Beer Forum

So, I was perusing the rules for the 2009 National Competition, and noticed a few changes, one of which may be significant:

Entry Cap Set – To ensure the integrity of the judging, all Regions will be capped at a maximum of 750 entries in 2009. Once the cap is reached in a region there will be no more entries accepted in that Region. It will not be possible for entries to be registered in a region once the cap has been reached.

I can definitely appreciate that this competition is getting bigger every year and is probably getting more and more difficult to manage. Some kind of limit seems pretty reasonable. I got to wondering how much impact this would have in 2009, so I added up 2008's first round totals by region. Definitely some areas close to the cap, and with the way NHC grows every year, I wouldn't be surprised to see some areas hitting the limit in 2009.

Old West: 701
Northeast: 692
West: 664
Great Lakes: 598
Midwest: 592
South: 583
East: 572
Southwest: 562
Northwest: 463
Canada: 204

I wonder if capping the total number of registrations was the best way to maintain a manageable number of entries. I do wonder how many people registered a number of entries and then failed to submit them. Or how many regions had a few hardcore homebrewers dropping 20, 30, 40 entries on the first round.

I don't enter much in NHC as I prefer competitions with local drop-offs, but I wanted to make sure you all knew to register early if you wanted in on this one, this year...

This is interesting, I didn't know they had set limits this year. I am bummed that I live in the region that is closest to the cap. Oh well I guess, get'm in early.