Anglian Craft Brewers Comp - All American - 15th November

[MartinHaworth]

Hi folks,

Just seen this is accepting entrants now.

https://competition.angliancraftbrewers.org.uk/

Cheers

Martin
(no personal links to this one, but plan to judge)

 

[MartinHaworth]

Hmm! They seemed to have shut it down again until the 1st AUgust. Dunno what's going on there!

 

[nickjdavis]

Basically the competition should never have opened for entries, as we hadn't finished completing the "website" following my resignation as organiser, at the end of May. After a couple of months with no progress on the website/comp build, I noticed that we had a number of entries despite never publishing the website....so I shut it down whilst we sorted ourselves out.

Happy to say that we have a new organising team in place and the website will re-open to allow entries on 31st August. Any existing entries will still be in the system.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Basically the competition should never have opened for entries, as we hadn't finished completing the "website" following my resignation as organiser, at the end of May. After a couple of months with no progress on the website/comp build, I noticed that we had a number of entries despite never publishing the website....so I shut it down whilst we sorted ourselves out.

Happy to say that we have a new organising team in place and the website will re-open to allow entries on 31st August. Any existing entries will still be in the system.

Thanks Nick. Does this explain why I’ve been unable to pay for my entry? Will I be able to settle my debts from the 31st/1st? I hate being in debt!

 

[nickjdavis]

Yes. When I gave up the organisation I hadn't added in the paypal address for payment. Never got updated whilst we were in "organisational limbo" so the "unexpected entrants" had no way to pay.

The paypal info has now been updated and you will be able to pay when we relaunch on the 31st.

 

[jof]

Lol, nice to see regional competitions actively promoted here.
(Even if I disagree with pushing American styles when we have such a rich indiginous brewing history in the UK)

 

[nickjdavis]

Lol, nice to see regional competitions actively promoted here.
(Even if I disagree with pushing American styles when we have such a rich indiginous brewing history in the UK)

Well...the issue with running a relatively small comp and allowing the widest gamut of styles to be entered is that you get only maybe 1 or 2 examples of some styles and end up having to combine them with other styles which sometimes makes for a bit of a mish mash of a table to be judged (albeit possibly more interesting for the judges than drinking a dozen variable examples of the same style).

Given our experience last year of rail strikes, making travel difficult on the day, and restricting our judging numbers, where we ended up adding a Thursday and a Friday session as well as the Saturday session, we decided this year to run a smaller competition and felt that it would be appropriate to have a limited number of styles around a specific theme.

Our friends up in Norfolk did Hoppy styles in 2022, Belgians last year and are doing British Ales this October. Lagers are covered by LAB's Lager than Life comp. Reading do their Sours. So we looked for something different and came up with American Beers.

The other thing that choosing specific styles does, is get our local club members perhaps brewing something a little different from what they might normally consider (I don't normally brew much British beer but have brewed two traditionally British beers specifically for the Norwich comp....likewise I've got to brew an American beer for our comp...something that doesnt normally fit in with my brewing plans).

 

[nickjdavis]

Those of you who have entries who wish to pay for them, can now do so...the paypal account to receive monies has now been set up.

Please remember to click the "return to seller" button when you have completed payment otherwise your entries might not be marked as "paid" by the competition system.

(It's not a big problem if you don't but it will save you the job of emailing us asking why your entry is showing as "un-paid", and saves us the time of going through the paypal account to check the money has been received and then manually marking the entry as "paid")

 

[YeastFace]

Is the site open now? I'm having trouble logging in.

 

[nickjdavis]

There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to log in or register an account.

The site will actually open for adding entries at midnight on Saturday.

 

[YeastFace]

I'm trying to reset my password, but the reset function doesn't seem to be working for me, as I'm not receiving the reset token e-mail. It says to contact site admin if any issues and they can reset, so have sent you a message via the site.

 

[nickjdavis]

It’s time for sponsor announcements for the upcoming Anglian Craft Brewers homebrew competition:
Our first sponsor is Artefact Brewing who have kindly offered a selection of their excellent hand made beers for one of our table winners.

Artefact Brewing is an artisan microbrewery run by husband and wife team, James and Kat. Based in a converted shipping container in Ixworth, near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, James is a self-taught home brewer who’s hobby, essentially, got ‘out of control’! Seeing James’ talent / obsession for great-tasting craft beer growing, Kat encouraged James to move his brewing from their kitchen to a shipping container on her family farm, with hopes of future diversification.

After a lengthy DIY conversion in 2019, the ‘test brewery’ (technically a nanobrewery) was ready to see if James could create something worth selling, before the pair took the plunge on a larger brewery setup. With a combination of hard work, beer geekery and luck, since then Artefact has built up a large, seasonal range, solid customer base and industry recognition – winning multiple awards and working with some great partners.

Places still available. And more great prizes up for grabs!

https://competition.angliancraftbrewers.org.uk/

 

[nickjdavis]

A few more sponsor announcements have been made in the last week by the comp organiser which I need to share with you...

The stalwarts of the homebrew community The Malt Miller have provided a voucher to allow our winner(s) to buy whatever they need for their next brew(s)

Crisp Maltings will be providing a number of sacks of malt to some of our table winners

Colchester Brewery https://www.colchesterbrewery.com have agreed to provide bottles of their beers for some of our medalists.