New Brewer of The Year site

[Tony L]

There will be a new Brewer of the year site taking over the Canadian Home Brewer of The Year duties as you can read form this e-mail sent me today.
Anyone have any thoughts on improvements in the old system so I can pass them on?

Here is the e-mail as it was sent to me.

Hey,

I'm sending this email to some of the guys with whom I've been having this discussion, as well as to some gents that Mark H. suggested would be interested.

We have been in talks regarding starting up a new website that will handle the tallying of points for homebrew competitions across Canada. With some of the issues surrounding the Ottawa competition's points submissions and what seems to be an increasingly busy schedule for the current organizer of canadianbreweroftheyear.com, it seems that it has become necessary to start fresh. Ty and I have offered to spearhead this effort, having acquired breweroftheyear.com (Ty has gotten most of the site ready, and I'm just working on some copy so we can get things active online). As I don't plan on brewing competitively next year, and Ty and I will no longer have a club affiliation, we are hoping that will increase the appearance of impartiality from our end.

We are looking for input from a variety of individuals from across the country - competition organizers, club members, competitive homebrewers, etc. We want to ensure that this system works for everyone...that it will be efficient and easier to submit results (we've already got a form on the site that will be far easier than creating an excel spreadsheet).

We also want to have a system that contains checks and balances to ensure fair, accurate reporting of results. We are also looking to address some questions, since this is a fresh start. One such question is the possible inclusion of results from mead, cider, and perry entries. While we know that only certain competitions accept these and that there aren't a ton of people who enter these beverages, perhaps including these results will encourage an increase in those areas. A suggestion I made was to have a 24-26 category and a 27-28 category in which people could enter results from their competitions (if they didn't accept those in their competitions, that's cool...the system doesn't crash if you don't enter points in certain categories).

What we're looking for at this point are suggestions for the system and site. Once we have something relatively operational, we'll put it up for everyone to see and provide feedback.

We have mined the current results standings, and I'm going to add the points from Ottawa to these totals, as they have not been done on the former site, and the organizer has absolutely no intention of adding them. I will probably just manually add the results from the remaining competitions this season, and then organizers will do so next season.

So, with all that being said, does anyone have anything to bring up or add?

Thanks,

[RubberToe]

Tony, was that email from Jared Carlberg?

[Tony L]

Tony, was that email from Jared Carlberg?

No, but he was sent the same E-Mail.

[RubberToe]

Ok, I've just seen him talking a lot about CBOTY over twitter.

The email is worded like they have a system set up, but they are also looking for suggestions on setting one up. Someone's going to have to write one from scratch.

[Tony L]

They are well on their way to doing that. They are hoping to make it easier for competition directors to enter results into the format they are setting up.

[Tony L]

Hello,

I am writing to introduce you to breweroftheyear.com. This is a competition results website that has been set up with the intention of tracking registered homebrew competition results across Canada. We track individual homebrewer results, as well as homebrew club point totals. This site has been developed in consultation with several different individuals from across the country, including homebrewers, homebrew club presidents, and competition directors – people with whom we had been in conversation regarding filling a developing need in the competitive homebrew community.

Our hope is that breweroftheyear.com will be accurate, efficient, easy to use, and quickly updated. Furthermore, we are in the process of developing some pretty sweet prize packages for the top three homebrewers and the top homebrew club in the country. In addition to that, we are working on detailing an Invitational Competition that would be open to the top 25 ranked homebrewers in the standings at the end of the competition season. Our seasons will run according to the calendar year – January 1 – December 31 (this season will also include the National Capital Homebrew Competition results from 2012, as many competitive homebrewers entered this competition with the expectation that this would count towards their standings).

We invite you to check out the website. Our results are up to date and include all of the main homebrew competitions run so far this year. We will also be including results from the other main competitions this year. While there has already been a great deal of development on the site, I would like to hear feedback from any interested parties. One thing you won’t be able to see yet is the results submission form, which is an efficient and streamlined process for competition organizers. This consists of simply plugging in the first and last name of winning brewers, as well as their stated homebrew club, in fields that are organized first through third by the BJCP categories. Having tried it out myself, I have to say it is rather quick and easy to complete and automatically submit on the site.

As mentioned on the site, if you note any errors (the main possibility at this point is a brewer not having his or her club listed – and the greatest potential here is from the results from the Vanbrewer Awards and NCHC (mined from their websites), as I noticed some individuals where cities were given, even though I know they are members of certain clubs...I gave due club credit where I was able) please let me know, and I’ll rectify the situation as quickly as possible. I want all clubs to receive their due credit! I am looking forward to next year’s full season, with all results submitted through the site from the beginning...as it will be far quicker to get results posted and uniform!

Please take a look and let me know what you think. I would appreciate any feedback you can provide on this, as we are trying to make this as effective and user-friendly as possible...and the prizes certainly don’t hurt, either! If you have any questions, I’d be very happy to answer anything I can. If there are any issues you would like to introduce, please let me know. One thing that we are kicking around is the possible inclusion of mead/cider/perry results in the standings for next year. We are asking clubs for feedback on that area, for sure – which clubs accept them, roughly how many entries they get, and whether or not they feel competitions will benefit by counting those points (we were thinking about potentially counting a 24-26 and a 27-28 category...or maybe all lumped into just one...this is up for some debate).

Thank you very much for your time, and we hope to hear your thoughts on breweroftheyear.com!

Warmest regards,

[RubberToe]

They have no one listed as Brewnosers in this years results, and me as a Vanbrewer.

I've sent them a correction.

[Tony L]

There are a few results that haven't been submitted yet because of directors in a few competitions not submitting them.

[Tony L]

Congrats to all the Brewnosers who won this year contributing to a total of 23 points in the Brewer of The Year award. We ended up in 10th place of 18 clubs, and ahead of some notable clubs like the MontreAlers,the SoB's and the Winnipeg Brew Bombers... all frequent participants in competitions.

Winning this year is:

Rob Shortt.............. 10.5 points
Jamie Archibald.........4.5 points
Shane Steeves...........4 points
Andy Robinson...........2 points
and yours truly...........2 points

The year is over right now for the 2013 season, but a new on begins now, so any entries into any more comps this calendar year will result in next years totals.
Lets keep it up and perhaps next year will see our star rise a bit further and let those guys in the other clubs know just who they are brewing against.

Cheers

[mr x]

Good work guys.

[canuck]

A big congrats to Rob, Jamie, Andy, and Tony........well done gents!!!! This was my first year entering into any comps, and while it was only two, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the getting the feedback back on my beers. I won't be able to participate in any of the same comps next year, so I'm glad that I got in a couple this year.

[RubberToe]

Good run, fellas, and great job!

I'm planning on entering some of the remaining comps this year, IIRC Winnipeg will be hosting one too.

This was my first year competing and I encourage everyone to give it a try. Anyone else have ideas on how we can get a sponsor for shipping?

[canuck]

Good run, fellas, and great job!

I'm planning on entering some of the remaining comps this year, IIRC Winnipeg will be hosting one too.

This was my first year competing and I encourage everyone to give it a try. Anyone else have ideas on how we can get a sponsor for shipping?

Rob, I am not sure about sponsors for shipping but I would definitely recommend opening up a Canada Post Venture One account. You'll be able to save quite a bit of $$$ when shipping your bottles and also pay everything online as well. I've had an account for a few years now for my business and it's saved me quite a bit of money shipping things......and its free too.

http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/busines ... rl07001181" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[akr71]

Rob, you're in the top 20! We went from just a few points last year, to top 10. I think we can climb into the top 5 next year. Maybe that's a little ambitious, but I think we can do it, especially if we host a competition.

[Tony L]

Rob, you're in the top 20! We went from just a few points last year, to top 10. I think we can climb into the top 5 next year. Maybe that's a little ambitious, but I think we can do it, especially if we host a competition.

Not ambitious, but a result of having more people enter. You would be surprised at how many of our brews are good enough to place if we entered them. People just don't enter for various reasons. Hosting a comp will let more local members enter without being overly nervous about it.

[akr71]

Not ambitious, but a result of having more people enter. You would be surprised at how many of our brews are good enough to place if we entered them. People just don't enter for various reasons. Hosting a comp will let more local members enter without being overly nervous about it.

I totally agree Tony. We have to ship our beers pretty much to the other side of the continent and we still fared well. I can just imagine how we'd do with home-field advantage.

[RubberToe]

Rob, you're in the top 20! We went from just a few points last year, to top 10. I think we can climb into the top 5 next year. Maybe that's a little ambitious, but I think we can do it, especially if we host a competition.

I was 6th place after the first couple comps but faded a bit and stopped entering due to the cost and amount of work involved in preparing entries. We have a lot of really good brewers amongst us and if we can get our participation rate up by various means then our club will certainly be much higher in the rankings. I see shipping out west probably the biggest deterrent for entering.

I've learned a lot of valuable lessons competing this year and I'm really looking forward to the next.

Go Brewnosers!