The Beer Barons of Milwaukee are looking for volunteers (judges and stewards) for the Midwinter Homebrew Competition the weekend of February 17th and 18th. We are expecting 600-700 entries, so there is plenty of need for help. Our mantra for the competition is to create a high quality competition by providing a beer geek weekend in Milwaukee to ensure we have plenty of quality judges. See below info for info about what we have planned. Please visit the competition website to register and more info about the competition:
www.midwinterhbc.beerbarons.org.
Judging will be on Friday, February 17th and Saturday, February 18th. There will be 4 sessions on Friday and 3 sessions plus the BOS on Saturday. All volunteers will be limited to 3 sessions max to limit fatigue. See the website for the schedule. Anyone who signs up for all 4 sessions on Friday will be assigned to the first 3 sessions, leaving them free for the brewery tour (see below). The top ranked judges without entries who are available will be selected for BOS. Those judges will not be assigned to the Saturday morning session.
Location: Once again the judging will be located upstairs at the Milwaukee Ale House (downtown Milwaukee location). This year we have a larger room located down the hall from last year’s judging location with the smaller rooms available for overflow, so we should be much more comfortable this year.
Meals: Lunch on Friday will be provided for the volunteers from the Friday morning session. Friday dinner will be provided for the volunteers from the Friday afternoon sessions. And lunch on Saturday will be provided for the Saturday morning volunteers. Menus are still being finalized, but the plan is to provide a little better food for the Friday meals as an extra perk to those who take Friday off of work.
Brewery Tour: There is a private brewery tour planned at the Milwaukee Brewing Co. for anyone who volunteers for the 3 early sessions on Friday – free of charge. A shuttle bus will be provide transportation from the Milwaukee Ale House to the Milwaukee Brewing Co. after the Friday dinner and then back to the Ale House in time for the volunteers reception.
Volunteer’s reception: There will be a private volunteer’s reception in the basement bar of the Milwaukee Ale House after the last judging session on Friday for volunteers only. There will be munchies and beer provided (appears that we will be providing a couple of wood aged beers). Additional beer can be purchased from the Ale House.
Speakers: There will be presentations during the lunch breaks on both Friday and Saturday. Details being finalized but it as of now we are planning to have Curt Stock discuss judging meads with one or two sample meads to practice judging during the Friday lunch break. The Saturday lunch break will consist of a panel of brewmasters from local Milwaukee microbreweries (from brew pubs to full production breweries). It’s looking very likely we will have someone from a cooperage to talk about wood and wood barrels used for brewing during the volunteer’s reception Friday evening.
Awards Ceremony: There will be an awards ceremony open to the public in the main bar of the Milwaukee Ale House at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday. Score sheets will be available there once all winners are announced. This is also a good time to get some dinner and a pint or two from the Milwaukee Ale House.
Hotels: A discounted block of rooms will be reserved for volunteers. I apologize for not having this ready yet, but we are finalizing some things in order to provide the best price and options possible. The hotel we will select will be under $75 a night for a room with either a king bed or two queens (possibly a suite with kitchenette, maybe sofa) so rooms can be shared, full breakfast, free parking, safe location,… Best option for sharing rooms is to come with someone from your area, but if you are coming alone you can contact us and we can try to pair you up with other volunteers looking to share a room.
Shuttle buses: There will be shuttle buses from the hotel to the Milwaukee Ale House each morning and back to the hotel after the volunteer’s reception on Friday and the awards ceremony on Saturday. This will eliminate the need for the volunteers to drive downtown and find/pay for parking (plus not worry about driving after enjoying some tasty malted beverages with your fellow beer geeks). Still being worked on is a shuttle for a bar tour Saturday night after the awards ceremony. This will consist of a shuttle bus running an hourly schedule to approximately half a dozen of select beer bars/brewpubs with a stop at the hotel. This will provide you the opportunity to get off at the bar of your choice for one hour then take the shuttle to another bar on the tour, etc.
Glasses: We will also be providing each volunteer a commemorative Guiness pub glass with the Midwinter Homebrew Competition logo.
The Midwinter Beer Festival is Sunday, February 19th. We will not be providing free tickets to the volunteers, but may get a limited number of discounted tickets (non-transferable) for the volunteers. As the tickets are not available online or by phone, and the festival sells out fast every year, we will also reserve tickets for any out-of-town volunteers to purchase if discounted tickets are not available (only available until festival is sold out). Please contact us to reserve tickets at:
midwinterhbc@beerbarons.org. Food & Froth beer festival is Saturday night at the Milwaukee Museum for those interested. Info for Frood & Froth can be found online at:
http://www.mpm.edu/events/foodfroth/.
Please pass this on to anyone else who may be interested. Any questions that aren’t answered in this email or on our website (
www.midwinterhbc.beerbarons.org) can be sent to:
midwinterhbc@beerbarons.org.
Midwinter Homebrew Competition Committee
