[brewmoto]

 I just received my results from the first round of the national home brew competition and have to admit I am a little disappointed. My feedback I received was short and lackluster. I would expect more for a competition that costs 29$ to enter. I don’t know if this is a money grab from the AHA just to boost revenue? I am a little confused?  Been a member for a very long time but now questioning whether its worth renewing my membership. Just my 2 cents. Is there anyone else that feels their feedback was lackluster?

[hopfenundmalz]

I just received my results from the first round of the national home brew competition and have to admit I am a little disappointed. My feedback I received was short and lackluster. I would expect more for a competition that costs 29$ to enter. I don’t know if this is a money grab from the AHA just to boost revenue? I am a little confused?  Been a member for a very long time but now questioning whether its worth renewing my membership. Just my 2 cents. Is there anyone else that feels their feedback was lackluster?

Not a money grab. There are many expenses that have to be covered, especially running all the first round and the second round sites. When I was on the Governing Committee I found out that some years rhe NHC didn't break even, as the big convention centers charged higher fees for space and meals for the judges.

Get involved in a local competition and find out how much goes into running that!

[dmtaylor]

I think the NHC and AHA falls short of delivering value for your money. I just don’t see the benefit of the competition or membership. What can AHA offer that you can’t get out of a book or going down to your local brewery and asking a brewer?? The NHC falls short of delivering proper feedback one would expect for 29$ i think a lot of you old timers are invested in this whole operation and I was too but sadly AHA will fall to the wayside like a rotary club or something of that nature.

+1

Not any bang for the buck.  And yes, AHA, and clubs, and the hobby, are dying a slow death, and I fear there is nothing can be done to stop it.

[denny]

What about this very forum you're complaining on? It's gotta get paid for somehow.

[denny]

Denny I am a paid member so I would assume i have grounds to give an opinion. If an organization that prides itself on feedback from a comp it puts on falls short someone has to step up and call it out for what it is. I am still trying to figure out what value the AHA has that I can’t get by watching a YouTube video from people like the apartment brewer, homebrew challenge ect. If I want feedback from my beer i can just as easily take my beer down to my local brewery and give some to the brewers and get almost instant feedback. No need to pay 29$ for that. So the perception of value is skewed and not in favor of the organization.

Of course you do, and I support you in that. I was merely pointing out that people were saying that AHA had no value while using a service the AHA provides.

[Drewch]

. . . the hobby [is] dying a slow death . . .

I don't think the hobby is dying a slow death. The hobby spiked in popularity, and it's regressing to the mean.  Clubs and LHBSes face the same "Amazon-ization" challenge as other specialty forums. Small hardware stores, model/hobby shops, etc are all struggling because so much has moved online.

[denny]

Hopefully a governing member of the AHA committee sees this and realizes that their membership services can easily be bypassed by going onto free services like home brew talk or a Reddit thread YouTube ect. How do we bypass this problem? It’s actually easy, you have to give good services to your members they can’t get anywhere else. My grievance with the AHA is I feel like I wasted 29$ on their comp by not getting clear and concise feedback. Here is the feedback i got for one of my entries copy and pasted from my score card
 
 “ This is a very good example although hops push it beyond guidelines. Also expeced more maize corn notes but not mandatory. Watch yeast health. Brew more and adjust recipe for higher score. MMM beer. Cheers”


 This isn’t what I call good feedback. I have been brewing beer since i was in high school so i can read between the lines on this and get a general idea on what this judge was saying but to post on your profile that your a certified Cicerone you should do better AHA on who you let judge your comps. Does anyone think that feedback is worth 29$ please somebody explain?

There is no more Governing Committee.

[CounterPressure]

“ This is a very good example although hops push it beyond guidelines. Also expeced more maize corn notes but not mandatory. Watch yeast health. Brew more and adjust recipe for higher score. MMM beer. Cheers”


 This isn’t what I call good feedback. I have been brewing beer since i was in high school so i can read between the lines on this and get a general idea on what this judge was saying but to post on your profile that your a certified Cicerone you should do better AHA on who you let judge your comps. Does anyone think that feedback is worth 29$ please somebody explain?

Well, unfortunately the BJCP certifies people for their tasting abilities, not their literary ones.  Yes, I'd agree that's some pretty lame writing. But I expect that almost everywhere nowadays.  Not making excuses for it, just saying there's a LOT of people who can't read or write worth a ____. 

That said, I do not think the NHBC is remotely the place for getting feedback on beers, unless you're entering with the hopes of winning something.  If you simply want feedback, why not just ask here and send the beer somewhere.  For $0 plus the cost of shipping, you can get an opinion. There's loads of BJCP judges here. Or even just do beer swaps online. I've been meaning to post up a thread myself to see if there's any interest here. Doesn't have to be here though.

I can read between the lines on that feedback, but whether I'd be correct or not is debatable.  Guessing here, they noticed yeast health was not good, too much hops and not enough corn sugar.  Recommending fix those things and brew again...  They're not very loquacious about it, but the message came through. lol.

Just fyi, sooner or later, all free things cost money.  Just say'n...

[denny]

What do you think of the feedback Denny is it worth 29$ I don’t think so!!

No opinion on that. Are you aware that the local committee selects the judges, not the AHA?

[reverseapachemaster]

There's two discussions here. One about the AHA generally and one about NHC. We discussed the AHA at length earlier in the year (along with discussions on other forums) and the BA and AHA leadership pretty much ignored all of it. They've made their opinion clear.

We also have these discussions about the low quality of feedback from NHC every year to no avail. Every year we get to the destination that it is impractical for the NHC judges to give lengthy feedback and ultimately the competition is about winning, not the quality of feedback. The impracticality is understandable but then the NHC should not be advertised as a competition to seek meaningful feedback.

If you want good feedback, consider joining a local club or forming a local group for tastings and feedback. Way cheaper and more fun than the time spent shipping entries to a competition.

[HighVoltageMan!]

I have been competing for @ 12 years now. I used to complain about about judging, but I'm more of the opinion lately that I'm dealing with fellow human beings. I can't expect a calibrated response from a human as I would expect from a calibrated laboratory device. It's just other people tasting your beer and giving you their opinion. People who taste your beer will have varying opinions about your beer, it's sometimes helpful and other times not so.

I stopped taking the tasting notes very seriously and concentrated on learning more about beer through home brew clubs, tasting world class beer and trying imitate them. I will say that the competition itself has driven me to find ways to improve my beer and I have become a better brewer because of competitions. For that, I'm grateful.

I have been saying (jokingly) for years, to hell with my score, what place did I get?

[chinaski]

Hopefully a governing member of the AHA committee sees this and realizes that their membership services can easily be bypassed by going onto free services like home brew talk or a Reddit thread YouTube ect. How do we bypass this problem? It’s actually easy, you have to give good services to your members they can’t get anywhere else. My grievance with the AHA is I feel like I wasted 29$ on their comp by not getting clear and concise feedback. Here is the feedback i got for one of my entries copy and pasted from my score card
 
 “ This is a very good example although hops push it beyond guidelines. Also expeced more maize corn notes but not mandatory. Watch yeast health. Brew more and adjust recipe for higher score. MMM beer. Cheers”


 This isn’t what I call good feedback. I have been brewing beer since i was in high school so i can read between the lines on this and get a general idea on what this judge was saying but to post on your profile that your a certified Cicerone you should do better AHA on who you let judge your comps. Does anyone think that feedback is worth 29$ please somebody explain?

There is no more Governing Committee.

This discussion is a missed opportunity for the AHA leaders- Julia?- to explain what is going on & the rationale for the changes in a honest and transparent way.  I've heard this news mentioned several times on Denny's podcast with really no response from the AHA.  I expect more from an organization that I have been supporting.  Competition feedback is another issue that's been covered here many times before- I always recommend becoming a judge yourself if you want to have a better appreciation for judging.

[pete b]

Julia was the one who judged my beer and gave the above response! lol AHA is a joke

I don’t care about any of this, I do notice that the only contributions to this forum from you have been these rants. It just seems cringy? IDK. I am glad I don’t get this angry about beer.

[BrewBama]

My thoughts

Homebrewing in decline:Hobbies are luxuries many have to forgo in a tough economy.   So… AHA-like hobby groups are shedding members and participation in the hobby itself is in decline.  People can’t justify the expense.

Smaller scale HomeBrewCon: A small percentage of AHA members regularly attend the annual national conference.  If the AHA-like hobby groups are shedding members due to tough economic times, it stands to reason that the expense of attending a national conference will likewise cause participation to be reduced.  With a reduction in attendance naturally comes a reduction in footprint.

Cost: However, the members that have remained are the ones that can afford the luxury and demand value for their membership. One of those value-based benefits is the national competition.  It is a mechanism to raise funds for the event’s operating expenses. 

The AHA charges $30 per entry to run multiple consecutive 1st rounds and a culminating final round. This is a bargain if compared to two separately run events: The average cost per entry of a competition is $10. So, to enter two events a brewer would to pay $20 per entry.  Given the elite level of the competition I believe the additional $5 per event is understandable. Add that $10 to an annual membership fee and convention fee: the result is the AHA is running a streamlined operation.

Judges’ comments: The AHA doesn’t certify judges. They don’t have a reserve cadre of special AHA judges they trot out for the national competition. These judges are the same BJCP volunteers who traverse the country scoring entries for fellow homebrewers. They are bombarded with complaints. …but they still do it, ignoring the ungrateful contestants, absorbing the expense of becoming certified as well as travel expenses, time away from their lives, trying their best to help contestants.  I personally appreciate their feedback. Admittedly, some are better than others.

OP: the OP has every right to complain. Though we haven’t seen this OP posting here in the past, it is their right to express themselves here.  Shame the first we’ve heard from the OP is this post.


One day, you’ll wake up and there won’t be anymore time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Don’t wait. Do it now.

[CounterPressure]

Judges’ comments: The AHA doesn’t certify judges. They don’t have a reserve cadre of special AHA judges they trot out for the national competition. These judges are the same BJCP volunteers who traverse the country scoring entries for fellow homebrewers. They are bombarded with complaints. …but they still do it, ignoring the ungrateful contestants, absorbing the expense of becoming certified as well as travel expenses, time away from their lives, trying their best to help contestants.  I personally appreciate their feedback. Admittedly, some are better than others.

OP: the OP has every right to complain. Though we haven’t seen this OP posting here in the past, it is their right to express themselves here.  Shame the first we’ve heard from the OP is this post.

Agreed on all points. 


As an interesting aside, the last time I put beers into a competition I got no feedback whatsoever, in spite of the 3 entries taking a 1st, 2nd and 3rd in their respective categories.  I was still happy, and by chance had tasted a couple of the other entries just due to being at a club meeting where we shared beers.  So I got my feedback verbally and in person and the results were something to be proud of, yet I knew there were lots of other good beers there and we all had at least a little room for improvement. So I didn't get too up or down about it.


I wrote several responses to this thread yesterday, only to not post any of them.  And I see the OP deleted all but the first post here, so they obviously must feel this is either unwarranted or warranted but pointless. Never can tell.  I'm sure folks within the AHA do care about HB's general decline, but I've tried to think of suggestions which might help and if I'm drawing a blank, it's a tough spot to be in.  Do I think the AHA will survive? Yes.  Might the entire structure of it change?  Probably. 


If HB'ing in general is to survive and resemble it's current / past engagement, I'd say the focus needs to be on local organization, not so much national.  I personally live in the 9th most densely populated state in the Union, and the closest HB club meets 45 minutes away. It's a great club, and I used to belong, but it moved one direction and I moved the other.  Oh well. I wish there was something closer and I'd bet that at least on a part time basis folks would enjoy crossing over between two clubs if they had the chance.  But it takes a lot to organize these things ,and I'm not a FB user (nor will I become one).  So that makes it a challenge to get word out and start something...  And no matter how it works, there's almost certainly costs involved.  Someone has to pay...