[mfoster75]

Hey all...

I just entered my first competition, and it was the NHC. I have checked the website, and saw that I didn't advance... I'm absolutely fine with that (as if I'd have a choice, right?), but what I really want is my scorecard... Having never seen one before, and not having received mine yet, what can I expect to see?

I've seen that the max score in my region for my category was 40, and the minimum was 18... What does this mean to me?

Thanks for all your help!

[Janis]

Hey all...

I just entered my first competition, and it was the NHC. I have checked the website, and saw that I didn't advance... I'm absolutely fine with that (as if I'd have a choice, right?), but what I really want is my scorecard... Having never seen one before, and not having received mine yet, what can I expect to see?

I've seen that the max score in my region for my category was 40, and the minimum was 18... What does this mean to me?

Thanks for all your help!

Hi M Foster,

Thanks for entering the 2010 National Homebrew Competition!  This year we had a record 6,281 entries submitted by a record 1,598 homebrewers!

As far as I know, all of the regions have mailed their score sheets to the entrants except for the Northeast Region which is planning to send them this weekend (May 8th).  When you get your score sheets, there will be a cover sheet with instructions and explanation about the score sheets.  You can find this form on the Beer Judge Certification Program web site (www.bjcp.org).  The actual score sheets will hopefully have a good description of your entry, with helpful information about ways you could make your beer even better.  Your score is listed on the cover sheet, and it is usually an average of the scores on the individual score sheets.

The max of 40 and min of 18 in the category is simply the highest scoring and lowest scoring entry in the category.  Because the number of entries in each category and in every region was typically greater than 10 entries, most categories needed to have multiple flights of entries judged by different sets of judges.  When this happens, the category must have a mini-Best-of-Show (BOS) to determine the category winners.  The judges in the flights will fill out the score sheets and decide on the entry score.  Entries scoring more than 30 are fitted with stoppers to preserve the quality of the entry for the mini-BOS.  When the flights have all been judged, each flight pushes their top 3 scoring entries to the mini-BOS.  The highest ranking judge from each flight participates in the mini-BOS.  During the mini-BOS the judges evaluate each entry on its own merits (without regard to the score) to pick the three that best exemplify the style, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place are consensus choices.  This method can be confusing to some people who aren't familiar with it, because it often happens that the highest scoring entry doesn't win 1st and may not place at all.  When you get your score sheets there is a box on the cover sheet to tell you if your entry was pushed to the mini-BOS.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
   Janis

Janis Gross
National Homebrew Competition Director
AHA Project Coordinator
janis@brewersassociation.org