2013 NHC first round results?

osagedr said:

Still waiting on scoresheets from St. Paul. I guess they dispatched a three-legged blind donkey up here to Soviet Canuckistan with the results.

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Well the donkey showed up today; a little tired and frostbitten. On an unrelated note we will be having donkey stew a lot over the next little while.

No clear indication of whether anything will advance. 41.5 for my doppelbock and 40 for my eisbock were the only really decent scores. Scores of 37 for each of my rauchbier, schwarzbier, and Oktoberfest and 35.5 for my IIPA which apparently was worthy of an honourable mention. Apparently a 33.5 for my APA was enough to advance to mini-BOS.

My lowest score was a 23 for a Dort that has won a gold this year in a good competition; I drank one last night and really liked it. The judges comments indicate that it was enjoyable but not to style. I'll have to think more about water and grain bill for that one.

Biggest surprise was a 28 for a Bohemian pilsner that just won BOS at a tough competition. I wonder if it was a bad bottle given the judges' comments.

Looking at the scores and comments it wouldn't surprise me if nothing went to the second round, although hopefully one or two will make it through!

congrats on the 'bocks, nice scores!

sweetcell said:

congrats on the 'bocks, nice scores!

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Thanks man. They've been a force in competitions so far this year. The doppel is three-for-three winning its category and the eis has a silver and a bronze. Credit "Designing Great Beers" by Daniels and "Bock" by Richman for recipe formulation.

ballewblake said:

Not yet, we judged last weekend. It wasn't the best run comp I've been too/judged. I'd be surprised if they get mailed out before the end of the month.

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This is so sad to hear, this not being the best run that is. You spend all that time and money brewing and delivering your beer only to find this out.

Josh

Got my San Diego scores in today. Kolsch 37 (1st), German Pils 27, North German Alt 35, ESB 36.5 (advanced, but didn't place), Biere de Garde 36 (1st), Fruit Beer 38 (3rd)

3 going onto the second round is excellent. Well done!

pensphreak said:

Got my San Diego scores in today. Kolsch 37 (1st), German Pils 27, North German Alt 35, ESB 36.5 (advanced, but didn't place), Biere de Garde 36 (1st), Fruit Beer 38 (3rd)

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Nice work!

AAAAAAAAHHHHHH post the results, PLEASE! haha

Sounds like we won't be seeing results for quite some time. Just saw this on the coordinator's fb page.

"Continuing to process the results from the National Homebrew Competition; 7 done, 4 to go! #homebrew"
"It depends on everything else that I have to do in addition to the results, but we should be able to post them sooner than normal (normal is the Friday before Big Brew)."


So I can stop checking every hour or so now and get on with my life.

jwible204 said:

So I can stop checking every hour or so now and get on with my life.

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Bah!
I think I've gotten less done at work this week than I do during the first two days of the NCAA basketball tournament.

I'm not being a jerk, because I really don't know, but what is there to "process"? Do they keep track of all of the results for every entry? Do they doublecheck all scores? I thought it would just be a matter of posting the top 3 for each region, then start working on mailing out ribbons, certificates, etc. after that was done.

StoneHands said:

Bah!
I think I've gotten less done at work this week than I do during the first two days of the NCAA basketball tournament.

I'm not being a jerk, because I really don't know, but what is there to "process"? Do they keep track of all of the results for every entry? Do they doublecheck all scores? I thought it would just be a matter of posting the top 3 for each region, then start working on mailing out ribbons, certificates, etc. after that was done.

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I hear ya there, I'm embarrassed to admit how often I check the website for results.

I really don't know what takes so long. As I said in a previous post, pretty much every comp I've entered gets the winners posted online the same day or day after. Then they go through the process of mailing out stuff, but that almost always happens the same week. I should add, some of those comps have been 700-1000 entries strong, so no small task.

I had hoped the AHA would be as or more efficient. I do understand the need to verify things, but considering 95% of the work is done by the regional coordinator, it shouldn't take but a few hours to post all of the winners.

Also, something odd is going on with my Region, 8. I can't log in to the website as of this morning. I guess they might be updating the DB with scores and don't want people logging in.

jwible204 said:

Sounds like we won't be seeing results for quite some time. Just saw this on the coordinator's fb page.

"Continuing to process the results from the National Homebrew Competition; 7 done, 4 to go! #homebrew"
"It depends on everything else that I have to do in addition to the results, but we should be able to post them sooner than normal (normal is the Friday before Big Brew)."


So I can stop checking every hour or so now and get on with my life.

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This frustrates me, as I can't imagine uploading the winners of each region off of the sheets that the regional event coordinators submit takes more than a few hours. I imagine the delay is because they are processing ALL the scores, not just the 1st round winners, and are putting together the certificates (gold, silver, bronze depending on your scores). I realize that the reason for holding back the results was to prevent an "unfair" advantage but at this point with score sheets coming in and inconsistencies throughout the competition, several people on this thread know if their beers have moved while others do not.

As long as they meet their announced date, there really shouldn't be anything to complain about (well, other than some regions releasing places and others not).

If they miss the deadline like they did two years ago, then we can get out the tar & fearhers, pichforks and torches.

Darwin18 said:

This frustrates me, as I can't imagine uploading the winners of each region off of the sheets that the regional event coordinators submit takes more than a few hours. I imagine the delay is because they are processing ALL the scores, not just the 1st round winners, and are putting together the certificates (gold, silver, bronze depending on your scores). I realize that the reason for holding back the results was to prevent an "unfair" advantage but at this point with score sheets coming in and inconsistencies throughout the competition, several people on this thread know if their beers have moved while others do not.

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I feel like a jerk for bitching about this stuff, but I haven't had great experiences with anything directly involving them. The registration for the Conference was a disaster with the online signup having issues, registration for the competition was a complete disaster and now this. I'm not angry that the results aren't out, they stated on or before May 4th, but there's so much confusion/disorganization with some centers releasing results entirely (seattle) and then others getting feedback and then others getting nothing.

Darwin18 said:

This frustrates me, as I can't imagine uploading the winners of each region off of the sheets that the regional event coordinators submit takes more than a few hours. I imagine the delay is because they are processing ALL the scores, not just the 1st round winners, and are putting together the certificates (gold, silver, bronze depending on your scores). I realize that the reason for holding back the results was to prevent an "unfair" advantage but at this point with score sheets coming in and inconsistencies throughout the competition, several people on this thread know if their beers have moved while others do not.

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I don't understand why the national-level folks would need to process ANY scores. There are three places in each category, so we are talking about a list of 84 names (including ciders & meads) from each regional competition. Scores aren't used to determine placement, so why would they need them?

I did the IT for a local competition here, and it took me all of a couple hours to get that data entered and verified, as well as write up some HTML and find/create appropriate images for each of the category sponsors to put on the web page, and that was all done manually. It was my understanding that the whole point of using that obnoxious competition software was that it handles this kind of thing for you automatically. Obviously you'd want to verify each one manually, but that is not an arduous task IMO.

weirdboy said:

I don't understand why the national-level folks would need to process ANY scores. There are three places in each category, so we are talking about a list of 84 names (including ciders & meads) from each regional competition. Scores aren't used to determine placement, so why would they need them?

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From the AHA website here:

http://www.homebrewersassociation.o...ew-competition/competition-information/awards

"First Round Award Certificates
Gold Certificate Earned by entries scoring 38 to 50 points in the NHC First Round.
Silver Certificate Earned by entries scoring 30 to 37 points in the NHC First Round.
Bronze Certificate Earned by entries scoring 25 to 29 points in the NHC First Round.

Certificates are awarded separately from the ribbons and DO NOT indicate winning first, second or third place within a category or advancement to the Final Round."

I would imagine that they need to verify each score, print out a certificate, and then mail them out. They're probably trying to do that now because they're probably going to have several thousand to send out.

I did the IT for a local competition here, and it took me all of a couple hours to get that data entered and verified, as well as write up some HTML and find/create appropriate images for each of the category sponsors to put on the web page, and that was all done manually. It was my understanding that the whole point of using that obnoxious competition software was that it handles this kind of thing for you automatically. Obviously you'd want to verify each one manually, but that is not an arduous task IMO.

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At $17 an entry (for non-AHA members) what did you expect? That's probably why I'm complaining. The entry fees were so high that my expectation was that results would be posted quickly or at least in comparison to other competitions. I usually give a competition at least 48 hrs after judging is over to post the winners before I start complaining.

List what you have as soon as it comes in with a "Pilminary" caviot.

Then follow up with "Final" results in a week or so.

AZ_IPA said:

As long as they meet their announced date, there really shouldn't be anything to complain about (well, other than some regions releasing places and others not).

If they miss the deadline like they did two years ago, then we can get out the tar & fearhers, pichforks and torches.

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^ this.

there are some legitimate reasons for complaint (not that i agree with them all), but a lot of bitching here seems to be of the "i just can't wait anymore NOT FAIR WANTS NOW!!!111" variety.

Well, yes. So?

For the record, I was the assistant organizer for the KC NHC. (And how have I missed this thread??)

We made every effort to fill out the cover sheets completely as it is a pet peeve of mine. (It is also in the Organizer's Handbook for the NHC.) If you received your sheets back from KC and a place was marked, you advanced. If a place was not marked, but you advanced to the Mini-BOS, good work! However, it is unlikely that I missed marking a place on a cover sheet and while your beer was very good or excellent, it likely did not advance.

I hope this clears up any confusion.

StoneHands said:

I'm not being a jerk, because I really don't know, but what is there to "process"? Do they keep track of all of the results for every entry? Do they doublecheck all scores? I thought it would just be a matter of posting the top 3 for each region, then start working on mailing out ribbons, certificates, etc. after that was done.

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You really have no idea as to just how much work goes into a competition until you actually help run one. I have judged for years, but took on the assistant organizer and treasurer positions for NHC here. And I judged 7 separate sessions. And helped steward other sessions. My. God. Just getting the score sheets sorted and mailed was a 3 day event. Not to mention the week long judging we had before that. Or the issues that came up during the event that we had to turn into non-issues. Janis is running the largest homebrew competition in the world. The database needs to be verified for all 11 regions, each with 700-750 entries. She needs to contact the entrants whose beer may have been lost/broken. Etc, etc, etc. Long story short, it's not just "posting the top three and mailing ribbons". There are many steps to get there.

AmandaK said:

We made every effort to fill out the cover sheets completely as it is a pet peeve of mine. (It is also in the Organizer's Handbook for the NHC.) If you received your sheets back from KC and a place was marked, you advanced. If a place was not marked, but you advanced to the Mini-BOS, good work! However, it is unlikely that I missed marking a place on a cover sheet and while your beer was very good or excellent, it likely did not advance.

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thanks for chiming in, amanda, and thanks for all your work. i held out hope that my 45-point kolsch placed but sounds like that hope is in vain. oh well

can you discuss the decision in KC to mark placement on the scoresheets, vs. the AHA's statement ""Winners of the First Round Judging Centers will be reported once all 11 locations have completed judging and submitted the results to the National Homebrew Competition Director. By May 4, 2013 winners will be posted and competition entrants will be able to access full results via the online database used for registration. Please do not contact site directors requesting results, as they are not permitted to release this information until the AHA has published all winners from all 11 judging centers."?

sweetcell said:

thanks for chiming in, amanda, and thanks for all your work. i held out hope that my 45-point kolsch placed but sounds like that hope is in vain. oh well

can you discuss the decision in KC to mark placement on the scoresheets, vs. the AHA's statement ""Winners of the First Round Judging Centers will be reported once all 11 locations have completed judging and submitted the results to the National Homebrew Competition Director. By May 4, 2013 winners will be posted and competition entrants will be able to access full results via the online database used for registration. Please do not contact site directors requesting results, as they are not permitted to release this information until the AHA has published all winners from all 11 judging centers."?

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It was not a decision made by the organizing committee in KC. The cover sheets SHOULD be marked with the place, according to the NHC Site Director's Handbook (it's even in bold in the handbook):

The cover sheets of the winning entries for the category should be marked “1”, “2”, or “3” to indicate first, second, and third place.

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The fact that some regions did not follow these instructions leads me to believe that they either did not read the entire handbook, ignored it altogether, or just simply ran a poorly organized competition.

The handbook also states:

No Judging Center winners can be posted until all 11 competitions have competed and the winner information has been processed by the AHA.

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We cannot post the information on our website or disseminate it publicly. We can (and did) read the winners for ourselves when we were finally done judging and began cleaning. If you weren't there, you missed out - but that's a good reason to volunteer next year!

Janis Gross herself came to our competition and thought we did an outstanding job on all fronts, especially on our reporting to the entrants. I enter a lot of competitions and have developed a few 'pet peeves' during that time, e.g. not filling out cover sheets, bad math, barely filled out score sheets, not getting score sheets for weeks on end, sending out the wrong medals, etc, etc. I would have been very upset if our competition had any of those issues. Luckily, my club (KC Bier Meisters) and the rest of the competition committee also felt the same way. We take great pride in our beer, our comps and our club so this was a great way of showing that off for a lot of us.

If there is anything else I can clear up (except for the list of winners, of course), just ask!

AmandaK said:

For the record, I was the assistant organizer for the KC NHC. (And how have I missed this thread??)

We made every effort to fill out the cover sheets completely as it is a pet peeve of mine. (It is also in the Organizer's Handbook for the NHC.) If you received your sheets back from KC and a place was marked, you advanced. If a place was not marked, but you advanced to the Mini-BOS, good work! However, it is unlikely that I missed marking a place on a cover sheet and while your beer was very good or excellent, it likely did not advance.

I hope this clears up any confusion.



You really have no idea as to just how much work goes into a competition until you actually help run one. I have judged for years, but took on the assistant organizer and treasurer positions for NHC here. And I judged 7 separate sessions. And helped steward other sessions. My. God. Just getting the score sheets sorted and mailed was a 3 day event. Not to mention the week long judging we had before that. Or the issues that came up during the event that we had to turn into non-issues. Janis is running the largest homebrew competition in the world. The database needs to be verified for all 11 regions, each with 700-750 entries. She needs to contact the entrants whose beer may have been lost/broken. Etc, etc, etc. Long story short, it's not just "posting the top three and mailing ribbons". There are many steps to get there.

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damit my 40 point american brown went to mini-bos but no placement oh well still proud of getting a 40 and a 36 for my wheat ipa. and amanda thank you and thank your club for doing a great job organizing kc!!

AmandaK said:

If there is anything else I can clear up (except for the list of winners, of course), just ask!

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Was there anything in the handbook that stated how soon after the competition the scoresheets should be mailed out?

AmandaK said:

You really have no idea as to just how much work goes into a competition until you actually help run one. I have judged for years, but took on the assistant organizer and treasurer positions for NHC here. And I judged 7 separate sessions. And helped steward other sessions. My. God. Just getting the score sheets sorted and mailed was a 3 day event. Not to mention the week long judging we had before that. Or the issues that came up during the event that we had to turn into non-issues. Janis is running the largest homebrew competition in the world. The database needs to be verified for all 11 regions, each with 700-750 entries. She needs to contact the entrants whose beer may have been lost/broken. Etc, etc, etc. Long story short, it's not just "posting the top three and mailing ribbons". There are many steps to get there.

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Thank you Amanda, I was being sincere in saying I didn't know and your statement clears some of my questions up. I can't imagine the amount of work that Janis and the rest of the folks go through to pull this off every year. I'm as anxious as anyone to get scores and updates and I do realize folks are working hard on this.

I unfortunately live in a state that doesn't allow comps, so I'm forced to send beers off. The NHC is the only competition I've entered, this year and in years past. If I had some locals, I'd probably have a better inkling of what the competitions entail. I'll try to sit patiently now...

AnOldUR said:

Was there anything in the handbook that stated how soon after the competition the scoresheets should be mailed out?

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Curious about this too. I entered in NYC which judged first weekend and I don't think anyone has gotten scoresheets back.

AnOldUR said:

Was there anything in the handbook that stated how soon after the competition the scoresheets should be mailed out?

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Not that I can see. I figured that I don't like waiting for score sheets so I shouldn't make 300 people wait for score sheets. YMMV, obviously.

StoneHands said:

Thank you Amanda, I was being sincere in saying I didn't know and your statement clears some of my questions up. I can't imagine the amount of work that Janis and the rest of the folks go through to pull this off every year. I'm as anxious as anyone to get scores and updates and I do realize folks are working hard on this.

I unfortunately live in a state that doesn't allow comps, so I'm forced to send beers off. The NHC is the only competition I've entered, this year and in years past. If I had some locals, I'd probably have a better inkling of what the competitions entail. I'll try to sit patiently now...

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I was also being sincere in trying to enlighten regarding the amount of work and timeframes. If you aren't involved, you probably won't know. As someone "in the know", it's my job to help people understand. Also, there are plenty of other comps that accept entries from out of state. I'm organizing another one right now, entries are due May 22nd if you're interested. Joel's Ride. We will have the same caliber of judges there as we did at our NHC Regional, so it will be a good place to get good feedback for cheap ($6).

jwible204 said:

Also, something odd is going on with my Region, 8. I can't log in to the website as of this morning. I guess they might be updating the DB with scores and don't want people logging in.

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Same with region 11...getting close I bet.

AmandaK said:

I figured that I don't like waiting for score sheets so I shouldn't make 300 people wait for score sheets.

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hmmmm . . . ever think of moving to New York? :cross:

AnOldUR said:

hmmmm . . . ever think of moving to New York? :cross:

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Nah. Plus I doubt my club would move with me. It really does take an army to run something like this.

stevo155 said:

Same with region 11...getting close I bet.

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I can confirm this too. I was judging/stewarding for this group on Friday and Saturday of last week. I'm like a kid on Christmas Eve waiting to get these scoresheets back. There are a bunch of other competitions that I want to enter and hearing feedback is important before I rebrew.

If St. Paul followed the guidelines of marking the place for entries that advanced then I would have two moving on to the second round. I hope that's correct. Dang, an "HM" was close too!

osagedr said:

If St. Paul followed the guidelines of marking the place for entries that advanced then I would have two moving on to the second round. I hope that's correct. Dang, an "HM" was close too!

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The discussion between 3rd and 4th can sometimes be a heated one during the First Round and Final Round of NHC. Congrats on making HM!

stevo155 said:

Same with region 11...getting close I bet.

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Well so much for getting my hopes up! After not being able to log in, the system just let me in, but no scores posted there yet....

Pretty sad that the comp was judged almost a month ago, and still nothing from NY.

osagedr said:

If St. Paul followed the guidelines of marking the place for entries that advanced then I would have two moving on to the second round. I hope that's correct. Dang, an "HM" was close too!

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I was there the first night and everyone was told to mark places on the cover sheet after Mini BOS. I'd assume that was repeated on Day 2, but who knows if it happened for every category...

Well it looks like I had 3 go to the mini-BOS in San Diego and one advance with a Second place awarded. If they filled the sheets out correctly, which San Diego has been very good about traditionally.

I am still [somewhat] patiently awaiting my St. Paul results. Hopefully I'll get them soon, considering others already have had their results for several days now!

mcberry said:

I am still [somewhat] patiently awaiting my St. Paul results. Hopefully I'll get them soon, considering others already have had their results for several days now!

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I would e-mail and ask..... you should have had them by now. Others were getting theirs 9 days ago. I got mine a week ago today.

Anyone get any love out of Atlanta yet? Bueller? Bueller?

Anyone see any results from Tulsa yet? Says complete on the AHA site. Just curious.