Organize a Homebrew Competition
The task of organizing a new homebrew competition can seem quite daunting — after all, it’s a lot of work and many people have been doing this for years. How can you as an individual, homebrew club, or organization create an experience that both entrants and judges will enjoy without killing yourself in the process? Never fear, I’ve pulled together recommendations from experienced competition organizers that can get you started on the right foot.
I’ve organized or been on the staff of dozens of competitions and have judged at hundreds more around the world. Many are run in a similar manner, but there continues to be innovation as some groups try new approaches. Not all are successful, but experimentation and risk-taking can produce breakthroughs. By sharing these lessons learned, all competitions can take advantage of these improvements without taking the risk.
So let’s take a look at competitions by asking some basic questions.
What Does a Good Competition Look Like?
Not all competitions are created equally. Judges and entrants shouldn’t expect the same experience every time, but some of the better competitions tend to share some common features:
1. The competition should match its goals. Some groups want a large competition, while others are seeking to give local judges more experience and practice. Yet others are having a day of celebration for the local homebrewing community. If you don’t know what you’re trying to do, how can you plan for it?
2. A good competition has sufficient judges so the flight sizes are reasonable. Don’t abuse the judges by making them judge an unreasonable number of entries; they won’t likely return.
3. The competition should draw good quality entries. If your competition gains a reputation of being a death march of crappy entries, you may find yourself short of judges in the future.
4. The competition day runs smoothly without wasted time. There are distinct phases to a competition, and it should move between them without having an entire room doing nothing. Judges are a finite resource; you don’t want to squander them.
5. Many competitions offer something special for judges, such as good food, a technical talk, a companion event, a raffle or prizes, or some other attraction. Some competitions give away volunteer appreciation packs with stickers, glassware, and other giveaways, and sponsors are usually willing to give, knowing all the volunteers will get something from them.
Do you see a theme here? You are trying to make your competition easy on your judges so that they are happy to volunteer. If you have good judges and keep them happy, they’ll do a good job and your entrants will receive more thoughtful and valuable feedback on their score sheets. If entrants are happy, they’ll keep entering your competition and tell their friends and clubs of their experience.
What Kind of Competition Do You Want to Have?
The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) registers over 600 competitions a year all around the world. There are plenty of competitions, so on any given day you will have others who are doing the same thing you are — trying to draw entrants and judges to a homebrew competition. Brewers tend to enter competitions for two basic reasons: To compete and hopefully win a medal, or to get feedback on their beer to help them improve as brewers. You can accomplish both in the same competition, but sometimes you need to choose.
So you should decide on your overall goals. Are you trying to make money for your club, sponsor, or charity? If so, you need to take specific actions to raise money while controlling expenses. Seek sponsors, ask for donations, have a raffle, or do other things that generate revenue or reduce expenses. You will seek to have a larger competition and to judge as many entries as is practical, so organization and speed are of the essence.
If the purpose is fundraising, some added revenue ideas are “sponsor a category” where the sponsor’s name is listed in the results for that category, is announced during the awards, and can even give special prizes for the winner of that category. Advertising sponsors on social media also helps drive awareness of your competition. Additionally, having sponsors for items that are needed — glassware, bottle openers, food, etc. — helps cut cost. Best of Show and other major awards should have a nice prize associated with them. Knowing this ahead of time can help drive more entries to the competition.
Are you trying to increase judge experience? Then you may want to have training sessions, limit entries or flight sizes, encourage new people to judge, and pair these people with experienced judges who enjoy mentoring. A slower pace will encourage discussion and education.
Are you trying to give the best feedback possible? Training sessions and education can also be used here, but being selective about the judges used is also important. Judges with no experience should be encouraged to steward so they can learn without giving scored feedback. The stewards can even fill out a scoresheet or take notes on the beer to see how they compare to the judges and get practice. Many new judges started because of the experience of having stewarded. The pacing depends on what judges can handle, but smaller flights will keep judges fresh.
There are many other factors, but they tend to influence the competition size (number of entries accepted), the judge pool (number and experience of judges), the flight size (number of entries judged by one panel of judges), and the pacing.
What Resources Do You Have?
Competitions typically use volunteer labor, often from local clubs. How many people do you have that can be on the support team, and how experienced are they? Have they performed these roles before, or have they watched others do them? Inexperienced helpers will require more oversight.
How many judges do you expect to draw? You have to invite them or incentivize them to attend; they often have choices of which competitions to judge. Some ways that you can make it appealing for them are to offer discounted hotel rates or the option of staying with local club members, offering speakers or a technical program in conjunction with the competition, and having prizes, food, and a good location with ample parking to make it convenient.
What does your judging venue look like? How many tables of judges can you seat? How much cold storage space do you have, and how long do you have it? This can affect the delivery window for entries. Does it have air conditioning or heat, depending on the season? Is it quiet and free from distractions? How many days and sessions can you schedule? Will you need other days to do pre-judging before the competition?
I have seen competitions be overwhelmed by more entries than they are able to judge. It’s not a pretty sight, and the judges often pay the price. Setting entry limits based on what you are reasonably able to judge in the time allotted is often the most prudent choice.
Are you using competition management software (such as BCOE&M)? Have you tested it, and done any competition-specific customizations like adding special entry categories? Do you understand how the software affects the judging on competition day? Does it produce the paperwork necessary for tracking and judging the entries, recording the results, and quickly identifying winners? Software can even allow for scoresheets to be scanned and posted, giving entrants quick results, saving money on mailings and can be finished soon after judging. These scoresheets can also be used along with leftover entries for a BJCP study group to help bring along more judges for future competitions.
Now let’s take a look at how to plan for the event itself.
The Competition Team
One of the most important jobs a competition organizer does is to choose the team. For larger competitions, the organizer is basically a project manager who ensures that people are assigned to all tasks, the work is being done, that schedules are being met, and that information is flowing between team members. The organizer is ultimately responsible for the entire competition, so that person must verify that tasks are done.
The logistics can be divided into three phases: Before the competition, during the competition, and after the competition. All the pre-competition work is planning and organizing. When entries arrive, they must be unpacked, sorted, labeled, and prepared for competition. A sorting team is needed, usually under the direction of the cellar master.
A web coordinator makes sure that competition entry software is set up properly, and that entries can be registered and paid. A different person may handle communications, or this could be part of the organizer or web coordinator job. One job they may also be required to do, depending on your local/state regulations, is submit an application for a permit to hold the event. If so, be sure to understand the timeframe and information needed in order to hold the competition.
The judge director recruits judges, organizes entries into flights, and assigns judges to flights. The judge director must have knowledge of entries so that styles can be grouped into flights, and that judges with entries aren’t assigned to their own beers. Combining categories with low entries is a good way to reduce the number of flights and provide a reasonable amount of competition in a given category.
There are other critical jobs involved with the venue, such as making sure all the tables, chairs, judging supplies, and related items are properly set up. Often the head steward will take on this role, as well as organizing, training, and instructing stewards during the competition. If you have access to the venue the night before setting everything up early makes competition day that much easier.
On the competition day, the cellar master controls the flow of entries from the cellar to the judging tables. Someone must handle data entry as flights are completed; this can be a dedicated data entry person, the cellar master, the competition organizer, or another staff member.
The judge director handles issues related to judges and judging on competition day. One of the big problems is no-show judges, which can wreck a carefully-planned schedule. Many competitions deal with this by planning a bullpen, or group of unassigned judges that can fill in for missing judges. If all judges arrive, the bullpen judges normally get assigned as a third judge on an existing flight, or might form additional teams to help finish slow moving flights.
The judge director should be ready to swap judges due to unexpected problems (“I can’t judge this flight; I was a co-brewer of an entry,” “I’m allergic to an ingredient,” “I think I recognize an entry,” and so on). Some judges will have questions about entries during the competition that stewards can’t resolve — those issues are typically escalated to the judge director or competition organizer.
The head steward makes sure the tables are being served properly by stewards, and that judging is moving along at a good tempo. Having adequate supplies and helpers is important, but so is anticipating the needs of judges and being ready for the next phase of the competition. Resetting tables between flights so sessions start promptly is often a sign of a well-run competition.
After the competition, the major tasks are cleaning up the room, organizing paperwork so score sheets can be returned to entrants, disposing of leftover entries, holding awards ceremonies, shipping prizes, medals, and score sheets, and thanking the sponsors and volunteers. When corresponding with judges and entrants, it is often a good idea to identify when the competition will happen next year so they can save the date.
For smaller competitions, some of these roles can be combined. However, if growth is anticipated in future years, it may be a better idea to start dividing the work from the start. This allows processes and communications to be tested without the stress of a huge competition.
Whenever people are assigned to roles, it is a good idea to have new helpers shadow them to learn the jobs. This is especially important for the key roles; while many people do these jobs year after year, always relying on the same people can become risky if they get burnt out or become unavailable one year. Competition organizers should also be open to new organizers from other competitions coming to observe and learn; this is a great way for new people to understand what is required.
Modern Practices
Competitions have changed quite a bit since I started judging over 20 years ago. It used to be common for panels of three judges to evaluate 12 or more beers in a flight. Judge speed varied, so it also was fairly common for sessions to run late as slower judges struggled through their flights.
With many more judges today, it is reasonable to try to have flights of 6 or 7 beers with two judges per panel. The use of a “mini-Best of Show (BOS)” to reconcile multiple flights of the same category to select overall category winners greatly reduces the workload and maintains the palates of judges. When judges don’t get fatigued they can complete their assignments in a predictable amount of time.
The use of “queued judging” for large categories also speeds up the rounds. Multiple panels of judges work from a common list of beers for a category. If one group of judges is slower, then other panels will judge more, but all panels finish at nearly the same time. The best few beers from each panel are then re-evaluated in a mini-BOS to select the overall winners.
As competitions have grown, some competitions have added extra days of judging, including some pre-judging where a few categories are finished before the bulk of the judging happens. This is a good practice for dealing with odd sized flights or those that require special skills (meads and ciders, for example). Sometimes just a few extra pre-judged categories is the difference between relaxed happy judges and stressed, fatigued judges.
The use of a bullpen to have judges in reserve is a good idea for a large competition. When used with queued judging, extra teams can be added when all judges are seated, or the judges can join an existing flight.
It is quite common for competitions to set an entry limit to prevent overload of their system. Various quota systems can also be employed, such as limiting the number of entries per brewer, to be more open to all competitors.
Competitions often try new processes and methods, but many experienced BJCP judges are set in their ways. You are free to experiment, but judges often have expectations about the normal flow of activities. So if you try something new, be sure to explain what you are doing to the judges so they aren’t surprised. You may also want to plan some additional time in the schedule for them to understand, practice, and become familiar with your unique approach.
Two Case Studies
I’ve recently attended several well-run competitions. I talked to key members of two of these events to capture their thoughts on what contributed the most to their success.
Jack Smith and Mike Beattie • TRASH Homebrew Club (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
They want to have a one-day competition and expect to have about 50 judges per session, so they set a limit of 375 entries. They don’t expect to get many out-of-town judges (maybe 5–10%), so they put an emphasis on building the local judge community. Jack called this, “playing the long game.” They had judge training classes, organized BJCP exams, and emphasized educational activities, expecting it to take about two years to build a new judge.
Jack performed the judge coordinator role, and cited communication as a key success factor. “Communicate early and often,” he said. Let judges know when the competition is occurring, where judges need to be and when, what styles they will be judging, and keeping them updated on any changes.
Receiving entries and sorting them can be a challenging task, so he also recommends that competitions strictly limit who can hand-carry entries to the competitions. Judges who are traveling from more than 100 miles away is his rule. Merging these entries into the carefully organized cellar system can be challenging, but offering this to out-of-town judges does tend to increase participation.
Spreading the workload among a large team is recommended, even for some seemingly minor tasks such as getting prizes. They dedicate three to four people with one leader, and break up the list on who to contact. The key roles of organizer and judge coordinator are known well in advance, the rest are volunteers recruited during the competition planning phase.
The day when bottles are sorted into categories is a key milestone, and requires many helpers. They use 10–12 people on bottle sort day, where bottles are handled three times. Boxes are unpacked, stickers with entry numbers are placed on the bottles, and the bottles are sorted into boxes for each table (flight).
A dedicated person is placed in charge of the venue; TRASH usually uses a brewery since pro brewers will often offer up the space for free. Just make sure the brewery isn’t brewing on competition day or it will be difficult for judges to smell the beers.
As judge coordinator, Jack wants each beer judged by at least one BJCP-certified judge and plans accordingly. If a new person is interested in learning, they are assigned as a steward, not a judge. Some judges ask to be paired with a senior judge so they can learn, and that request is honored if possible.
Mike Beattie has been handling the organizer job for nearly 10 years. He said they used to have a registrar role but that was eliminated when they started using competition software. They use BCOEM as a self-hosted system; they say it isn’t perfect but there isn’t much else available that can do the job. It took a few years to understand the software, and he recommends having a software person in charge of the task since there are often issues to work through on competition day.
Mike does much of the “back office” role on competition day, while Jack gives the introductory speech and is the person judges go to first for problems. Mike handles the paperwork for the competition and manages the database. The head steward runs the table operations, including managing the staff of helpers.
Mike said it’s very important to have the organizer and judge director roles separate. They both answer a lot of questions, and have distinct areas of responsibility on competition day. He cites planning as the key to success, and also identifies sorting day as the key event. The process needs to be understood ahead of time, and all the paperwork needs to be available or things can get misplaced. Having the bottles labeled and in the right place sets the competition day up for success.
Fabio Koerich Ramos • ACervA Catarinense (Florianópolis, Brazil)
Fabito, as he is called by everyone, echoes many of the same success factors as Jack and Mike half a world away. He managed a 500-entry state championship competition with more than 50 judges that was easily completed in one weekend. All entries were judged on the first day, while all mini-BOS rounds and BOS were done in the second day. They were able to structure the competition this way by having a three-bottle competition instead of the more common two-bottle approach used in much of the US.
A three-bottle competition requires more sorting time and storage space, but ensures that a good bottle is available for mini-BOS, and also allows it to be done at a later time rather than trying to quickly judge an opened bottle again. In the morning session of the second day, I judged three different mini-BOS rounds and it went faster than a normal round of judging. This approach also allows a different team of judges to be used.
As with TRASH, the Brazilians also use BCOEM in the self-hosted mode. They made some minor modifications to integrate a Brazilian payment system. Fabito said that it being open source software made it easy to modify and people with software experience could easily work with it. The software had a few bugs, but they were able to test the system in advance with simulated data so they could create workarounds.
Fabito cited the most important roles as the cellar master and sorting team. Having everything in the right place means that competition day runs smoothly. He mentioned a short entry and shipping window is important — ACervA Catarinense allows for a three-week entry and drop off window, closing a week before sorting. He said this means that only people with beer ready enter the competition. Even with this limitation, about 5% of the entries still don’t show up.
Communication was also stressed as a key factor to success. They start planning about three months in advance, and they send a “Save the Date” email to judges and participants then. As information matures, they let people know what is happening and when.
I was impressed with the turnout of judges (they had around 50 judges, while all of Brazil has less than 200). I asked what factors increased judge participation, and he cited:
• Inviting a well-known judge, writer, or brewer to attend and speak (he was talking about me, but they like to have a technical program as part of their competition).
• Sending invitations well in advance so people can plan accordingly.
• Paying some of the costs (negotiating discounted hotel rooms, having meal coupons for lunch).
• Maintaining a good reputation (past competitions were a good time for judges, so word-of-mouth helped increase the participation).
• Florianópolis is a great destination (on the sea, it’s a beautiful city).
I think I would also add that drawing a good mix of judges is a great educational and training experience, especially for an area still developing its judge base. I found it somewhat similar to the National Homebrew Competition in the US where the second round is known for having high-ranking judges. This is a great experience for lower-ranked judges to judge with more experienced judges and learn. The socialization aspect among the judge community is a positive experience for most judges.
Unlike many competitions in the US, the Brazilians don’t run this competition as a fundraiser. They decided a few years ago to offer technical training for free, and to keep competition entry fees low. When they have party-like events, prices are higher. They found this encourages people to study and evolve as homebrewers, and to participate in more events. Within the first two years of this approach, they found the number of members in their organization and the amount of money available for events more than doubled. So, like Pittsburgh, they are also playing the long game.
My final point is that competitions can be run many ways and be successful. There are some common factors to success, but having a local character makes competitions interesting to those who judge in many events. Organizers that have a strong customer service mentality and take care of their judges seem to have an advantage over those that don’t. Even though the event itself is hard work, having a good attitude and making volunteers and judges feel welcome goes a long way to building a competition that survives and thrives year after year.
