board Brewing Competition announcement thread.

DoctorMick · Jul 13, 2016

Had this idea for quite a while and I'm interested in what other people think.

There are plenty of people on this forum making good beer from all kinds of different methods (kits, extract, AG) and I'm sure many of you, like me, would like to get impartial feedback on your beers and test yourself against others. I've looked around for local home brew comps but it seems they are few and far between and the national comps don't provide feedback.

What I'm thinking is that once every three months (more or less
Often depending on Interest) we could have a completion between the members on here, 3 categories (kits, extract and AG) and with a different "host" each month who is responsible for receiving entries, organising judges (not camra judges or anything like that, just people with an interest in beer) and posting results. There would be a small entry fee each month with the proceeds going to the winner of each category (probably as vouchers for an online shop) and each entry would receive feedback. Obviously there would be lots of details to thrash out but do people think this is something worth exploring further?

jceg316 · Jul 13, 2016

Yeah I think this is an awesome idea! I've been looking for competitions to enter for the same reason but can't find much. Would really like to be involved.

Dads_Ale · Jul 13, 2016

I will register an interest in helping out on this idea :)

Leon103 · Jul 13, 2016

I would be up for it but not if money is involved. There will be all sorts of issues if money is involved.

DoctorMick · Jul 13, 2016

Leon103 said:
I would be up for it but not if money is involved. There will be all sorts of issues if money is involved.

Can see where you're coming from, I was thinking and nominal entry fee of ÃÂ£1 but if people think that'd cause problems and everyone is happy enough to compete for non monetary prizes then that's fine wth me.

glynb · Jul 14, 2016

I'm not sure how we'd find out who was the winner as we'd all have to send 100's of bottles of our brews out to all members to vote on. That'd cost a fortune in bottles and postage?

Great thinking though, what about a monthly giveaway? You try mine.. I'll try yours. Pick four or five of us each month to keep the costs down. I have both the coopers type bottles (plastic) which are probably safer to post, and the I have the Grolsch type glass (which I prefer drinking beer from.. like butter and marg.. I do admit I'm a butter snob) If we can agree what we're bottling in.. I'm well up for that!

I'm going to keg my black lager tomorrow and force carbonate it. I'll happily put 5 bottles up for grabs if you fancy it.

dan125 · Jul 14, 2016

I'd be up for something along these lines, or more bottle swaps - it's great to try other homebrew.

Leon103 · Jul 14, 2016

I think he meant we only send beer to one person who arranges a judging

MickDundee · Jul 14, 2016

I'd be up for this

Bigjas · Jul 14, 2016

I would be up for something like this. I'm a new brewer so always looking for feedback from people who actually know what they are talking about :thumb:

Jas

Delmol · Jul 14, 2016

Sounds like a good idea to me!

As others have suggested there is a legal grey area surround paying a nominal fee. As long as the prize isn't alcohol it should be fine.

And +1 for non-CAMRA judges. It'd be nice to just have good honest feedback.

ezraburke · Jul 14, 2016

DoctorMick said:
Had this idea for quite a while and I'm interested in what other people think.

There are plenty of people on this forum making good beer from all kinds of different methods (kits, extract, AG) and I'm sure many of you, like me, would like to get impartial feedback on your beers and test yourself against others. I've looked around for local home brew comps but it seems they are few and far between and the national comps don't provide feedback.

What I'm thinking is that once every three months (more or less
Often depending on Interest) we could have a completion between the members on here, 3 categories (kits, extract and AG) and with a different "host" each month who is responsible for receiving entries, organising judges (not camra judges or anything like that, just people with an interest in beer) and posting results. There would be a small entry fee each month with the proceeds going to the winner of each category (probably as vouchers for an online shop) and each entry would receive feedback. Obviously there would be lots of details to thrash out but do people think this is something worth exploring further?

I would be on board with this, +1 from me.

DoctorMick · Jul 14, 2016

Leon103 said:
I think he meant we only send beer to one person who arranges a judging

Yup, that's my thinking.

monkier · Jul 14, 2016

I'd be up for a competition, count me in.

jceg316 · Jul 14, 2016

Had some more thoughts about this.

Would it be a different member every month/quarter (or whenever it's held)? I think this would be a good idea, and if any members live close to each other or are friends outside the forum they can judge together if they want. It might be good to have some criteria to be a judge. Also if you are judging by yourself, it might be a good idea to allow some friends to help taste the beer as one person trying all those themselves might be a bit much...

We can have some interesting competitions. Standard "who makes the best beer" with the different categories. It would also be fun to have a clone competition where entrants clone their favourite beers and send a bottle of the original beer plus their clone off to the judge.

One of the rules of entry could be you have to be a member of this forum. Could be a good way to get more members.

As for prizes, I think a ÃÂ£2 or whatever entrance fee is alright. Perhaps if a forum moderator, or someone closely related to the forum could deal with the finances. We pay them via PayPal or other convenient way, those names get passed onto the judge, then the money can be transferred back to the winner via PayPal or used to be HBS vouchers of their choice. It should be clear from the beginning that it's all dependent on the number of people entering the comp. So if there's only 2 of you, spend that ÃÂ£4 well! Alternatively, we could try and get sponsorship from an HBS to donate vouchers every month/quarter.

Maybe limit the number of times someone can win to 3 in a row/per year etc. This should stop the same few people winning every time, but still allow those with real talent to win a few times.

These are just some ideas, would be good to hear your thoughts and any way we can start to get this off the ground.

DoctorMick · Jul 14, 2016

jceg316 said:
Had some more thoughts about this.

Would it be a different member every month/quarter (or whenever it's held)? I think this would be a good idea, and if any members live close to each other or are friends outside the forum they can judge together if they want. It might be good to have some criteria to be a judge. Also if you are judging by yourself, it might be a good idea to allow some friends to help taste the beer as one person trying all those themselves might be a bit much...

We can have some interesting competitions. Standard "who makes the best beer" with the different categories. It would also be fun to have a clone competition where entrants clone their favourite beers and send a bottle of the original beer plus their clone off to the judge.

One of the rules of entry could be you have to be a member of this forum. Could be a good way to get more members.

As for prizes, I think a Ã¯Â¿Â½ÃÂ£2 or whatever entrance fee is alright. Perhaps if a forum moderator, or someone closely related to the forum could deal with the finances. We pay them via PayPal or other convenient way, those names get passed onto the judge, then the money can be transferred back to the winner via PayPal or used to be HBS vouchers of their choice. It should be clear from the beginning that it's all dependent on the number of people entering the comp. So if there's only 2 of you, spend that Ã¯Â¿Â½ÃÂ£4 well! Alternatively, we could try and get sponsorship from an HBS to donate vouchers every month/quarter.

Maybe limit the number of times someone can win to 3 in a row/per year etc. This should stop the same few people winning every time, but still allow those with real talent to win a few times.

These are just some ideas, would be good to hear your thoughts and any way we can start to get this off the ground.

I was thinking a different member to run it each time yeah, mostly because I don't want to be lumbered with it! :lol: I'll do the first one and try and rope in the owner of the micropub in Lichfield as a judge along with some work colleagues.

It'll definitely only be open to forum members, agree with that 100%.

The more I think about it the more I feel uncomfortable with an entry fee so I'm going to contact some of the companies who get on here regularly to see if they'll donate a prize. If they do then we can wave the entry fee. :thumb:

I was thinking maybe the overall winner could be the judge for the following comp to prevent them winning back to back? Would depend on the winner being happy to do it tho I suppose.

Thanks for the input, some really good ideas there.

jceg316 · Jul 14, 2016

DoctorMick said:
I was thinking a different member to run it each time yeah, mostly because I don't want to be lumbered with it! :lol: I'll do the first one and try and rope in the owner of the micropub in Lichfield as a judge along with some work colleagues.

It'll definitely only be open to forum members, agree with that 100%.

The more I think about it the more I feel uncomfortable with an entry fee so I'm going to contact some of the companies who get on here regularly to see if they'll donate a prize. If they do then we can wave the entry fee. :thumb:

I was thinking maybe the overall winner could be the judge for the following comp to prevent them winning back to back? Would depend on the winner being happy to do it tho I suppose.

Thanks for the input, some really good ideas there.

If people have contacts they can try to persuade for prizes then we can see if that leads anywhere, but let's not rule out a small fee just now as it might be necessary. Unless people are happy just to be recognised as a winner with no prize. It's the prestige that counts! Although I do agree if there is free entrance that would be best for now.

Just thinking out loud here: to start off if we make it free, whether there are prizes or not, we can gauge the interest on people doing it for feedback and the chance to be a judge themselves. If there's a good turnout, that can be a good basis to get sponsorship for the next one. Or if we decide an entrance fee is needed then it can give us an idea of whether we will still have a successful competition on our hands, as of course there will always be attrition when introducing a fee.

If the winner doesn't want to judge, they could always pick someone who does. Although being a judge sounds really fun.

Wilfy · Jul 14, 2016

Just a thought, if say one of the site sponsors does offer a prize, maybe they should get a bottle of the winning ale and the recipe so they could sell it as a kit.

ezraburke · Jul 14, 2016

One thing to consider is styles as well. Can't pitch an IPA against a bitter and judge them equally - suggest the competition go to poll for style every month.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

MyQul · Jul 14, 2016

ezraburke said:
One thing to consider is styles as well. Can't pitch an IPA against a bitter and judge them equally - suggest the competition go to poll for style every month.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

That's a very good idea. You could even stipulate a receipe. One brewers beer made to a recipe would taste quite different to another brewers beer brewed to exactly the same recipe

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