Steve - thank you...that's basically the dilemma we see also. We've had some...some..."interesting" beers served by club members at events in the recent past. But they were so into it, that we didn't want to crush their enthusiasm and cause hurt feelings/embarrassment by pulling the keg. While they received some honest feedback after the event to help them improve, the beer was still served at the event. It was painful to see some of the faces of people that tasted it.
We saw that at NHC this year too. While there were some really great home brews served, there were some pretty mediocre beers (which is to be expected...you get that with pros too). There were some pretty bad ones, and there was a couple of totally undrinkable ones, which we were kind of surprised at.
My sweet little wifey never cusses except once in a while to be funny/for effect, or when she is truly really mad and is ready to bring her German out. When she had one of those really bad ones, she let out a crowd stopping expletive followed by the question, "did anyone taste that before they tapped it???" While some laughed, she also got a few "I know...we were thinking the same thing".
While I don't want to do this whole tasting panel thing that is going to surely cause hard feelings, and I don't want to see us squelch anyone's enthusiasm, I also don't want our club to serve bad beer.