"Cwrw42" wrote:
As the individual who was responsible for making sure that
our samples for judging and the kegs for the festival floor
were delivered on time I can state catagorically that we did
not brew or package special samples for the competition.

I'm just saying what I saw and heard on that special. That you do this is
fine, but the special clearly showed that extra care was taken by other
contestants that wouldn't normally be done for the average consumer's beer
bought from them.

Samples for judging had to be at the AB distributorship in
Denver by Friday September 6th. For a couple of months
leading up to the festival we set aside a case from each
packaging run of the beers we had entered, and during the
last week of August we had a series of tastings to pick
which samples we felt were the most representative of our
products and those were our entries.

See even you state that you're only sending your best to the contest.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think you've done anything evil or
misleading. What you and the others did was allowed by the GABF. It's
their contest and how they run it is up to them. I'm just seeking one
that's more likely to represent what us average consumers will be drinking.

It may also interest you to know that judges who are also
brewers are not permitted to judge any of the catagories
that they have entered.

Yes, they made that clear in the special. There was a Black brewmaster (he
makes Black Chocolate Stout) that was also a judge and he stated he doesn't
judge the categories which he enters his beers to.

From an industry perspective, what I would like to see
as a future development at the GABF, is to split some
of the more heavily contested catagories, eg, American
Style Pale Ale 71 entries, and Americann IPA 94 entries
into multiple classes, brewpubs and shipping breweries.

First, should there be a category then for homebrewers? Then again, are
homebrewers even allowed into the contest?

Second, this would be a step in the "right" direction (as far as I'm
concerned). I would just hope that the beers selected for the shipping
brewery categories were store bought.

I have no hard data but I suspect that the majority of
medals are going to the smaller breweries with limited
distribution and brew pubs. The positive side to this
is that there are a lot of brewpubs brewing some great
beers, however the converse is that many of these
beers are brewed in small batches, transfered to a
serving tank and then drunk right where they are
brewed. A very different kettle of fish from brewing
a beer in larger batches 50 - 100 bbls, that is going to
be bottled and still taste good 60 days later when
the consumer picks it up from the store shelf on the
other side of the country.

I would totally agree.

Just a few rambling thoughts.

Thanks for sharing.

Scott Jensen
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