Serious question here ... has anyone else had the very strong impression that the competition organizers mixed up your beer and judged the wrong one? I just got the NHC score sheets sent back to me and there is no way that the IPA I sent was the IPA that was scored at the competition. I even went back and checked my inventory to make sure I didn't send out a blonde ale by accident, but the inventory numbers are all right on for each of the styles that I sent in.

I just don't see how the beer bottled at the same time from the same batch and sent into two different competitions which were judged within a week of each other could have comments ranging from "Nice hop aroma, hits you right up front ... good citrus hoppy flavor, great balance towards hops" to "very low hop aroma almost imperceptible ... this IPA need Hops!".

On the Bright side ... My Blonde Ale is progressing to the sencond round!!!

I've never thought this has happened to me, but screw ups are always possible. As someone who has organized a couple of competitions and judged many more, it is possible that your bottle may have been mislabeled during the bottle sort. It is highly unlikely, but possible. The problem with 1st round NHC judging is there is no other bottle for the judges to request if they think there was an error.

IPAs are also a tough category to make an inquiry about, because they tend to trash the palate of even the best judges. I know by the time I've judged 10 IPAs my senses have been dulled. Did the cover sheets from each competition tell you where in the flight your beers were judged?

Congrats on pushing a beer through to the second round. Hope to see you on the stage in Seattle!

Yep I had it happen at mississippi mash out this year, I entered an Oktoberfest and an ipa and I am almost positive one of my oktoberfests was judged as an ipa

EagleDude

Congrats on making the 2nd round.

Where were your beers judged?

Thanks! ... Maybe I shouldn't state the location in case they weren't supposed to send out the score sheets yet ... .

how do you know you won? they are not supposed to release the names till May 4th?

I guess it is always possible that I screwed up and sent a blond ale, but I don't see how. The IPA was bottled and labeled on a different day than I bottled the blond ale and I am not a bottle short of the blond ale. Plus the two didn't get switched since the blond did well with comments fitting the beer. I guess it is alway possible that one of my friend might have thought it funny to switch some of my labels around?

The sheet did not indicate the flight position so i guess palate fatigue could be an issue ... that would be a really fatigued palate though. There was ~1 lb of hops used for the 10 gallon batch (lots of late additions and dry hoping), so you would have needed to burn out all your taste buds for the hops to be "imperceptible". I thought that perhaps I ended up with someone else's score sheet, but I checked the entry numbers on the score sheet and they matched.

Maybe someone else out there is going to get a score sheet back detailing how their brew has way too much hop character for style ...


Definately excited for second round and looking forward to a Seattle vacation in June.

Place Awarded is noted on cover page for the score sheets ... it is not going to be announced on the NHC site until ~ May 4th.