BrewBrawl moving forward

[CurtisG]

Hey Guys,
I wanted to start a discussion about the way we've been using brewbrawl at meetings.

When we initially started this we had hoped it would be a fun way to get people motivated to bring and share beer at club meetings. After checking the number of beers shared at meetings, it seems like this took off and worked great! Beers shared at meetings is up compared to last year.

That being said I feel the brew brawl has taken away from the open discussion we normally have during the sharing portion of our club meetings and I want to get back to having that discussion.

From the beginning I thought the brewbrawl would be a quick scoring we could do on our phones while the standard beer discussion was happening. It slowly evolved into being just the brewbrawl and most feedback comments were posted on the website.

I don't want to scrap the entire brewbrawl for 2019 because it seems like people took it pretty seriously, and it motivated people to bring in homebrew. Also it is a club award category for the holiday party.

So, for 2019 we're planning to go back to emphasizing open discussion during the homebrew sharing portion of the club meetings. We will still have the brewbrawl competition, but we're planning to give everyone a bit more time to share and discuss their recipe and have people give feedback directly instead of through the app.

What do you guys think? Do you like or hate the brewbrawl? Do you just want to drink beer?

[Megastout]

Don't care for brew brawl, but would like to see better feedback to each brewer who brings a beer for benefit to the brewer and us all.
DT

[JonW]

Don't care for brew brawl, but would like to see better feedback to each brewer who brings a beer for benefit to the brewer and us all.
DT

Ditto.

[MrAverageGuy]

So, IMO, it's really two separate things - Brewbrawl is mostly a fun thing, and getting feedback face to face is a different and more useful thing. I like both (it sounds like this is where you were going, in some form). I can see that a problem will simply be fitting it all in: the group brews very actively - we've been averaging 12 - 14 beers to taste in an evening - it's a lot just to get through a style presentation and a Brewbrawl. Maybe we could split into three or four groups in a given meeting to get more serious feedback with each group's beers? Whatever works!

[jward]

I am not a big fan of brewbrawl because I don't want to mess around with my phone or rate beers. I'd much rather drink them and discuss them. When I bring a beer it's mostly to share or to get feedback about something specific that I liked or did not like. No score necessary.

You could offer both. For brewbrawl competitors you could setup a table with the entered beers there and we can casually visit, try, and provide online feedback anytime during the meeting which would be especially handy at the beginning when we have little sharing going on. You could have an open discussion time for beers getting shared that way. You could also encourage more brawling or sharing during the off meetings and less sharing and brawling t regular meetings when we have a style presentation.

[lexuschris]

If your goal is to improve the quality of your beer, then you really need that dialogue with other brewers. You need to ask them for feedback, so they feel comfortable sharing the good, the bad and the ugly. I always learn from hearing other brewers in our club respond to somebody's inquiries. So many different way to do things on a brew day. So, hearing the questions asked, and the variety of experiences people offer up to help make that one beer better.. priceless. You don't get that in Brewbrawl.

I like that we are trying new things, so by no means is it a bag on the idea of Brewbrawl. However, it is not as condusive to discussion as the open sharing used to be. Plus with so many beers to 'get through', we barely have time to look-up the brew entry and give it a few stars and a 'Good.' descriptor. (Although I was impressed that a few folks got more of a BJCP style going to their BrewBrawl comments... )

I'm good either way. Folks are always telling me why my beer is bad regardless..
--LexusChris

[Mosaic1492]

I like the idea of scoring/rating our homebrews but also feel that the active conversation is the best part of sharing. As a club member I seek feedback, good and bad. Most of all I want honesty. Does Brewbrawl encourage discussion or detract from it? Maybe use BB just to provide a score (no comments) so we have some active competition but figure out how to advance real time feedback from those who wish to speak up.

[WillL]

I like the idea of scoring/rating our homebrews but also feel that the active conversation is the best part of sharing. As a club member I seek feedback, good and bad. Most of all I want honesty. Does Brewbrawl encourage discussion or detract from it? Maybe use BB just to provide a score (no comments) so we have some active competition but figure out how to advance real time feedback from those who wish to speak up.

This is pretty much how I feel. I like the competition aspect of brewbrawl and I think it has encouraged people to bring beer to share. But it is also taking away from the discussion of each beer. I like the idea of just using brewbrawl to score and then having a little time after sharing the beer for the brewer to offer details and to have the opportunity to receive feedback.

Just spitballing here, but what if we do brewbrawl for confab/off month meetings? This might cause an issue with how we do the awards since it wouldn't be on official club time, but that way it is separate from our official meetings.

[CurtisG]

Maybe use BB just to provide a score (no comments) so we have some active competition but figure out how to advance real time feedback from those who wish to speak up.

This is how I was hoping to move forward with BB, keep the discussion open and use bb just as a score for the competition aspect of it.

This was also my original idea for BB but I guess beers and phones don't mix well for discussions

Maybe we should just drop it for 2019?

[ctninh]

Pros:
-Increases participation in the group
-Fun thing to do
-Have an award at the yearly party
-I assume it makes it easier to sign-in your beers
-I can look back at what people said on the website

Cons:
-Focus is less on quality of feedback. I can only type so fast.
-On the previous note, I don't get much feedback from BrewBrawl. Maybe people don't type stuff in.
-Difficult to judge a variety of beers at a time

With increased participation due to BrewBrawl, the club may be tight on time. We have club business, the style presentation, and other things during those meetings to squeeze in. It may be more reasonable to split the BrewBrawl and style presentation to separate meetings as an idea to fit things in.

-Calvin

[brahn]

I'm not the best person to answer since I've been horrible at attending meetings (I'm trying to do better!) I thought the BrewBrawl was pretty good. I tried to write some comments, but it is tough to type out anything detailed. With the number of beers people brought you're going to have a challenge getting good feedback on all of them at a meeting.

Is everyone actually looking for detailed feedback on their beer, or do they just want to share? Maybe two separate lists of beers. You could BrewBrawl all of them, or limit to the ones people are bringing "just to share" as a fun competition element.

For those who want detailed feedback, maybe a sign up sheet for someone to take your beer home and fill out a scoresheet? I've done this for people in the past, it's good practice for filling out a scoresheet and you should get much more detailed feedback. The downside is you get fewer people's opinion.

[MrAverageGuy]

I'm not the best person to answer since I've been horrible at attending meetings (I'm trying to do better!) I thought the BrewBrawl was pretty good. I tried to write some comments, but it is tough to type out anything detailed. With the number of beers people brought you're going to have a challenge getting good feedback on all of them at a meeting.

Is everyone actually looking for detailed feedback on their beer, or do they just want to share? Maybe two separate lists of beers. You could BrewBrawl all of them, or limit to the ones people are bringing "just to share" as a fun competition element.

For those who want detailed feedback, maybe a sign up sheet for someone to take your beer home and fill out a scoresheet? I've done this for people in the past, it's good practice for filling out a scoresheet and you should get much more detailed feedback. The downside is you get fewer people's opinion.

This makes a lot of sense. Maybe start a given meeting with announcements, followed by the serious feedback session (or a take-it-home-and fill out a real score sheet option), and leave BrewBrawl for the 'just to share' brews (with scores only) to the end, if there is any time left to do it?

[ScottK]

I like these options. I've viewed BrewBrawl as a "crowd favorite" tool, and not well suited for detailed feedback. Brent's idea sounds good to me and I'd like to keep BrewBrawl for the fun part of it.

[maltbarley]

Perhaps when you name your beer in Brew Brawl, just put the word "Feedback" in the title. Also, allot time to discuss the beer, if wanted.

Mr Pres, it's your job to keep order and our job to respect that.

[Reid]

I found that the open discussion and questions to the brewer as we passed out beer was better in the long run for the club and it's continued improvement. I understand that some people are averse to constructive criticism, but it's how we get better.

I also personally found it difficult to explain my thoughts in the BrewBrawl format and just typically skipped the comments which is not useful for the brewer.