NHC First Round Results

You know faster if you judge at the region you entered.

I know that I struck out. Two beers at 40.5, and did not advance. Always next year.

 

What categories?

 

My club got 8 through, out of about 25. Nice!

 

APA placed second in Kansas City, so went 1/3. Judges were spot on with my beers. I submitted a hoppy as balls American amber and was told it would have scored 40+ as an IPA by both judges , whoops.

 

I'm still waiting for St Paul to put up their results, though i know they judged over the weekend so hopefully it'll be done by friday.

 

5c Doppelbock
9e Strong Scotch Ale

 

annoying amount of unused entry slots so far. 574, 592, 686 and 724 entries in the 4 regions so far released.

 

I was surprised by the number of entries, too, but the numbers may not be totally accurate at this point.

 

No, those should be accurate, as those are what arrived and were judged. At Zanesville they were under too, but not by as much as those published.

There were many more entrants this year. Many were probably first time in the NHC. It would not be a stretch to say many were entering their first competition. They paid the entry fee, then other things happened. The beer may have not been ready or packaged in time. Shipping was either too intimidating or expensive. They got cold feet.

At appears $15 an entry did not discourage some people, who entered, payed, and then dropped the ball.

 

Anyone get their scoresheets from Zanesville yet?

Saw that they were mailing them over the weekend, seems like they would have arrived by now.

 

now I'm not saying we should enact WBC $160/entry fees, but I like the schedule the World Beer Cup used.


October 30, 2013 Brewery Application Deadline. Online application form will be available on or before October 17, 2013. Non-refundable application fee of $160 must be paid at time of brewery registration.
November 6 – 19, 2013 Beer Registration window for registered breweries.
March3 –7, 2014 All competition entries must be received in Denver, Colorado.
April 7 – 8, 2014 Competition judging takes place in Denver, Colorado, USA prior to the Craft Brewers Conference.


...register months ahead of time. Plenty of time to brew. I thought people would prepare for NHC but I've talked to quite a few who didn't bother to brew before they knew if they had any entries. (and from the relatively poor quality of the average beer I judged, I believe it.)

 

What was the cut-off? cause that sounds pretty good to me...

 

Wow, thats a really high score though. What kind of scores do advance in NHC? I would imagine it is style dependent to an extent based off of how many enter the category, probably easier to advance with a Biere de Garde in category 16D as opposed to an American IPA in category 14B, eh?

 

Category 16 is a tough one, too. There are tons of Belgians sent in. You don't just compete against your sub-category, but against the whole group (5 in the case of 16).

 

I posted this on the AHA forum, so might as well post it here. I know at least another one of you has seen it since he has the same userid on both.

Here is a spreadsheet that I put together that has all of the entries for each site based on the results page found on the AHA website. Gives you some insight on how many entries per site and category.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AJplFF61UGsXaSZWQpqlOI1ZGVnf_LXk_5RMR2vfpmk/edit?usp=sharing

 

There is no cutoff. well, there sort of is a cutoff - the minimum of 30 pts to advance.
with small categories one team of judges is likely doing all the judging, in which case the top 3 scores will almost always advance. However in larger categories requiring two or more teams of judges - and in this contest almost every category needs more than one - the 2nd bottle that was sent will be used to do a mini-BOS among the best beers from each team. mini-BOS in a lager category might involve two teams and 4-6 beers. mini-BOS in NHC IPA might involve several teams and almost 20 beers.

And since scores vary among judges, sometimes the top score doesn't advance.

 

I have advanced with 40 point beers, and a little less before. The style and judging site will have some influence. The competition seems to get more competitive each year.