home brew competioion

[pwoolley]

Needing help in setting up a competition of local home brewers in the Waukesha County Wisconsin.

Any suggestions will help me setting up the competition.  Is it legal to charge an admission fee for the general public.  We would have food and entertainment but want to offer local home brewers a platform of competition with trophies and other types of awards.

How much time needed for brewer's to be able to respond.

Thank you I look forward to your input

Perry Woolley
Mukwonago WI

[Wilbur]

I'm in the middle of organizing my first competition, it's been a lot of fun/work. I left the registration open for about 6 weeks, but I only intended on getting about ~15 people competing. For the other part, you should probably read through the legalese below. I skimmed it, and it seems similar to Illinois-you can charge an entry fee, but you can't charge for the homebrew.

For legal aspects, here's an excerpt from the AHA:
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrewing-rights/statutes/wisconsin/

125.06  License and permit exceptions. No license or permit is required under this chapter for:
(3m) The use of homemade wine or fermented malt beverages for competitions or exhibitions or similar purposes. (a) The use of homemade wine or fermented malt beverages made in compliance with the limitations specified in sub. (3) (a) for purposes of exhibition, demonstration, judging, tasting, or sampling or as part of a contest or competition, if the exhibition, demonstration, judging, tasting, sampling, contest, or competition is held at a private residence or on a licensed premises. Homemade wine or fermented malt beverages used for purposes described in this paragraph, including the submission or consumption of such wine or fermented malt beverages, are not considered sold or offered for sale under sub. (3) (a) 2. and any prize awarded at a contest or competition or as a result of an exhibition, demonstration, judging, tasting, or sampling is not considered compensation under sub. (3) (a) 1., but no fee may be charged for consumption of the homemade wine or fermented malt beverages at the exhibition, demonstration, judging, tasting, sampling, contest, or competition.
(b) Notwithstanding ss. 125.14 (5), 125.315, 125.32 (6) (a), 125.34 (2) and (5), and 125.67, a person who is not a licensee under this chapter may at a private residence, and a person who is a licensee under this chapter may on the licensed premises, conduct, sponsor, or host a contest, competition, or other event for the exhibition, demonstration, judging, tasting, or sampling of homemade wine or fermented malt beverages made in compliance with the limitations specified in sub. (3) (a) if the person does not sell the wine or fermented malt beverages and, unless the person is the maker of the wine or fermented malt beverages, does not acquire any ownership interest in the wine or fermented malt beverages. No fee may be charged for consumption of homemade wine or fermented malt beverages at the contest, competition, or other event. If the contest, competition, or other event is held on licensed premises, the licensee may allow the homemade wine or fermented malt beverages to be stored on the premises if the homemade wine or fermented malt beverages are clearly identified and kept separate from any alcohol beverages owned by the licensee. If the contest, competition, or other event is held on licensed premises, the provisions of ss. 125.32 (7) and 125.68 (9) (e) do not apply with respect to the homemade wine or fermented malt beverages. If the contest, competition, or other event is held on licensed premises, the licensee shall comply with all provisions of this chapter and local ordinances that would apply if the fermented malt beverages or wine were not homemade, except those provisions made specifically inapplicable under this paragraph.


It also looks like homebrew can be stored at the premise provided it's clearly labelled and separate from the other wares at the bar/brewery that it's being hosted at.

[smkranz]

Needing help in setting up a competition of local home brewers in the Waukesha County Wisconsin.

Any suggestions will help me setting up the competition.  Is it legal to charge an admission fee for the general public.  We would have food and entertainment but want to offer local home brewers a platform of competition with trophies and other types of awards.

How much time needed for brewer's to be able to respond.

Thank you I look forward to your input

Perry Woolley
Mukwonago WI

(There is a competition sub-forum here: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?board=23.0 )

What is your goal...are you a homebrewer, or a club, or a business trying to create an event to generate income?

Our club's competition will be 10 years old this year (two weeks from now), and is held in conjunction with the Maryland Microbrewery Festival, which is organized and hosted by a separate organization and which invites our participation.  The festival charges admission, but the judging is done in a closed building out of the public eye.

It requires a handful of people and good cat-herding skills.  We have an Organizer (me), a Head Judge, a Head Steward, a Registrar, and a Cellar Master.  And that's just for the beer part...we also have a food committee made up of several Spousal Units who prepare a bunch of breakfast dishes for the approximately 30-35 Judges, Stewards, and staff who are needed on judging day.

We charge entrants $8 per entry, and judge about 100 entries on the morning of the festival.  That requires a minimum of 20 judges (two judges per entry, assuming an average of 10 beers per flight/pair of judges), and pretty much takes up a full morning judging session.  Then we do Best of Show in the afternoon.  Our club has experienced homebrewers who are not BJCP Judges but serve as judges and whom we pair with ranked Judges, and we also get several area professional brewers to help with judging.  So at least one BJCP Judge or professional brewer per entry.

If you are planning a legit competition with BJCP judges, so that entrants get proper feedback, and judges get credit for their efforts, go to bjcp.org where you will find documents about how to run a competition.  If/when you register your competition with the BJCP, you will receive spreadsheets of all active BJCP judges, and provisional judges, so you can solicit judges for your competition.

6-8 weeks' notice for registrants is fairly standard.  We *always* experience a very annoying circumstance where people register for the competition, and take up entry slots, but never complete or submit their entries.  So, we account for that by setting the software to accept a few more registrations than we would actually prefer, knowing there will be no-shows.

Depending on who/what you are and what your goals are, I would suggest that you *not* plan on making money on a homebrew competition.  Judges pretty much expect breakfast and lunch.  Entrants expect prizes and/or ribbons.  You'll also have expenses for tasting cups, printing for score sheets, flight sheets, cover sheets, bottled water, crackers or bread, publicity, registration software (we pay for hosted brew competition service), etc.  If you get Sponsors to donate prizes, food, etc., then you can actually come out ahead.

I'm pretty sure that the general public around here would *not* pay to attend a stand-alone homebrew competition, unless they got to drink beer for their entry fee.  Entertainment...hmmm...most judges want to be away from noise and distractions while they're doing their thing.  I've judged at State Fairs which are in public or semi-public settings, and while that can be entertaining for a little while, it's not a great idea, it's distracting and can slow things way down.

[dmtaylor]

Get thee to a Beer Barons meeting.

http://beerbarons.org/

[Wilbur]

Depending on who/what you are and what your goals are, I would suggest that you *not* plan on making money on a homebrew competition.  Judges pretty much expect breakfast and lunch.  Entrants expect prizes and/or ribbons.  You'll also have expenses for tasting cups, printing for score sheets, flight sheets, cover sheets, bottled water, crackers or bread, publicity, registration software (we pay for hosted brew competition service), etc.  If you get Sponsors to donate prizes, food, etc., then you can actually come out ahead.

I concur on the "making money" part, if your competition is going to be small, the BJCP fee ($30/comp, doesn't include registration, etc.) may eat up a good chunk of your entry money. Google forms worked pretty well for getting entry information, and was free. Sponsorships are surprisingly not hard to get, Craftmeister and the AHA threw some swag my way. Craftmeister I heard about from the excellent Experimental Brewing podcast, when they talked to Jonathan from Craftmeister at NHC. Both the AHA and Craftmeister were exceedingly generous, and very quick to respond. (Thanks Matt and Jonathan!)