Messages

46

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 05, 2013, 11:14:19 AM »

few more stats from last year:

Only categories swept by first round gold winners were Fruit Beer and S/H/V.  Maybe Cat 18 too but the first round page for Chicago is broken so can't check.

Multiple categories had no Gold Medal first round winners.  Both Stout and American Ale were swept by beers judged as the second best in the first round.  Cat 3 finished S,B,B and Cat 5 finished B,S,B.

of the 27 categories I can see, 13 categories were won by first round gold winners, 9 by silvers, and 5 were won by bronze winners. 

of 84 Final Round medals, the total winning first round gold appears to be in the low 30's.

...I cannot come to any conclusion other than that we need to try keep allowing the top 3 to advance.

47

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 05, 2013, 10:00:22 AM »

yeah, scratch some of what I said.

Just looking briefly at a few categories for 2012:
Gold medal Cat 24 was Silver in its First Round region.
St Paul swept Cat 26; those guys are awesome and it wouldn't really be fair for Steve Fletty to have gone home without the Silver and Bronze medals.
The eventual Gold and Silver medals in Cat 3 were Silver and Bronze in the first round.

there are many other examples.  It is clear that the first round is more about access than accolades.  I hope NHC judges are really sure of those decisions on 3rd/4th place in the first round...

cheers--
--Michael

48

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 05, 2013, 09:37:37 AM »

Tough luck silver/bronze; do better next year. 

Isn't conceivable (Wallace Shawn voice inserted) that a silver and bronze in one region could be a better beer than all the golds in the other regions?

absolutely, and it has happened, but we have to cut it off somewhere.  I don't think anyone wants three rounds, and we have desire to grow the first round beyond 8250 and a limit on how big the Final Round can be.  Something has to give.  As stated elsewhere who is to say that 4th place is not the best in the Final Round?  If we have twice as many first round regions and invite G/S/B from each, we still have to organize twice as many Final Round entries as now.  We have to treat them as if the bottles would be opened, but with tmsnyder's suggestion we wouldn't open the majority of entries.  It's a lot of work for beer that isn't going to leave the box.  On the plus side of his suggestion only Gold would have to send in more than 1 bottle, and no one more than two, to the Final Round.
Obviously if there were a perfect solution it would have already been suggested.    

cheers--
--Michael

49

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 05, 2013, 09:08:05 AM »

interesting concept. 
Many including me have suggested that only first and second or only first place First Round beers advance to the Final Round, and your idea does avoid the problem of 2nd/3rd best in a region also being 2nd/3rd best in Final Round and missing out.
What I think would happen is few silver first round medalists would bother to ship their entries to the second round knowing there was only a 9% chance their beer would even be opened, and couldn't get higher than Silver.  Bronze would be even more sparsely represented.

But I do not see a way around it.  The interest in the first round competition is larger than we can accomodate (does anyone doubt that if we can fill 11 regions in an hour or so that we could easily fill twice that?), and with a Conference that sells out in 24 hours only so many judges can make it there.  Maybe we get hundreds of new high ranked judges but the problem now is access more than willingness to help IMO.

Personally I'd drop the limit to 10 entries, have site pre-registration before entry registration, let volunteers from the previous year register a day early, raise the number of first round regions to whatever Janis can support and retain sanity, and only allow gold medal First Round beers to advance.  Tough luck silver/bronze; do better next year.  I'd like to have a way to reward the current year's volunteers with access but we'd have the problem of someone not showing up to judging and having some ugly penalty system.

I'd also consider a pre-registration day where every AHA member had a shot at entering one beer...if the competition fills up before everyone has a chance, too bad.  If not, the following day it opens to everyone to enter more beers and to non-members.

Incidently tmsnyder, did you get registered into the system a week ago?  I know you didn't get beers in.  I keep hearing of e-mails to those that registered but were caught in the gridlock being allowed to fill up the remainder of the competition spots.  Just curious.

cheers--
--Michael

50

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Catagory Help Please

« on: March 04, 2013, 10:43:04 AM »

sounds delicious...

send me a bottle (I'll pay for shipping!) and I'll tell you where to categorize it, or whether to just send me the rest!   

51

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 04, 2013, 10:04:49 AM »

just last year I drove 180 miles to KC, 180 to Tulsa, 500 (twice) to Denver/Fort Collins, and even 800 miles to Milwaukee to judge.  Dallas, 5 hour drive? - I've done it.  Brewers Cup in Indy, 700 miles? - I've done it.  And of course, I've still got to drive home, pay for hotels, etc.

Some people like to judge.  Very rarely to I have my own beer in said comp. 
"proper incentive" varies from person to person, wouldn't you say?

As a judge, why would anyone voluntarily give up a whole Saturday and/or Sunday, potentially drive a couple hundred miles, to judge a bunch of beers when he or she couldn't get their entries in before the cap kicked in?

If the judges had the proper incentives, you could hold the competition without artificially imposed limits on entry numbers.  If you had the proper incentives, you'd get more brewers becoming judges. 
 

52

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 04, 2013, 06:47:47 AM »

just fyi, and I apologize for speaking for Amanda, but she is talking about the budget for THIS year. 

my original point is that it appears the budget is bigger than in previous years...

53

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 04, 2013, 06:44:43 AM »

I was at my computer entering beers exactly on time.  Then the system took a dump.  That is my fault how?   Then the info from AHA was that they were working on it so I waited. It never said "all clear, go ahead and enter". Then all the sites were booked full.  WTH?

I still do not think this is correct.  Ohio, NY, and SD had 400+ excess entries, but it appears they have been moved to Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Seattle.  Now there are only 4 regions with a total of 30 excess entries.  5 regions, ranging from Seattle with 60 to Tulsa with 356, are still shown as having spots available.  Total spots available, again if you believe the web site, went up by about 180, to 1010.  Not everone will choose to ship when they planned to drop off at the local region.

There are already 31% more people registered than last year.  If the numbers are correct, and if when reopened the current average of 3.18 entries per person holds, we'll end up with about 49% more people entered in this competition than ever before.  For a competition that is growing by about 5% entries, that is pretty damn good.

I'd like to see something from the AHA confirming that yes, there are spots still available and when they finish sorting out the events of last week they will re-open this competition...

cheers--
--Michael

54

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 03, 2013, 12:53:27 PM »

from the rule changes:

6. Entry fee increase of an additional $2 per entry. The additional revenue generated from this fee increase will fund enhancements to support first round judge centers that are intended improve the judging experience.

*****

Complaining about things from past years isn't really fair.  The AHA listened, and changes have been made.  I would suggest that those talking about things like First Round sites not being given enough money to feed judges simply wait a couple months and give the changes a chance... 

as for the competition itself, I think people like Tom have covered the difficulties well enough on previous pages and previous threads. 

And if there is a group that thinks they can handle an NHC first round site, I would suggest they go to Janis, not wait for her to come to them.  The FOAM club down in Tulsa did, and now they have a regional.

cheers--
--Michael

55

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 01, 2013, 11:18:16 AM »

This. But it's also the problem that waiting lists to get into BJCP exams and classes here in OK are measured in years.

If you are willing to host one, i'll help you set it up  PM me

Fred

if I knew I could get an exam by the end of the year I could fill it up within a week IMO.  I'm willing to be a Proctor but the next closest National judge is 165 miles away.  I'm sure I could get someone from KC/Tulsa to make the drive, but I haven't seen the point when 90% of interest in BJCP dies when I tell people the wait period...

cheers--
--Michael

56

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: March 01, 2013, 08:35:26 AM »

I can't find the answer to this question anywhere, may as well ask here... Are we sure that this competition is full? I've been checking back every hour or so, but there hasn't been an official update in 2 days.

If we trust the numbers shown on the sites for the 11 regions, 7400+ entries are shown in the system.  90% full.  At the rate it was going on Tueday it would have been full within a very short time.  Having more than 8250 entries in the system would have been a disaster, as who do you pick to kick out?  They shut it down and can work on moving entries from overcrowded regions before worrying about filling that last 10%.  I imagine a few will refuse to ship, having planned to drop off at the local comp, and a few additional spaces will open up.  But I would be shocked if there are more than 1000 spots left when re-opened, again assuming the 7400+ number is correct.

57

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: February 28, 2013, 08:19:52 AM »

Was there problems registering for the competition last year?  I got my 4 entries in no problem and then remember watching the site to see how fast they filled up.  Not as fast as this year, but pretty quickly.  I just don't remember any issues with the comp registration, hotel, or conference.

here's a thread from last year.
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=11258.0

here's one of several threads from earlier this year on conference registration
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=14662.0

here's a thread on GABF troubles
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=12908.0

and here's a comment from you on conference registration last year:
"...Obviously the servers are overloaded but it will eventually go through.  It felt like I was trying to get Buffett tickets."   

by comparison to this year, last year does seem like a walk in the park, but last year did surprise many people.  I got multiple e-mails from coworkers a year ago asking if I wanted to go in together for shipping our entries and had to tell them it was already full.  Not everyone lives on the AHA forum, or at least so I'm told.
The AHA is a victim of its own Awesomeness.   

58

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: February 27, 2013, 09:05:59 PM »

The system errors that occurred yesterday are unfortunate. They came unexpectedly and quickly without enough time to make the appropriate adjustments. The AHA is holding meetings to remedy/rectify the immediate situation and the GC will convene for continued discussions on this issue, as well as a stategy to successfully move forward.

I am grateful for all the work that the AHA does, but I don't think I was alone in not being surprised with how yesterday went.  Sorry to pile on, and it really isn't about the AHA but rather the trouble with any major beer event where tickets go on sale at a certain time.  There's a lot of us thirsty beer lovers out there.  It'll take like 37 minutes to sell out GABF the way things have been going, that is, if we don't crash the system.
cheers--
--michael

59

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: February 27, 2013, 03:17:17 PM »

The two years I was the organizer up here I heard the same type of stories from many of our BJCP judges in the area. They didn't have a beer in the contest so they didn't feel the need to give back.

I'm speechless about that kind of attitude.

+503

60

Events / Re: NHC 2013 Entry Problems - Possible Solutions?

« on: February 27, 2013, 01:43:51 PM »

3) Washington and Oregon get split up into their own regions. We're tired of our members and fellow homebrewers not being able to enter the competition because our region fills up so fast. If these people don't enter, then there's no motivation for them to show up to judge and we spend weeks and weeks begging for people to come judge.

you lost me here...they're not judging their own beer, so what motivation is there?