Third Annual Mother Earth Brewing Festival on the Neuse Home Brew Competition

Thank you for your interest in the Mother Earth Brewing Festival on the Neuse Home Brew Competition organized by Mother Earth Brewing, 311 N Herritage Street, Kinston, NC 28501. Be sure to read the competition rules.

You only need to register your information once and can return to this site to enter more brews or edit the brews you've entered.

Registration

Registration open: Monday, February 1st, 2016 at 9am

Registration close: Monday, February 22nd, 2016 at 5:00 PM. Please note: registered users will not be able to add, view, edit or delete entries after this date/time.

Register all beers by sending an email to josh@motherearthbrewing.com

Email subject: Festival on the Neuse Home Brew Competition

Body of email: Name, email, category of beer and how many beers you are sending.  Utilize the official BJCP Entry form found at http://www.bjcp.org/docs/SCP_EntryRecipe.pdf.  When indicating the category you are entering, use the official BJCP 2015 Style Guidelines, found at http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf

Entries

Deliveries of beer entries will be accepted between Monday, March 7th, 2016 at 10am, to Friday, March 18th at 5:00 PM. Entries received after this time will not be included in the competition.

Judging Date

Judging will take place during the week of March 21st, 2016 at Mother Earth Brewing, 311 N Herritage Street, Kinston, NC 28501.

Competition Rules

The Mother Earth Brewing Festival on the Neuse Home Brew Competition is an AHA/BJCP sanctioned competition. This competition is open to any homebrewer 21 years of age and older. Professional Brewers are not permitted to enter into this competition.

An entry must consist of 3 (THREE) bottles from a single batch of beer. All entries must be handcrafted, containing products available to the general public and made on private equipment. (No use of commercial systems or systems on commercial brewery grounds will be allowed.)

All tastings and judging will be anonymous. To facilitate the anonymity, we require that the bottles have no distinguishing marks. Please read below carefully:

-3 brown bottles 12-22oz (ounces).

-No labels on the bottles.

-Each bottle capped with ONLY silver or gold cap, unmarked.

-No flip top, corked or screw cap bottles are permitted.

-Attach entry forms to bottles with rubber band only, no adhesive.

-Entry form should be a piece of paper with your name, cell phone number and category of beer.  Use the official BJCP Bottle Id Form found at http://www.bjcp.org/docs/SCP_BottleID.pdf.  Category should be indicated using the official BJCP 2015 Style Guidelines, found at http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf

-NON-COMPLIANT BOTTLES WILL BE DISQUALIFIED IMMEDIATELY.

Bottles will not be returned to entrants.

When filling out Bottle ID form, please be meticulous and complete in its entirety. Note any and all ingredients specified under the 2015 BJCP Style Guidelines. Failure to complete form in its entirety may result in disqualification or inability for Grand Prize. Full recipe disclosure is not required.

Brewers are limited to one entry per category, but may enter all categories if desired.

Entries must be hand delivered or shipped to:

Mother Earth Brewing
311 N Herritage Street, Kinston, NC 28501

If hand-delivering entries, please drop off entries at the Mother Earth Brewing Trading Post, 127 W. North St, Kinston, NC 28501.  Trading Post hours:

  • Tues-Fri, 10a-6p
  • Saturday: 1p-10p

An entrant is one or more people submitting an entry. Any member submitting an entry MUST be involved in the actual brewing, fermenting and bottling of that entry. All members must be 21 years or older.

No judges are allowed to enter the competition.

The competition organizers are not responsible for mis-categorized entries or damaged entries, and reserve the right to combine styles for judging and/or restructure awards as needed depending upon the quantity and quality of entries.

Qualified judging of all entries is the primary goal of this event. Judges will evaluate and score based on the 2015 BJCP guidelines, the average of the scores will rank the entry in its category. There will be 4 judges, at least 1 will be BJCP certified.

Judging will take place over a course of 5 days, March 21st 2016 to March 25th 2016. If no entry reaches BJCP guidelines scoring for a “good” beer, no winner will be chosen for that category. A minimum of “excellent” must be met to win Grand Prize. Mother Earth shall have the right, but not the obligation, to brew the Winner's recipe as a year-round or seasonal offering without further compensation to Winner.

Awards will be announced at the Festival on the Neuse in Kinston NC May 7th at noon. It is recommended that entrants be present, but not required.

Competition Official

Questions regarding these official rules should be directed to Josh Brewer — Competition Coordinator

  • josh@motherearthbrewing.com

Entry Fees

$7 per entry.

Payment

After registering and inputting entries, all participants must pay their entry fee(s). Accepted payment methods include:

  • Cash
  • Check, made out to Mother Earth Brewing

Payment is due when entries are delivered.  Entries not accompanied by entry fees will not be judged.

 

Categories Accepted

Each entry must be placed into one of the following accepted categories.  Please note that all styles in a category are not accepted, only the styles expressly stated below:

  • 5. Pale Bitter European Lager
    • 5D – German Pils
  • 12. Pale Commonwealth Beer
    • 12C – English IPA
  • 15. Irish Beer
    • 15B – Irish Stout
  • 16. Dark British Beer
    • 16A – Sweet Stout
    • 16B – Oatmeal Stout
  • 18. Pale American Ale
    • 18A – Blonde Ale
    • 18B – American Pale Ale
  • 19. Amber and Brown American Beer
    • 19A – American Amber Ale
  • 20. American Porter and Stout
    • 20A – American Porter
    • 20B – American Stout
    • 20C – Imperial Stout
  • 21. IPA
    • 21A – American IPA
  • 22. Strong American Ale
    • 22A – Double IPA

 

Shipping and Drop-Off Location and Address

Entries may be shipped to the following address:

Mother Earth Brewing.
311 N Herritage Street, Kinston, NC 28501

Or dropped off at the Trading Post, located next to our Tap Room, 127 W. North St. in Kinston.

Packing and Shipping

Carefully pack your entries in a sturdy box. Line the inside of your carton with a plastic trash bag. Partition and pack each bottle with adequate packaging material. Do not over pack! Write clearly: "Fragile. This Side Up." on the package. Your package should weigh less than 25 pounds. Please refrain from using "messy" packaging materials such a Styrofoam "peanuts" or pellets; please use packaging material such as bubble wrap.

Place entry forms and payment a sealed zip-top bag. Additionally, enclose your each of your bottle labels in a small zip-top bag before attaching to their respective bottles. This way it makes it possible for the organizer to identify specifically which beer has broken if there is damage during shipment.

Every reasonable effort will be made to contact entrants whose bottles have broken to make arrangements for sending replacement bottles.

It is not against any Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) regulations or federal laws to ship your entries via privately owned shipping company for analytical purposes. However, IT IS ILLEGAL TO SHIP ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES VIA THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE. Private shipping companies have the right to refuse your shipment if they are informed that the package contains glass and/or alcoholic beverages. Be aware that entries mailed internationally are often required by customs to have proper documentation. These entries might be opened and/or returned to the shipper by customs' officials at their discretion. It is solely the entrant's responsibility to follow all applicable laws and regulations.

Best In Show

One competition entrant will be selected as “Best In Show”  and will be awarded the Grand Prize.  Grand Prize will consist opportunity to brew the winning recipe at Mother Earth Brewing with Brewmaster Josh Brewer on Mother Earth’s 3bbl pilot system.  Beer will be brewed and served to festival attendees at the Festival on the Neuse 2016.

A minimum of “excellent” must be met to win Grand Prize. Mother Earth shall have the right, but not the obligation, to brew the Winner's recipe as a year-round or seasonal offering without further compensation to Winner.

Awards

A $100 gift card will be given to the gold winner of each category. 

Award Ceremony

Festival on the Neuse
Festival on the Neuse Main Stage
Saturday, May 7th, 2016 at 12:00 pm noon

For any questions not answered in these official rules, please contact the Competition Coordinator, Josh Brewer, by emailing josh@motherearthbrewing.com