Merri Mashers IPA Comp 2017 Awards and Prizes

[Cerevisius]

We can now announce some of the amazing prizes up for grabs at this years Merri Mashers IPA Comp to be judged at The Terminus Hotel North Fitzroy on the 19th of March, 2017.

Details of the comp can be found on this post including drop points and entry requirements.

All entries must be submitted online via Compmaster by 1pm on Saturday, 11th of March 2017.

We have confirmed the following major sponsors:

Clifton Hill BrewPub are sponsors of the CHBP's Choice Award. Head Brewer Ben Simmons will select a winning beer to be brewed on his equipment at Clifton Hill.

Home Make It are sponsors of the HMI's Choice Award. The selected beer will be brewed on the flash new brewhouse at Craft & Co, Collingwood.

Hawkers Beer are this year's sponsor for Champion Brewer. The brewer amassing the most points across the competition will receive a Hawkers slab plus a 4 pack of special limited release beers (brand spanking new) and an option to spend a few hours with co-founder and chief spokesman Mazen Hajar talking business as part of a day at the brewery, in Reservoir.


Grain & Grape are again sponsoring the Best Novice Prize. The most successful brewer who has not previously placed at a BJCP-sanctioned event will receive a $250 voucher to be spent at Grain & Grape, Yarraville.

Category Prizes:

Category winners will all receive specially engraved IPA glassware.

In addition to providing the venue for judging the comp, The Terminus Hotel North Fitzroy are also sponsoring the Black IPA Specialty Category Prize, offering a $100 bar tab.

Our friends (and erstwhile Merri Mashers committee members) at Old Wives Ales are sponsoring the Rye IPA Specialty Category Prize to the tune of $100 value.

Our mates at Co-conspirators Brewing Co are sponsoring the American IPA Category Prize, again to the value of $100.

The excellent Exit Brewing are sponsoring the Double IPA Category Prize, and you guessed it, worth $100.

We are still waiting to hear back from some folks to confirm the remaining category and other prize sponsors, and you'll see it here first.

In the meantime, have a look at the Merri Mashers Official Webpage.

 

[Cerevisius]

BeerCo are generously sponsoring Club of Show, offering the following incredible loot to the club accumulating the greatest points across the comp:

25Kg of Gladfield Malt split across 3 x 5Kg bags of Base Malt & 10 x 1Kg bags of Specialty Malt – RRP value of $100.35
5 x 100g of Hops – selection of NZ AU US & EU Hops – RRP value of $49.75
3 x GigaYeast Gold Pitches – selection – RRP - $44.85
$50 voucher for www.beerco.com.au
and a selection of Gladfield Malt & GigaYeast merch – shirts, caps, openers etc est. Prize value of $100+

www.beerco.com.au

 

[moonhead]

We have now got confirmation of the rest of the sponsors for our category prizes.

A very big thanks and call out to Cryer Malt, who has provided prizes for 3 categories here!

White IPA - ~$115 worth of malts from Cryer Malt

Belgian IPA - $100 value sponsored by Moondog

Red IPA - ~$115 worth of malts from Cryer Malt

English IPA - $100 Bar tab at Tallboy & Moose

Brown IPA - ~$115 worth of malts from Cryer Malt

Specialty IPA - An exclusive case of Juicy IPA from 3 Ravens

Our website has now been updated with all these details -

http://merrimashers.org/ipa-comp-2017

Looking forward to seeing some awesome brews!

 

[sharpcliff]

White IPA is now being sponsored by Clever Brewing with a $100 gift voucher on the line! Cheers Clever Brewing!

This also means that Cryer's awesome prize is only being split 2 ways, making the prize for Brown and Red IPA worth $175!!

Get your beers entered into compmaster before Saturday March 11 @ 1pm! There's lots of great prizes to be had!!

Check out our website for more details.

http://merrimashers.org/ipa-comp-2017

 

[Cerevisius]

Please note Carwyn Cellars are confimed sponsors for the award for Champion Beer (Best of Show) with a Grand Prize of $250 to be spent over the bar or in their bottle shop in Thornbury.

 

[Yob]

Glassware for other place getters?

 

[Cerevisius]

Glassware for other place getters?

Sorry Yob, there ain't no second prize!

 

[Yob]

Nothing for second and third?

WTF?

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I was disappointed too, called in there, thought the place would be humming with homebrewers, guy with a beard came in carrying a Guinness bag, turned out he was the musical gig for the arvo, ended up going to the Barley Crushers and Grinders tasting session.

 

[NealK]

Nothing for second and third?

WTF?

That is a bit disappointing.

 

[Yob]

That is a bit disappointing.

Utterly, every other comp provides place getters a trophy.

Unless this changes, I personally won't enter again.

 

[1974Alby]

With the amount of work involved in organising and running a competition (judges, stewards, venue, logistics, catering, timing, promotion/advertising, entry collection and storage etc etc), I think these guys have done a great job in obtaining significant sponsorship for their competition. Perhaps the booty could have been spread out a little to accommodate place getters, but I would hate to think comps are only entered based on the opportunity to win trophies.

Some form of recognition for a well brewed beer is always nice, but surely trophies is not the prime motivation for entering comps?..Although I rarely enter comps, when I do I appreciate the independent feedback and process improvement suggestions.

It also needs to be recognised that these events are major fundraisers for clubs run by volunteers...(often the same volunteers year in/out). Whilst it would be great if they were sponsored by a benevolent trophy supplier, the reality is that securing any form of sponsorship involves a fair bit of unpaid work or that trophies etc are purchased. This is a significant cost and impacts on the fundraising success of the event. If these events don't raise a lot of money, they are probably not worth doing when you factor in the many hours of free labour required to make them happen!

 

[Wolfman]

Utterly, every other comp provides place getters a trophy.

Unless this changes, I personally won't enter again.

Great feedback Yob.

I suppose the Mashers can expect the Hop dealz Australia will sponsor the trophies for next year.

 

[NealK]

Prizes for place getters do not need to cost a lot of money. I have a certificate from the Worthogs Pale Ale Mania that is on display with my other glasses and trophies. I think a nice bottle of saison came with it. The saison is long gone but the certificate remains as a reminder of my achievement. I think that giving out $175 worth of malt for first and an engraved IPA glass and having nothing for second or third is a bitter pill to swallow for second and third places. I enter competitions for the feedback and to support the other home brew clubs. If all the brew clubs started to put profit before rewards for efforts of those that enter a beer then the future of competitions is surely ******.
I understand the effort that goes in to organising and running a competition and would like to say a big thank you to everyone involved. While those of us that do volunteer to help when we can (unfortunately yesterday was Westgate's club meeting so our club were unable to help) I do it to support the organising club and all the home brewers that have entered the competition. If this turns out to benefit the club at the expense of the brewers then I think people from other clubs may think twice about helping. We all need to support each other, we are a community that has a great history of supporting each other but if profit before people is the way things are going then we risk losing this.

 

[GrumpyPaul]

Not wanting to stir the pot but...

300 odd entries at $8 each is $2400

I dont know what trophie cost these days - but assuming 15ish trophies at $10 each is only a small chunk of change out to the takings.

Lucky for me i brew mediocre beer that doesnt ever place...i dont feel so hard done my as a result

 

[Yob]

Great feedback Yob.

I suppose the Mashers can expect the Hop dealz Australia will sponsor the trophies for next year.

I thought thats what part of the entry fee went towards.. certainly is in other comps Im involved with..

To me, it makes no sense to have a second and third if you arent awarding something for it, why not just call out first and be done with it if thats the way you guys are taking it..

and state it clearly so all entrants know, it seems as though my assumptions have the better of me on this one, would I have entered if it clearly said first place getters only will get anything for their entries? Probably, would I have my nose out of joint at this point, certainly not.

anyway, thanks for running it again and I look forward to reading my feedback when it's uploaded.

 

[Wolfman]

Prizes for place getters do not need to cost a lot of money. I have a certificate from the Worthogs Pale Ale Mania that is on display with my other glasses and trophies. I think a nice bottle of saison came with it. The saison is long gone but the certificate remains as a reminder of my achievement. I think that giving out $175 worth of malt for first and an engraved IPA glass and having nothing for second or third is a bitter pill to swallow for second and third places. I enter competitions for the feedback and to support the other home brew clubs. If all the brew clubs started to put profit before rewards for efforts of those that enter a beer then the future of competitions is surely ******.
I understand the effort that goes in to organising and running a competition and would like to say a big thank you to everyone involved. While those of us that do volunteer to help when we can (unfortunately yesterday was Westgate's club meeting so our club were unable to help) I do it to support the organising club and all the home brewers that have entered the competition. If this turns out to benefit the club at the expense of the brewers then I think people from other clubs may think twice about helping. We all need to support each other, we are a community that has a great history of supporting each other but if profit before people is the way things are going then we risk losing this.

Thanks for the great feedback mate. All points noted.

Just for the record we do this comp for the community not the profit, which none was made.

Not wanting to stir the pot but...

300 odd entries at $8 each is $2400

I dont know what trophie cost these days - but assuming 15ish trophies at $10 each is only a small chunk of change out to the takings.

Lucky for me i brew mediocre beer that doesnt ever place...i dont feel so hard done my as a result

300 entries? The amount of entries was no where near that amount, for the record it was 77. Not a $ was made from the event.

 

[mtb]

300 entries? The amount of entries was no where near that amount, for the record it was 77. Not a $ was made from the event.

I think the 300 figure was obtained from Cerevisius in the Results thread,

This is no small task with something like 300 scoresheets to be entered into the spreadsheet manually and each then scanned and uploaded.

 

[mugley]

I think the 300 figure was obtained from Cerevisius in the Results thread,

300 scoresheets. 4 scoresheets per entry. Works out to about $600 - reckon most of this would've gone on feeding the judges.

 

[Wolfman]

I thought thats what part of the entry fee went towards.. certainly is in other comps Im involved with..

To me, it makes no sense to have a second and third if you arent awarding something for it, why not just call out first and be done with it if thats the way you guys are taking it..

and state it clearly so all entrants know, it seems as though my assumptions have the better of me on this one, would I have entered if it clearly said first place getters only will get anything for their entries? Probably, would I have my nose out of joint at this point, certainly not.

anyway, thanks for running it again and I look forward to reading my feedback when it's uploaded.

MMBIPA.jpg

With only 77 entries and stewards and judges to feed for their time makes sharing the limited money very thin. I hope you understand.

It is hard to know at the time of setting up the event that the numbers would be down. I'm in discussion with the committee re something for the place getters. With the budget already blown it will be a cost to the club.

BTW big congrats to you on the second place.