Best of the Bay

[Todd Quessenberry]

For the last 4? years a group in Bellingham has been running an annual homebrew competition in the summer known as the Best of the Bay. This competition is on a short list of state-wide competitions (we actually get a few out of state entries every year as well) that’s a qualifier for the Washington State Homebrewers of the Year award (WHOTY) and receives 175-250 entries. As such, it’s a reasonably large enterprise to organize. Many, but not all, participants in organizing past competitions have been BHG members. Many of those organizers have since moved on to other pursuits, moved to other states, had babies, etc. It’s time to start talking about what we want to do going forward and whether we want to make any changes to what we’ve done in past competitions in order to get more assistance putting it on.

We’ve always done the competition judging in very late July/early August, with an award ceremony immediately following (1st year) or a couple weeks into August. One concern/excuse I’ve heard from quite a few people is that summer weekends are 100% booked in July/August and that time frame just doesn’t work for them. So one idea we’ve kicked around is moving it to another time of year. The fall already has a couple of competitions, and so does early spring, so April - June would be possibilities for this approach.

Another change I’d propose is returning to holding the competition and award ceremony in the same weekend. The decision to split them after the first year was made because the two events were being organized by the same group of people and the amount of work was too stressful. With more participation in helping organize the events I think we could tie up less weekends on people’s calendars and still not stress out.

This is not my competition, it’s this community’s. I’d very much like to see it keep going, but we need a large increase in participation over last year for that to be able to happen. I’m good with carrying on the traditions of the past or forging new ones but we really need some input from the homebrew community on what you’d like to see, or what we can do to get more people involved. So let’s hear it! What do you think of my ideas? What ideas do you have? Do we want to do this again?

Todd

[Robert Tierney]

I definitely want to see it happen again and am willing to put in some
labor on it. Really enjoyed judging the past few years and would like
to continue that in the future, but I can do more than just drink and
write.

Or so I tell myself...

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[Chris Denny]

I have a Oregon dune trip sometime in August (probably late August), other than that I would be open to help. I'm not a beer judge, but could do some of the laborious tasks. Let me know what ends up happening. 

Chris 

> Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2015 15:55:02 -0700
> Subject: Re: [BHG] Best of the Bay
> From: cor...@gmail.com
> To: Belling...@googlegroups.com

[Andrew Richardson]

I am also of the opinion that we should continue the tradition.  I am willing to help out this year if it happens in the (late) summer.  I should have lots of free time starting mid-June, but wouldn't be able to put in too many hours before then.

Andrew

[Neal Tognazzini]

I haven't been here for previous iterations, but I've been looking
forward to being a part of it this year, so my vote would be to keep
it going. I'm definitely happy to help with whatever organizational
tasks are needed, including helping with the actual judging. Maybe we
could set up an online survey to send out to the group to get feedback
on when would be best to hold the event? Though we also want to give
people enough time to actually brew some beer for it, so at this point
summer might still be the best for this year.

Neal

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 3:51 PM, Todd Quessenberry <to...@quessenberry.com> wrote:

[Todd Quessenberry]

Thanks all for the input! Between these comments and opinions expressed at the meeting last night it sounds there's both interest in keeping it going and more interest in helping plan than we saw last year. Also the majority thought it made more sense to keep it during the summer (at least for this year) rather than try to rush it.
Many of you were unfamiliar with what goes into putting on a competition and asked about specifics of what needed to be done and how you could help. My first priority will be collecting my notes from previous years and try to organize a list of the responsibilities and tasks we've had in the past as a starting point for planning this year's event. Stay tuned!

Todd