Hey all,
Jeff and I wanted to open up a discussion on making an avent around the chicago homebrew community. Something along these lines:
- reach out to and invite any club and its members in the chicagoland area for a competition and maybe a party of sorts to follow.
- pick 5-20 different BJCP styles and have certified or aspiring judges enter.
- Capped at ~150 entries (?)
- Will need a location
- Will need club contacts
- Possibly go out and meet with the other clubs during thier monthly meeting
- Get awesome raffle prizes from vendors/breweries
So. CHAOS. What do you think? Is this something you would like to see this year given our ever-filling club and social calendar? Discuss.
OR, pick 5 styles and have each club enter ONE of each style as their "best of the best" to compete more as a club than individuals.
As far as location I'd suggest using our brewhouse. I can't think of a better way to showcase what makes CHAOS unique.
I would agree. I cant imagine a scenario where we would be able to judge ~150 beers in the brewhouse though - it is not set up to properly judge beers... no lights, it smells funky, etc.
So that leaves us with: "Hey (insert club here) come bring your X best beers in these categories and we will do a popular vote"
You could do something like the old AHA club only competitons except just have it for chicago clubs.
Have each club submit one entry for a defined style. Do it onc eevery 3 months or so.
Locations are not hard. We have held competitions free of cost at Derby and Rock Bottom. But if we only had 5-10 entries the brewhouse would be fine. I am sure we could get the bar area to work for 3 -4 judges. Or like you said, it could be fun to have it at other clubs meetings.
You can get an email address to all the clubs here:
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/community/clubs/find-a-homebrew-club/
Ken has my list of club presidents for the larger and active clubs. Talk to him if you want to email the other clubs.
If we want to do a big competition Ken and I have been tossing around an idea of a ProAm competition where we get breweris to sponsor a style and brew the winner. We throw a party with all the winning beers.
I think if you're going to have a competition, it should be BJCP and not popular vote. The point to doing many of these competitions is to get structured feedback on your beers. I would also suggest having it off-site at a bar, like we did for the Nielsen-Massey competition at Derby rather than having it at our brew house. There is not enough space, you need tables set-up, and Matt is right, the smell distractions at our brew house would not be favorable for judging beers. If we want this to be legit event, and a popular, organized, and ongoing competition, it should be as structured and formatted as possible.
If we wanted to showcase our brew house I think we could do so with an after party and announce the winners at the brewhouse and sample those beers and others, since the judging would be a closed event.
Also would Nielsen-Massey like to do that competition again, with us this year? I think they printed the flyers and advertised our club name on our behalf. Have we reached out and asked them? I think they would be interested in doing something with us ongoing, even if this was one we did in addition to one that we could host on our own. Thoughts?
I have not heard from them, but I am sure they would be interested. We started planning for the one last year right about this time. I cant corrdinate again, but I can assist.
Nancy, I get what you're saying and BJCP is definitely one way we can go. I personally had an image of the Chicago homebrew clubs having some type of event (could be an official BJCP comp or not) where we could all bond, share info, and come together as a brewing community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-OYKd8SVrI
My apologies for posting that...kind of...this idea just had me chuckling about the thought of all the homebrew clubs in the land converging for a meeting like in the Warriors...
Seriously though, I think it's a great idea, and the better relationships we have with our surrounding clubs, the richer both clubs can be for it. I think BOSS has a big BJCP competition, maybe we could coordinate with them and have it in the opposite time of year as them, I think theirs is a winter event, maybe make ours a summer event...I don't know, but the idea has merit and I think we could all benefit.
Jeff and I were talking last night. A beer dinner is most attractive to me at this time. A BJCP competition is too much work for me/us at this time unless someone else wants to take point.
I like the thoguhts of reaching out to other clubs and organize 1-2 clubs to pair their beers with a course. ie Square kegs should bring appetizers and lighter beers, HOPS brings soups/salads and pairs with thiers, so on and so on.
And bottle share afterwords.
I'd like to look into keeping the Neilsen Massey competition ongoing. If that's something you need help with or can't take it on, I will.