Home Brew Forum

The IBD Young Members Scottish Section
brings to you the Home Brew Competition & Exhibition on 21 March 2012. The competition will provide home brewers an opportunity to match their beers against those of other enthusiasts! The event will be conducted at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, with five different beer categories and judged by an expert panel.
The event is open to all. A brewer can submit up to 5 beers, not exceeding 2 beers in each category. Beers to be submitted should be presented in 500 ml crown capped bottles, with set of 12 bottles per entry, of which 10 will be exhibited.
All participants are obliged to organise their own transport and accommodation.
The competition and exhibition will be held on the evening of 21 March 2012. The results will be declared on 22 March 2012.

1st Prize: The winning beer will be brewed and distributed by William Bro Brewing Co. in bottles and casks

2nd Prize: The winning beer will be brewed and distributed by Fyne Ale Brewery in casks.
http://ibdhomebrewcompetition-exhibition2012.tk/
http://www.facebook.com/ibdhomebrewcomp ... bition2012
[url=http://ibdhomebrewcompetition-exhibition2012.tk/][img]http://www.abanik.webspace.virginmedia. ... 05x378.jpg[/img][/url]

12 bottles per entry!!

That is literally taking the Pish! Does the event have a door fee too?

So if one was to enter the full 5 beers, 12 bottles each = 60 bottles + Postage / Carriage + £35 Entry Fee.... Potentially costing the Home-brewer a fecking vast amount of money.

What a fantastic way to make money and put on a Beer festival for free.... a big fat WTF!

Why is the Scottish section of a UK registered company and charity using a South Pacific domain suffix?

boingy wrote:Why is the Scottish section of a UK registered company and charity using a South Pacific domain suffix?

"Dot TK is a FREE domain registry for all websites on the Internet. It has exactly the same power as other domain extensions, but it's free! Because it's free, millions of others have been using .TK domains since 2001 - which makes .TK powerful and very recognizable."

TheGuv wrote:

boingy wrote:Why is the Scottish section of a UK registered company and charity using a South Pacific domain suffix?

"Dot TK is a FREE domain registry for all websites on the Internet. It has exactly the same power as other domain extensions, but it's free! Because it's free, millions of others have been using .TK domains since 2001 - which makes .TK powerful and very recognizable."

Yep, I googled it too. It's a new one on me and made me suspicious enough to check that the company and charity are legitimate (which they are). So there is no problem.

Hey guys,
Apologies, forgot to update the link:
www.ibdhomebrewcompetition-exhibition2012.co.uk

And I rectified the info too: it was suppose to be 12 - 275 ml bottles or 6 - 500ml bottles.
Why so many? Apart from being judged by expert panel, there will be public vote, so rest of the bottles will be used there. We wanted to make sure the beer tasted by judges and the beer tasted by public are from same batch, so sourcing at the same time.
The exhibition to public will be a free event. No entry fee!

hmm I was going to enter but postage now a block.

I can see the logic but think the execution could be better

ibdyoungmembers wrote:And I rectified the info too: it was suppose to be 12 - 275 ml bottles or 6 - 500ml bottles.
Why so many? Apart from being judged by expert panel, there will be public vote, so rest of the bottles will be used there. We wanted to make sure the beer tasted by judges and the beer tasted by public are from same batch, so sourcing at the same time.
The exhibition to public will be a free event. No entry fee!

I see the logic here to an extent. However I'm not sure about the execution. To me home brewers enter competitions for three reasons:
1) to win (fewest people)
2) for feedback (big motivator)
3) as a social event (biggest thing)

Organising an event involves setting a dial for each of these. The bjcp / national prioritises feedback over everything so you have paired judges 2 bottles per entry extensive feedback but far less focus on relatively incidental/additional social or crowd. Posting two bottles no issue regional drop offs and more.

The national in 2009 under ngwbj rules had 6 bottles which put of some entrants however it remains best beer festival I've ever been to: very social focus and sharing beers with fellow brewers. Loads out fantastic opportunity to try a huge range of beers and chat with brewers. Of course you could enter and then bring bottles on the day as there was a social focus so bringing on the day had big advantages.

Ncba events in Saltaire have gone more social than competitive with members bars etc. the focus again is on socialising with fellow brewers. There's a crowd favourite vote and a it of kudos from peer evaluation and generally sharing beer with people we communicate with on this forum or twitter etc. it's great. Bring beers on the day so no couriers it's about socialising.

To me this competition is falling into a strange hinterland. It's a public event so it's asking me to give my beer not to peers but to strangers for their evaluation - I'm not a commercial brewer looking to expand market so that seems odd. You have to submit in advance so you incur costs of delivery unless you're very local and there's a request for a load of bottles so that cost is HIGH. Then the event is one for free to the public. Great for them! Were it open to institute of brewing and distill ing members and staff that would be a HUGE draw professional feedback is great. But joe public? Couldn't give two hoots I share my beers with selected people. I have bad but fun experience putting it in for blind tasting by joe public if you brew atypical beers they get slammed so everyone loses - I lose a beer I like and others like if introduced properly (this is a smoked marzen or this is a sour Berliner weisse becomes an interesting experience. But to someone looking for a typical bitter it will be spat out or slated and everyone loses out, brewer loses a beer, the opportunity to share it with someone who'd appreciate it and give good feedback and the punter gets to vote them down.)

I'd suggest for the future deciding how to set those dials - allow advanced entries brought on the day, that helps, allow 3 beers (two for judging one for audience) and maybe separate. Make it selective not just "the public" bid staff and students are a great audience, home brew clubs and industry people can give peer feedback. why "the public"? the only people i can see interested in appealing to that are the commercial brewers so this starts to look like making this free r and d /market testing for them: Get a recipe and marketing schpiel for free.

How are you going to square the scores? If judges say best is x but public dislike for vice-versa is it middle of the road least offensive least disliked that wins (encouraging beers like elevator music nothing to dislike = good score)?

I hope this doesn't seem as rants as it may sound, I opened its a great event. If I could attend and if I could bring beers on the day I'd love to come along but all the above seem to be blocks to this.

Steve

How many entries did you get last year???