"Scott T. Jensen" > wrote in message
...

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

Why is that surprising? No brewery is going to go "What are we going to do
with that one infected batch we had? I know! Let's enter it in a contest."
Of course they're going to grab their freshest stuff. It's sort of like how
if you're going out on a date with that woman you've been chasing for
months, you don't just grab your workout shorts and the t-shirt you wear
when working on the car. You're going to dress your best.

Neither move is surprising in the least.

>
> 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.

That wouldn't be very fair to the breweries, IMO. In the typical retail
environment, the beer's been out of the brewer's hands for a long while, and
had a few stops over which the brewery has absolutely no control. Perhaps
the store stores the beer warm, under bright lights. Perhaps the beer sits
in the back of the store in an unrefrigerated room. Perhaps it sits in a
warm/hot warehouse at the distributor. Perhaps the distributor sits on it
for months.

These are not all worst-case scenarios. These are common occurances in the
three-tier system. Even the most dilligent brewers have difficulty
maintaining quality control throughout the supply chain.

Your criteria - buy the beer at a store - is unfair to the brewers and
invites a whole new range of complications. Which stores do you buy the beer
from? What if one store keeps their craft beers well, but another doesn't?
Then the breweries represented at the latter store are put at an automatic
disadvantage through no fault of their own.

And, as I mentioned earlier, what are you going to do about draught-only
beer? Many craft breweries sell their beer only this way. Brewpubs,
certainly. You going to send out armies of people with growlers, who then
have to haul the beer to the testing site overnight since draught beer
sitting in a growler goes south pretty quickly?

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

No, they're not, and no they shouldn't. The GABF is a brewery competition.
There are loads of homebrew competitions, including the national one put on
by the AHA (which shares the same parent as the GABF) to cover the
homebrewers.

>
> 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.

See the problems outlined above. How is this better?

Doubtless, some breweries are brewing special things just for the
competition. Breweries do this sort of thing a lot - brewing special beers
for festivals, contests, etc. But, usually, it's a special style or variety
they don't often do. For breweries that have a regular, staple beer that
they're entering, it's too much time and expense to suddenly brew a special
batch of it. Someone like Sierra Nevada need the pale ale to be consistent,
and they're not going to suddenly put an inconsistent batch out on the
market just because they want a "speical" batch for a contest. Doubtless
some do that. But I'd say it's in a vast minority.

And, by the way, don't believe everything you see on TV. A good rule of
thumb that most people learned years ago, but very applicable to beer. Most
TV stories and newspaper articles get basic details very, very wrong (such
as the NY Times talking about fermenting hops a few months ago).

-Steve