VICBREW 2015

[timmi9191]

Yes. If you enter a comp run by volunteers and have no interest in helping then yes are are not helping the comp run are you? We have had massive growth in entry numbers over the last 2 years but no increase in volunteers putting their hand up to do the thankless tasks required. So if you want your results a bit quicker then maybe it wouldn't hurt to get involved??

Such a view astounds me.

We all know that the entry wasnt conditional on volunteering, so that speaks for itself, but to have such a blanket view without any consideration for what circumstances dont allow, prevent, hinder or otherwise effect an individual from actually volunteering or wanting to volunteer, in my view does nothing to promote the goodwill of those that do volunteer.

Great effort to those running the show and kudos to those that volunteered but its wrong to blame, shame or lay guilt on any entrant for any difficulties in running the show because they didnt assist. From my experience, publicly guilting those that didnt volunteer is less likely to increase the level of participation next year than if you were to positively promote the benefits of assisting. As I was alluding to in my original post, thats a matter for a debrief of the organising committee.

 

[GalBrew]

My aim is not to shame people, but to point out the obvious that we need more help next year. Trying to put the word out as early as possible. Of course entry isn't conditional on entering. Plenty of volunteers don't even have beers entered. So if you would like to jump of your soap box for a minute and stop being a flog that would be great. The whole comp and every comp world wide is run purely on the goodwill of volunteers who give up their time for the benefit of homebrew. All it would take was for one or two people from the vicbrew committee to chuck it in and there would be no comp. if you would like to help out that's great, if not that's also fine. But don't not be interested in how it all unfolds, not be interested in helping and then whinge that your results are not given to you immediately. Anyway I am not going to comment any further today. Vicbrew is done and I am on my own time now.

 

[zeggie]

Well there was me and 2 others who put our hands up and didn't get any reply. I'm sure there was probably others.

 

[GrumpyPaul]

My aim is not to shame people, but to point out the obvious that we need more help next year. Trying to put the word out as early as possible. Of course entry isn't conditional on entering. Plenty of volunteers don't even have beers entered. So if you would like to jump of your soap box for a minute and stop being a flog that would be great. The whole comp and every comp world wide is run purely on the goodwill of volunteers who give up their time for the benefit of homebrew. All it would take was for one or two people from the vicbrew committee to chuck it in and there would be no comp. if you would like to help out that's great, if not that's also fine. But don't not be interested in how it all unfolds, not be interested in helping and then whinge that your results are not given to you immediately. Anyway I am not going to comment any further today. Vicbrew is done and I am on my own time now.

Well there was me and 2 others who put our hands up and didn't get any reply. I'm sure there was probably others.

Yeah yeah ....you made your points earlier.

Now can we relax and have a home brew.

The only post I want to see as an update to this thread is one saying "results posted"

 

[Black n Tan]

Well there was me and 2 others who put our hands up and didn't get any reply. I'm sure there was probably others.

Did you offer to steward or judge?

I know there were a good number of stewards on Saturday but not enough on Sunday.

For judges, preference was given to those that could judge a full day or both days. The reasoning being that all categories (except Strong Lagers) took at least a full day to judge and the want for consistency.

 

[timmi9191]

So if you would like to jump of your soap box for a minute and stop being a flog that would be great.

being a flog...

+1 for inspiring me to want to volunteer next year, well done!

 

[GrumpyPaul]

Such a view astounds me.

We all know that the entry wasnt conditional on volunteering, so that speaks for itself, but to have such a blanket view without any consideration for what circumstances dont allow, prevent, hinder or otherwise effect an individual from actually volunteering or wanting to volunteer, in my view does nothing to promote the goodwill of those that do volunteer.

Great effort to those running the show and kudos to those that volunteered but its wrong to blame, shame or lay guilt on any entrant for any difficulties in running the show because they didnt assist. From my experience, publicly guilting those that didnt volunteer is less likely to increase the level of participation next year than if you were to positively promote the benefits of assisting. As I was alluding to in my original post, thats a matter for a debrief of the organising committee.

being a flog...

+1 for inspiring me to want to volunteer next year, well done!

Yeah yeah ....you made your points earlier.

Now can we relax and have a home brew.

The only post I want to see as an update to this thread is one saying "results posted"

edited for comic meme effect

 

[Grainer]

Hi,

Just finishing writing my Masters up and now it is time soon for more study..beer study.. Just wondering where people get their tainting kits from and some advice on study etc for the BJCP exam..haven't studied for it yet due to other commitments..

cheers

 

[fcmcg]

Grainer , ask black n tan..he got the westgate one and there was a choice of two suppliers
There is a Sebel one , I think

 

[Black n Tan]

There are two options: Aroxa and Sebel. We used the Aroxa kit (Uno kit plus acetaldehyde), but next time would probably use the Sebel ones (they have recently changed the kits to improve the shelf-life). You are best to run a taint session at the club level as they cost a couple of hundred dollar and each taint is intended for 1L of beer.

 

[Dips Me Lid]

Grainer, Aroxa kits are a good bet, I just got a couple ordered in for my club, they're not cheap though.

 

[Grainer]

Is a better option to obtain typical infected / problematic beers where these issues were identified from in the first instance?

 

[manticle]

There are two options: Aroxa and Sebel. We used the Aroxa kit (Uno kit plus acetaldehyde), but next time would probably use the Sebel ones (they have recently changed the kits to improve the shelf-life). You are best to run a taint session at the club level as they cost a couple of hundred dollar and each taint is intended for 1L of beer.

This is way off topic and I'm not sure how it ended up here but anyway - why the preference for siebel over aroxa?

I have used both and I think aroxa are easier to use, last way longer and from memory were actually cheaper.

 

[manticle]

Grainer - the good thing about the kits is that they are a known taint, as opposed to commercial beer that may not be or may be a combination of things. There are ways of doctoring beer to represent common taints - the BJCP website has hints from memory.

 

[Black n Tan]

This is way off topic and I'm not sure how it ended up here but anyway - why the preference for siebel over aroxa?

I have used both and I think aroxa are easier to use, last way longer and from memory were actually cheaper.

We used the Aroxa kits and most participants had trouble picking up the diacetyl and acetaldehyde taints. Next time we will probably taint at both a low and high levels to allow for different thresholds. Because of this issue others in the club suggested we try the siebel kits: note that they have recently changed their kits to a more stable formulation with a longer shelf-life.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Patience is required, looking at last years thread the uploading of results process took 3 days after the event.

 

[DU99]

i did stewarding on saturday and section i did had 36 entries and had 3 sections,it was long day.without the guidance of the organising committee and the skills of the chief steward and the volunteers behind the bar washing glasses/jugs,and decanting of the beers in jugs.this might not of happend.

 

[Andyd]

G'day all,

Mark H and I have been working hard last night and today to resolve some of the problems that were encountered over the weekend, given the unprecedented number of entries. We should have finalized results available tonight (I've just finished scanning the 1300 score sheets (about 8 hours work over the weekend because they didn't get scored during the event ), and now need to fight my upload speeds to get a gig of images uploaded for y'all

I haven't seen the whole thread (for reasons above), but the sentiment of needing additional assistance at the event is a really good one. Clearly the number of entries this year took it well beyond the capacity to run the event on current volunteer numbers. Nearly every category needed to run with 2 judges this year, and at times we had well below the number of stewards than required to make it all run smoothly.

There are a number of proposals on the table, and I'm sure we'll have a healthy discussion about some of these in coming weeks (in another thread )

Sorry for the delay - back to the uploading for me

Cheers,

Andy

 

[Wolfman]

Thanks for taking the time post comp on this Andy.

Do you have the ability to just give out the summary details of who is first second and third in the categories? I think this may appease the people who won/placed and don't know yet. The full details and score sheets can and do take time as we all know.

Btw I'm not expecting any of my entries to win but I know a few of our members won stuff and are waiting very patiently to find out who and what.

Cheers

 

[Andyd]

At this point I want to wait until Mark H advises on the official result, because a couple of the announced results were invalidated (there were a couple of score sheets that were not entered that I found when scanning, and a couple of beers whose entry numbers were announced incorrectly to tables, resulting in extra or missing score sheets for entries).

We should have them sorted tonight.

Andy