By David Houseman, Competition Director &
Michael Bury, BJCP Assistant Competition Director
It was a trying year for BJCP competitions just as it was for everyday life around the globe. While 411 competitions were registered for 2020, down over 50% from 2019’s 895 competitions, many of these competitions either didn’t happen because they were cancelled or postponed. A number of competitions were held virtually, in tribute to the persistence of homebrewers and organizers. While the number of competitions scheduled in the USA was only about 40% of that in 2019, some countries actually increased the number of registered competitions, including the UK and
Panama. We’d also like to welcome two new countries to the BJCP competition family, Bolivia and Vietnam.
Dealing with cancellations and postponements was a difficult task in 2020. Everyone who registers a competition should become familiar with the cancellation policy. Due to COVID, we were as flexible as we could be in handling these and providing refunds whenever possible. That being said, there were 188 competitions that had delinquent reports in 2020 which requires manual intervention. Furthermore, many of these competitions didn’t even occur so understanding of the cancellation policy is paramount.
But even after the thunderstorm of 2020 will come a rainbow, where we all can find hope and growth. The individual circumstances that we found ourselves in pushed many to consider approaches that were previously thought impossible: virtual judging. Organizers became creative and used a variety of tools at their disposal including fillable PDFs sometimes in conjunction with competition software packages such as Brew Competition Online Entry & Management (BCOE&M), Reggie, and Beer Awards Platform (BAP), all of which now support eJudging/virtual judging. Additionally, many judges found the process to be liberating since they could schedule their judging around their already busy schedules and in the comfort of their own home. But the camaraderie of judging in person is desired by many and couldn’t really manifest itself this past year. Ultimately, it will be interesting to see how and when all of these will be introduced into competitions without outside constraints, but as they say, the one constant is change.
Here’s to a better 2021 and beyond with more judging opportunities for all BJCP judges.
Stay safe.