Valkyries Horn Commercial Mead Competition: 2024

Thank you for your interest in the Valkyries Horn Commercial Mead Competition: 2024 organized by Valkyries Horn, Minnesota.

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. You can even pay your entry fees online if you wish.

If you are willing to judge or steward, please return to register on or after Saturday, December 9, 2023 12:00 PM, CST.

Rules

This competition is BJCP sanctioned and open to COMMERCIAL meaderies.

Qualified judging of all entries is a primary goal for our event. Judges will evaluate and score each entry. The consensus score will rank each entry in its category. ALL flights will have at least one BJCP certified mead judge, very experienced mead maker/judge or professional mead maker.

Key 2024 dates:

Registration opens December 30, 2023
January 12 - Shipping opens
February 2 - Delivery deadline
February 2 - Entries and changes close
February 3, 9:00am - BOTTLE SORT AT NORTHERN BREWER HEADQUARTERS
If you volunteer at the bottle sort, you may bring your entries with you!
Friday/Saturday February 23/24 - Judging
Saturday February 24, 7:00pm - Awards will be live and in-person
This competition is open to commercial mead makers.

If you are an amateur meadmaker, you must enter the amateur competition.

Commercial:
Commercial is defined as anyone that has worked in any production capacity at a commercial meadery (servers and back office employees are excluded) within the past two years prior to the start of judging. Further, anyone that has applied for commercial licensing or rented space for a planned meadery is excluded. Anyone illegally selling or trading "amateur" mead on public or clandestine websites is prohibited from entering the competition.

An entrant is one or more meaderies submitting an entry. Entrant(s) of a mead must have actively contributed to mixing, fermenting, and bottling of an entry. If multiple meaderies contributed to the making of a mead only ONE of those meaderies may enter that mead. Coordinate your entries so you are not disqualified!

TWO bottles are recommended. Please see Entry page for further details (THIS IS IMPORTANT)

There is a limit of 5 entries a meadery may submit.

Entrants, either as primary or as a co-entrant, may submit multiple entries per category, no limit as long as each entry is distinctly different - note co-entrant restrictions above.

You may submit multiple entries per category and sub-category as long as they are distinctly different. You MAY NOT enter the same mead twice even if it is placed into a different category/sub-category.

Sub-Categories will not be combined (i.e. Braggot and Historical will not be smashed together).
Our typically large sub-categories have been "pre-split" by sweetness and are shown as "special categories". Please enter your mead where it fits best by sweetness.
NOTE: we may combine dry and semi, or semi and sweet if one of the split sub-categories is small.

All entries become the property of the Valkyries Horn Mead Competition and will not be returned under any circumstances. Any questions or disputes will be settled by the competition organizers, and all decisions are final.

All mailed entries must be received at the mailing location by the shipping deadline - please make allowances for shipping time and delivery truck difficulties. Package your entries well.

All entries will be picked up from drop-off locations the day and time of the drop-off deadline.

The official style guidelines for this competition are the 2021 Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) Style Guidelines for Mead (which are actually 2015 edition).

Every entry must be assigned a particular category and sub-category by the entrant, and according to these guidelines.

Competition staff are not permitted to categorize entries that arrive unlabeled, illegible or otherwise indiscernible as to the entry category.

Competition staff (including judges) are not permitted to re-classify or re-categorize incorrectly entered mead during the competition.

Please print the label with a laser printer, NOT inkjet - they blur and bleed when wet which could cause miss-identification of your mead.
See labeling video linked under packaging and shipping information for details.

Entries in category M1 (Traditional Mead), M2 (Fruit Mead), M3 (Spiced Mead), and M4 (Specialty Mead), must specify carbonation level.

Entries in sub-category M2 (Other Fruit Melomel), must specify the varieties of fruit used.

Entries in sub-category M3 (Spiced Mead), must specify the types of spices used.

Entries in sub-category M4B (Specialty Mead - Historical) and M4C (Specialty Mead - Experimental), must describe the special nature of the mead, whether it is a combination of existing styles, an experimental mead, a historical mead, etc.

READ THE STYLE GUIDELINES CAREFULLY!

If you put your mead in the wrong sub-category it will not be eligible to medal no matter how good it actually is!

Online registration eliminates the need to submit a paper entry form and will automatically generate bottle identification labels. Paper entries will not be accepted. All entries must be entered via the online entry system, and entries are not guaranteed until they are paid for. You will not be able to print bottle labels until your entries have been paid.

The Competition Entry fee is $50.00 per entry. Payment by PayPal is REQUIRED when entering online.

NO REFUNDS FOR ANY REASON

Your entries and spots in the competition are not guaranteed until payment is made.

Any entries not paid when the entry cap is reached will be disqualified.

NOTE: We strongly recommend the use of placeholder entries followed immediately by payment to secure your spot in the competition. If the paid entry cap is reached before your payment is completed, your entries will not be in the competition. You can make changes to the entry information, categories, etc. until the entry deadline is reached.

Winners will be announced at approximately 7pm on the final judging date (Saturday) live and in-person at the awards ceremony. Volunteers and entrants are encouraged to attend. Generous prizes and raffles are typically offered to in person attendees courtesy of our sponsors.

Competition results and scoresheets should be available by 9pm on the Sunday following completion of judging through the internet (although this is not guaranteed). They MIGHT be available shortly after the awards ceremony. Scoresheets will ONLY be available through the competition via download.

Entry Acceptance Rules

Number of Bottles Required Per Entry: 2

We accept any packaging format.

There will be 2 rounds of judging including Best Of Show and Best in Class. To help your decision making, you should know that we don't hold partial bottles for subsequent rounds of judging. A fresh bottle IS REQUIRED for each round. We recommend sending 2 bottles to ensure you have the maximum opportunity for medals and Best of Show or Best in Class awards.

Each bottle should be 12oz. or more.

Bottles will not be returned to contest entrants.

All requisite paperwork must be submitted with each entry and can be printed directly from this website. Entry paperwork should be attached to bottles by the method specified on the bottle label and shown in the bottling video below.

Be meticulous about noting any special ingredients that must be specified. Failure to note such ingredients may impact the judges' scoring of your entry.

========================================================

INFORMATION REGARDING SERVING TEMPERATURES:

THE DEFAULT WILL BE AS FOLLOWS:

SPARKLING = CHILLED
PETILLANT = CELLAR TEMP
STILL = ROOM TEMP

If for some reason this does not match your requirements you may send a request to us VIA Email and we'll do our best to honor your preference.
EMAIL HERE:  INFO  @  VALKYRIESHORN . COM

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Entries may be disqualified if they contain illicit or unsafe ingredients.

Organizers will review descriptive information:

Ingredient information is acceptable if it is not specific to an entrant (i.e. East Elk River backyard honey is not acceptable, Minnesota wildflower honey is acceptable).
Information that is not relevant to the mead WILL BE REMOVED.
Information that could reveal the mead maker to a friendly judge for special treatment or that violates the blind judging standard we adhere to WILL BE REMOVED.

If you have questions you may contact us at: info   @ valkyrieshorn.com
(the contact form does not appear to work as expected)

NOTE: IF YOU ARE SHIPPING YOUR ENTRIES, THEY *** MUST *** ARRIVE BY 3:00PM ON THE FINAL DAY OF THE SHIPPING WINDOW.

Competition Official

You can send an email to any of the following individuals via Contact.

• Kevin Meintsma — Competition Coordinator