Off topic or not. Anyone who enters a "Joke" entry into a craft brewing competition, whether a rebottled commercial beer, an infected beer or whatever, does the home brewing / Craft brewing fraternity NO FAVOURS.
I doubt Franko would be laughing at this even though I understand his frustrations regarding his disqualification.
Anyone who puts a fake entry into a comp and doesnt take into account that these are not run by a big multinational or commercial brewing company is undermining our craft unnecessarily. If you dont like the comps....dont enter them, but dont sabotage them.
ATOMT
While I agree with your sentiment - to a point - I actually think my infected entry did do this particular competition a big favour. I informed the organisers after the event and, after a good laugh at the absurdity of the situation, they decided to improve their standard for choosing judges in the future. It may have been a rather unorthodox, and admittedly, unintentional, method of improving the calibre of judges - but it worked, from what I could tell.
One of my biggest beefs with competitions is the apparent ability for anyone to approach the judges and say "I brew beer... let me judge". I have helped to organise a few competitions and judged in several state level comps and unfortunately it appears that in a desperate bid to get all the judging over in the minimal time necessary, many organisers simply pull in as many "potential judges" as possible without paying heed to the need for experienced tasters to make up the bulk of the judging.
It seems to be a prevalent belief that beer judging is in some way inferior to wine judging and is essentially easier, therefore the skill level neednt be as high. I find that there is as much depth of character in beer as there is in wine and commend the US based BJCP in their highly successful efforts to raise the bar in beer judging. I would love to see this program adopted more fully in Australian beer competitions, rather than the impotent lip-service they seem to give the name, and would congratulate anyone who would take the time needed to bring this method, including a means of properly training potential judges, to Australia.
Unfortunately, the Australian homebrew hobby is only just starting to break out of its infancy, and considering the added hindrance of the cost of completing such a program, it may be many years yet before a large fraternity of Australian BCJP judges becomes more than just a pipe-dream. I know that if I had the money spare, I would complete such a program rather than wasting the money of trying to come up with the next gadget that will improve the efficiency of my backyard brewery by an entire 1.3%.
Hmm it appears I have gone off on a tangent to a post that had already taken such a turn I apologise.
Oh, and screwtop the beer came fourth not an award place. And yes, if the beer had won an award, then I would have ensured it went to the rightful place winner instead, including all accolades. As I said above, I did inform the organisers and I am certain that if I hadnt offered any acquired awards back, they would have demanded them at any rate. As it stands, I also took out first and third place in the same category for a rather delectable dubbel and a tripel, respectively.
And for those of you who think I was denigrating amateur competitions, then re-read this post. If that still fails to satisfy, then brew yourself up a sense of humour.
