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Author Topic: My entries are going to be disqualified  (Read 5746 times)

Offline morticaixavier

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #30 on: February 28, 2014, 08:39:58 am »
Cap is not good evidence cheating. I have 500 or so caps from a fairly well known Northern California brewery. I don't like to waste, so I will use them up before I buy new ones. Sure, I could buy caps specific for comps, but I don't always know if or what will be submitted.

When I started brewing overrun caps were the normal at the LHBS. Is this no longer the case?

I am no expert in competitions but the few I have looked at all require unmarked caps to avoid that problem.

unmarked or with any identifying characters blacked out.
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Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #31 on: February 28, 2014, 09:13:46 am »
The Boston Lager would get dinged as being out of style in cat 1.

Having to fit cleanly into a style the main reason why I have avoided beer competitions like the plague. Boston Lager is one of the beers that got me interested in brewing. The other beer was another contract brew called Old Heurich.

Speaking of contract brews, I remember when Boston Beer was drawing a lot of fire from the amateur brewing community in the nineties for pretending to be a "real deal" microbrewer (Boston Lager was brewed by the Pittsburgh Brewing Company at that point in time).  How did Jim Koch curry favor with the amateur brewing community?  He co-opted it by making a portion Boston Beer's supply of Halltertau Mittlefreuh available to the amateur brewing community and sponsoring Boston Beer's own national-level amateur brewing contest.  I do not recall how much I paid for my Halltertau Mittlefreuh pellets, but I do recall that is was a relatively good deal at the time.
They also got criticized by the other craft brewers. They brewed at several breweries, Pittsburg PA, Rochester NY, Eden NC, Portland OR all appeared on the labels. They now own breweries in Cincinnati and in the Lehigh Valley.

The Longshot competition also includes the Homebrewers. Jim Koch was the keynote speaker at the 2008 NHC in Cincinnatti.
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Offline duboman

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #32 on: February 28, 2014, 09:52:32 am »

Cap is not good evidence cheating. I have 500 or so caps from a fairly well known Northern California brewery. I don't like to waste, so I will use them up before I buy new ones. Sure, I could buy caps specific for comps, but I don't always know if or what will be submitted.

When I started brewing overrun caps were the normal at the LHBS. Is this no longer the case?

I am no expert in competitions but the few I have looked at all require unmarked caps to avoid that problem.
thats why I mentioned recapping but I'm glad to know that if it did happen the entrant was sanctioned.
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Offline Jimmy K

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #33 on: February 28, 2014, 09:58:16 am »
Cap is not good evidence cheating.
Certainly not. It might be a piece of the puzzle, but I don't think anybody would suspect an entry just because of the cap.
 
If I really suspected an entry, it would have to be an identical beer in an identical bottle with the brewery cap. Even then, I'd probably ask a brewery lab to do some analytics on the entry and commercial example. And honestly, it would have to be really egregious for most organizers to go to that effort. I'd rather 10 cheaters get though than wrongfully accuse a homebrewer.
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Offline johnf

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #34 on: February 28, 2014, 09:59:53 am »
I wonder if anyone has ever entered a category 1 in a Sam Adams bottle with a blotted out Sam Adams cap? Would really make you wonder huh? Especially if it was like a 49 point beer...
The Boston Lager would get dinged as being out of style in cat 1.

As would Sam Adams Light, which is essentially Boston Lager Light, but it is humorously listed as a commercial example in 1A.

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #35 on: February 28, 2014, 10:06:04 am »
I wonder if anyone has ever entered a category 1 in a Sam Adams bottle with a blotted out Sam Adams cap? Would really make you wonder huh? Especially if it was like a 49 point beer...
The Boston Lager would get dinged as being out of style in cat 1.

As would Sam Adams Light, which is essentially Boston Lager Light, but it is humorously listed as a commercial example in 1A.
Yeah, that would work.
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Offline Jimmy K

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #36 on: February 28, 2014, 10:15:17 am »
I think the other aspect is that there's fallacy in assuming that a commercial beer, even a classic style example, would automatically win. Condition makes a difference, the commercial beer may not be at peak flavor, and commercial brewers make sacrifices for production reasons that homebrewers don't always have to. It may be a good example and would score well, but it's probably not a perfect example.
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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #37 on: February 28, 2014, 12:56:36 pm »
They also got criticized by the other craft brewers. They brewed at several breweries, Pittsburg PA, Rochester NY, Eden NC, Portland OR all appeared on the labels. They now own breweries in Cincinnati and in the Lehigh Valley.

The Longshot competition also includes the Homebrewers. Jim Koch was the keynote speaker at the 2008 NHC in Cincinnatti.


Boston Beer's Lehigh Valley brewery is the old F. & M. Schaefer brewery near Allentown.  Ownership of that brewery was a revolving door. 

By the way, a homebrewer is an amateur brewer.  The major difference between an advanced homebrewer and a professional brewer is that a professional brewer receives compensation for his/her work.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2014, 02:05:08 pm by S. cerevisiae »

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #38 on: February 28, 2014, 01:26:10 pm »
They also got criticized by the other craft brewers. They brewed at several breweries, Pittsburg PA, Rochester NY, Eden NC, Portland OR all appeared on the labels. They now own breweries in Cincinnati and in the Lehigh Valley.

The Longshot competition also includes the Homebrewers. Jim Koch was the keynote speaker at the 2008 NHC in Cincinnatti.


Boston Beer's Lehigh Valley brewery is the old F.M. Schaeffer brewery near Allentown.  Ownership of that brewery was a revolving door. 

By the way, a homebrewer is an amateur brewer.  The major difference between an advanced homebrewer and a professional brewer is that a professional brewer receives compensation for his/her work.
The reason I said homebrewer was that the Longshot includes one beer from a BBC staff member.
I often say I am a professional amateur brewer, usually with a wink and a nod.

The old Schaefer brewery was built for a 4 million bbl. capacity, but probably never made that. I understand it has different equipment today. The old Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery in Cincinnati needed some upgrades when BBC bought it.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2014, 01:30:35 pm by hopfenundmalz »
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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #39 on: February 28, 2014, 03:28:15 pm »
The old Schaefer brewery was built for a 4 million bbl. capacity, but probably never made that. I understand it has different equipment today. The old Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery in Cincinnati needed some upgrades when BBC bought it.

It was sad to see the Stroh Brewing Company acquire Schaefer.  As you know, Schaefer was one of the brewing companies that pioneered the style that we refer to today as Classic American Pilsner (one of my favorite styles of beer to brew). National Bohemian (a.k.a. Natty Boh) and Schaefer were the two brews that my father and grandfather usually drank when they drank beer.  Another beer that my father drank from time to time was Schmidt's (William Pflaumer’s desire to avoid paying taxes drove the company that Christian Schmidt built into the ground).  The crazy thing is that all of these old East Coast breweries made products that tasted better than Budweiser.  Well, at least we still have Christian's yeast strain* available to us.

*The Christian Schmidt strain (a.k.a., Seibel Bry 118, Wyeast 2272, and Brewtek CL-630)

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #40 on: February 28, 2014, 04:01:16 pm »
The old Schaefer brewery was built for a 4 million bbl. capacity, but probably never made that. I understand it has different equipment today. The old Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery in Cincinnati needed some upgrades when BBC bought it.

It was sad to see the Stroh Brewing Company acquire Schaefer.  As you know, Schaefer was one of the brewing companies that pioneered the style that we refer to today as Classic American Pilsner (one of my favorite styles of beer to brew). National Bohemian (a.k.a. Natty Boh) and Schaefer were the two brews that my father and grandfather usually drank when they drank beer.  Another beer that my father drank from time to time was Schmidt's (William Pflaumer’s desire to avoid paying taxes drove the company that Christian Schmidt built into the ground).  The crazy thing is that all of these old East Coast breweries made products that tasted better than Budweiser.  Well, at least we still have Christian's yeast strain* available to us.

*The Christian Schmidt strain (a.k.a., Seibel Bry 118, Wyeast 2272, and Brewtek CL-630)
The first sip of a CAP I had from Jeff Renner at a club meeting instantly transported me back to the time when I would steal sips of beer when I was a little kid.

I brew a CAP every year. Most are surprised it is made with 6row, corn meal, and cluster hops, finished with a noble hop. I am partial to WLP 833, the Ayinger Strain, but might do a split batch some day with the Schmidt's strain to see how it does. I do remember Schmidt's to be pretty good.
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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #41 on: February 28, 2014, 08:17:55 pm »
One of my entries is a CAP.  However, it pushes the boundaries of the style.   I used domestic 2-row, flaked maize, and a single decoction mash instead of using 6-row, corn grits, and a double mash,.  I used Liberty for my bittering and knockout additions.  The batch was fermented with an interesting old American lager yeast strain that I dug out of a culture collection.   The strain behaves much like a more attenuative Christian Schmidt.

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #42 on: February 28, 2014, 09:32:06 pm »
I think the other aspect is that there's fallacy in assuming that a commercial beer, even a classic style example, would automatically win. Condition makes a difference, the commercial beer may not be at peak flavor, and commercial brewers make sacrifices for production reasons that homebrewers don't always have to. It may be a good example and would score well, but it's probably not a perfect example.

This is the reply I was fishing for. If my brew is any hint of what others are brewing, I have no doubt that the best beers are home brewed. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying my (fill in the blank) is better that any commercial example. I'm saying that if a moron rookie like me can do what I do, then in a nationwide contest with 700 entries in one class, a decent commercial example would be lucky to get honorable mention.

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #43 on: March 01, 2014, 06:04:48 am »
I think the other aspect is that there's fallacy in assuming that a commercial beer, even a classic style example, would automatically win. Condition makes a difference, the commercial beer may not be at peak flavor, and commercial brewers make sacrifices for production reasons that homebrewers don't always have to. It may be a good example and would score well, but it's probably not a perfect example.

This is the reply I was fishing for. If my brew is any hint of what others are brewing, I have no doubt that the best beers are home brewed. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying my (fill in the blank) is better that any commercial example. I'm saying that if a moron rookie like me can do what I do, then in a nationwide contest with 700 entries in one class, a decent commercial example would be lucky to get honorable mention.
Read the Commercial Calibration reviews in Zymurgy to see how the high ranking judges rate commercial beers.
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Offline ynotbrusum

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Re: My entries are going to be disqualified
« Reply #44 on: March 01, 2014, 08:02:14 am »
I think the other aspect is that there's fallacy in assuming that a commercial beer, even a classic style example, would automatically win. Condition makes a difference, the commercial beer may not be at peak flavor, and commercial brewers make sacrifices for production reasons that homebrewers don't always have to. It may be a good example and would score well, but it's probably not a perfect example.

This is the reply I was fishing for. If my brew is any hint of what others are brewing, I have no doubt that the best beers are home brewed. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying my (fill in the blank) is better that any commercial example. I'm saying that if a moron rookie like me can do what I do, then in a nationwide contest with 700 entries in one class, a decent commercial example would be lucky to get honorable mention.
Read the Commercial Calibration reviews in Zymurgy to see how the high ranking judges rate commercial beers.

I have read them with increased interest.  I always wonder if one or more of the judges get a beer that might have been aged, mishandled or simply from a different batch, given some of the comments.  Also, it is interesting that while the analytics are the same, some characteristic is more highly approved by one judge as compared to others.  Finally, the scores are interesting from an averaging perspective - one judge may be typically a few points lower on average than the others.  Not criticizing at all, but I have noticed the subtle human aspect that comes with judging something as ephemeral as a beer experience!
« Last Edit: March 01, 2014, 08:07:23 am by ynotbrusum »
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