THE RULES
Last Update: 12/25/2025
1) There is no entry fee for entrants or clubs to participate in this competition. All fees and prizes are donated by OSHBOTY sponsors.
OSHBOTY is for beer, cider, mead and hop water only. (Hop water will be considered an "ale" for bonus scoring purposes.) Other beverages may be included in the future on an ad hoc basis as determined by us. All entries and categories must be treated equally by competition organizers in regards to earning its way onto the BOS table. Cider and mead categories must be treated equally as the beer categories. Any deviation from this will be addressed on a case-by-case basis, and the points awarded will be at the sole discretion of OSHBOTY.
2) Co-Brewers; if a co-brewer is listed for a winning entry, the main brewer will only score points for themselves; there are no points for co-brewers.
3) Competition organizers frequently elect to group multiple beer categories into single judging tables. When this occurs, OSHBOTY points are awarded as though the table were one category.
4) Points Scoring
-Only an entrant's 4 highest scoring entries in each competition will earn points. (this is intended to lower the cost, and time commitment previously required to compete at the highest levels of OSHBOTY)
4a) "Category Points" are awarded thusly:
The number of entries in a category determines the points that the winner receives. For example, 9 entries = 9 points for the winner.
Points for 2nd place will be 75% of the 1st place points.
Points for 3rd place will be 50% of the 1st place points.
All fractional points are rounded down to the nearest point.
4b) "BOS points" are calculated thusly:
-For competitions/categories UNDER 100 beer entries, the winner receives the total number of entries in the competition/category, i.e. the BOS winner of an 85-entry competition receives 85 total points for that entry.
-For competitions/categories OVER 100 entries: the winner receives 100 points plus 1 additional point for every 10 entries over 100. For example, a 308 entry competition/category, the BOS win points would be 100+20=120 points.
Points for 2nd BOS will be 75% of the 1st BOS show points.
Points for 3rd BOS will 50% of the 1st BOS points.
All fractional points are rounded down to the nearest point.
*To avoid scoring double points for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd BOS winners, they will NOT score points for the individual category that their winning entry was in.
For example: If a category-winning IPA also wins 1st BOS in an 85 entry competition, that entry would only score 85 total points.
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*The subcategory that wins a BOS competition is thereby "locked out" for that entrant the rest of the year, and no further points may be earned for that subcategory for that entrant the rest of the year. This is to prevent an entrant "riding one great beer" in multiple competitions. (You've earned your BOS points for a great beer, now move on)
4c) Bonus points
-For the purposes of calculating bonuses, if an entrant wins 1st AND 2nd, AND/OR 3rd in a subcategory, the 2nd and 3rd entry will count towards their bonus tally. (The logic here is that no one beat the 2nd/3rd place entry except the brewer themself, so these entries should earn bonus points. This will also help encourage the use of a single strain of yeast to further promote efficiency, and lower the cost of homebrewing and competing at the highest levels of OSHBOTY)
The "Multiple Subcategories Bonus"
-25 bonus points are awarded for winning in 4 different BJCP subcategories; plus 10 bonus points for each additional win in a separate subcategory thereafter.
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The "Diversity Bonus"
-80 bonus points are awarded for winning in 4 out of the 10 following categories; mead, cider, ale, lager, sour, Belgian, fruit, wood, smoked, and weird beers.
-Each additional category win earns another 20 points.
Here are the exact BJCP style numbers for each category:
Sours: categories 23,27 Gose, 28
Belgians: 24,25,26
Lagers:1a,1b,2,3,4,5a,5c,5d,6,7a,8,9,19b
Ales:1c,1d,5b,7b,7c,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19a,19b,20,21,22
Fruit: 29
Wood: 33
Smoked: 6B and 32
Weird: 30, 31, 34
*In order for us to determine which subcategories each entrant may have won, this information must be provided to us by the competition organizers. As part of our sanctioning process the organizers must agree to provide us with this information, HOWEVER the NHC competitions can be an exception because sometimes they only provide limited information, and often will not release entry-specific information to us.
What this means is if the AHA does not release specific subcategory information, the competitions will still be considered sanctioned, but winning entries will not count towards the bonus points since we cannot determine which subcategory the entry won.
4d) In the event that an ineligible entry (out of state) wins BOS or any category, those points are vacated. Subsequent points are awarded to eligible entrants as laid out above.
5) Eligibility
5a) This competition is for amateur home brewers living in Oregon, or in the nearby communities in neighboring states.
5b) Entrants must score points in at least 2 Oregon-based competitions to be eligible.
6) Tiebreakers
At the end of the year, in the event of a tie, the number of BOS wins will determine the winner.
Subsequent tie-breakers are as follows:
-number of wins in the 6 "Diversity Bonus" categories
-number of different subcategory style wins
-most category wins
-number of different competitions each entrant has scored points in
-if there is still a tie, then Christ on a crutch! Ok, we'll flip a dang coin.
7) The accumulation of points is for the calendar year.
8) Points for competitions do not become official OSHBOTY points until they are certified by the OSHBOTY staff. Certification involves tallying points, gathering contact info, verifying that score sheets have been delivered to entrants, and any other pertinent stuff required to maintain the integrity and fairness of sanctioned competitions. The sooner the competition organizers respond to our email, the faster their points get certified.
9) OSHBOTY-sanctioned competitions will be determined by the following parameters:
a) Each competition must be held in Oregon, or in areas immediately adjacent to the border.
The AHA National Homebrew Competition will also be included. If the first round is held in Oregon or an area immediately adjacent to the border, only entries entered in those competitions will count, otherwise you may enter ANY first round site in the country.
b) All OSHBOTY-sanctioned competitions must be BJCP sanctioned and registered on the BJCP calendar and open to the general public.
c) Competition information (# of entries in each flight and in the total competition and the winners of each category and 1st, 2nd & 3rd BOS, and the names of the BOS judges) must be available via a competition website or be readily provided to the OSHBOTY committee upon completion of the competition. This is to keep a tally of the running point totals. A contact email and/or phone number for winning entries is needed also (we can’t give you a “valuable award” if we can’t contact you!) As results come in we will keep a database of contact info for competitors.
d) Competitions must award a 1st, 2nd and 3rd BOS. Each judging table must have a BJCP judge. The BOS judging panel must have at least one BJCP judge.
The BOS winners shall be determined by the best entries on the table to style, not the best beers to be brewed commercially. (This is to address competitions that have a prize of getting the winning beer(s) brewed at a professional brewery and whose BOS panel contains employees at that brewery. These BOS panels should be explicitly instructed of the potential conflict of interest per BJCP sanctioning rule #9)
e) The NHC competition is a little different than most competitions, and they play by their own rules when it comes to information sharing. Therefore, it is expected that if they do not share critical information such as entries per category or any other data we need to properly award OSHBOTY points per these rules, we will do our best to evaluate the data that is provided to properly award points.
10) All decisions of the OSHBOTY committee are final.
11) Every effort will be made to announce OSHBOTY sanctioned competitions and post our points as early as possible, but we are limited by the competition organizers sometimes, if they drag their feet in getting their competition registered with the BJCP or in getting us the results, there is nothing we can do. Ultimately, if we cannot acquire the needed information from a competition (even if it is an officially OSHBOTY sanctioned competition) by the end of the calendar year, that competition will be revoked and any potential points for competitors will be disallowed. We hope this never happens (again).
12) Members of the OSHBOTY staff ARE eligible to compete if they choose. In this case, all results will be certified by an outside individual who is not competing.