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Author Topic: Exploring the "one entry per subcategory per brewer" limit  (Read 6102 times)

Offline smkranz

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Exploring the "one entry per subcategory per brewer" limit
« on: June 01, 2012, 04:53:45 am »
As a competition organizer, I tend to track the AHA's rules for the NHC, which includes a limit of one entry per brewer per subcategory.  The question has been asked of me why that limit is in place, and frankly I'm not able to come up with great-sounding answers.

I suppose the limit is in place to either somehow discourage cheating, or to discourage one brewer from monopolizing the category prizes, or...I dunno.  We could include a rule that says the *same* beer may only be entered once in a given subcategory.

If a brewer has two different Dry Stouts, or two different Wood Aged Beers, or even two different Fruit Beers using the same base beer but different fruits, or whatever else, it seems to me that he or she should be able to enter both of them in the same correct subcategory, rather than having to pick only one to enter.

I'm thinking of allowing brewers to enter as many beers in whatever subcategories they want, and if anyone has experience with any problems this has caused in the past, I would appreciate any feedback.

Thanks in advance.
Steve K.
BJCP Beer & Mead Certified
Midnight Homebrewers' League
http://www.midnighthomebrewers.org

Offline dbeechum

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Re: Exploring the "one entry per subcategory per brewer" limit
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2012, 09:22:57 am »
I do believe the intent of the rule is to prevent category flooding.

Now having said that for the Falcons Doug King Memorial Comp we actually lift the "one per sub" for all the speciality categories and replace it with a "3 per sub". Again, preventing flooding, but still letting someone have multiple shots. Your mileage may vary in a general comp as the DKM is a restricted style comp.
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Offline smkranz

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Re: Exploring the "one entry per subcategory per brewer" limit
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2012, 06:20:39 pm »
Thanks for the feedback, that sounds like a reasonable and workable solution.
Steve K.
BJCP Beer & Mead Certified
Midnight Homebrewers' League
http://www.midnighthomebrewers.org

Offline Bruce B

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Re: Exploring the "one entry per subcategory per brewer" limit
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2012, 11:21:28 pm »
Hi Steve,

This is how we word it for our competition.
http://midwinterhbc.beerbarons.org/index.php?section=rules

We take this approach to resist the category flooding that Drew mentioned but still allow those to enter multiples in the speciality categories.

Our club also runs an all German style competition and we take pretty much the same approach with that one as well.
http://germanfesthbc.beerbarons.org/index.php?section=rules
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