Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how SBCF (“SBCF”, “we”, “us”, or “our”), operating the website at www.sbcf.beer (the “Service”), collects, uses, and shares information about you. SBCF is a platform for organizing and participating in homebrew beer, mead, and cider competitions. By using the Service, you agree to this Policy.

1. Information We Collect

Account information (via Google Sign-In)

We use Google as our sign-in provider. When you sign in, Google shares your name, email address, and a unique Google account identifier with us so we can create and authenticate your account. We do not receive your Google password.

Profile information you provide

You may choose to add the following to your profile:

• Contact details: phone number and mailing address (street, city, state, ZIP)
• Homebrew club affiliation
• American Homebrewers Association (AHA) membership number
• BJCP ID and judging rank (used to verify judge credentials)
• Judging style preferences, competition preferences, and notification preferences

Competition content

When you participate in competitions, we process the content needed to run them, such as your entries (including style, co-brewers, and entry notes) and, if you judge or organize, scoresheets, scores, awards, flight assignments, and related judging data.

Payment information

If you pay competition entry fees, payment is handled by a third-party payment processor. We receive limited transaction details (such as amount, status, and a processor reference) to record your entry, but we do not collect or store full payment card numbers.

Phone verification

If you add a phone number, we may send a one-time verification code by SMS through a third-party messaging provider. We store only a hashed (non-reversible) form of the code, not the code itself.

Information collected automatically

• Error and diagnostic data via Sentry, to detect and fix problems. This can include technical details about your device and the error, and may incidentally include limited personal data contained in a request.
• Privacy-friendly analytics via Plausible, which is cookieless and does not track you across sites or build personal profiles.

2. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in (authentication/session cookies) and to remember your language preference. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, and our analytics provider (Plausible) is cookieless.

3. How We Use Information

• Provide, operate, and maintain the Service and your account
• Authenticate you and keep the Service secure
• Run competitions, including entries, judging, volunteering, and results
• Process entry-fee payments through our payment processor
• Verify BJCP credentials and (optionally) your phone number
• Send transactional messages (e.g., account, support, or competition notices)
• Prevent fraud and abuse and enforce our Terms
• Comply with legal obligations

4. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only as described here:

Service providers

We rely on the following providers to operate the Service:

• Hosting and content delivery — Vercel
• Database, authentication, and file storage — Supabase
• Sign-in — Google
• Email delivery — Amazon Web Services (SES)
• Error monitoring — Sentry
• Analytics — Plausible
• Payment processing — our third-party payment processor
• SMS delivery (phone verification) — a third-party messaging provider

These providers process information on our behalf and are permitted to use it only to provide their services to us.

Within competitions

Organizers and judges of a competition you take part in can see the information needed to administer and judge it. Where blind judging applies, we take steps to keep entrant identities hidden from judges during scoring.

Legal and safety

We may disclose information if required by law, to respond to legal process, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of our users, the public, or SBCF. If SBCF is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, information may be transferred as part of that transaction.

5. Data Retention

We keep your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service, and afterward as required to meet legal, accounting, or legitimate business purposes (for example, retaining transaction records). You can request deletion of your account as described below.

6. Your Choices and Rights

• View and update most profile information directly in your account settings
• Request access to, correction of, export of, or deletion of your personal information by contacting us at info@sbcf.beer
• Manage notification preferences in your profile

Depending on where you live (for example, under the laws of certain U.S. states), you may have additional rights regarding your personal information. We will honor applicable rights; contact us to exercise them.

7. Age Requirement

SBCF relates to alcoholic beverages and is intended only for adults who are of legal drinking age in their jurisdiction. The Service is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under that age. If you believe a minor has provided us information, please contact us so we can remove it.

8. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, including encryption in transit, database-level access controls, and storing verification codes only in hashed form. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. International Users

The Service is operated in the United States and your information is processed there. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand your information will be processed in the U.S., where data-protection laws may differ from those in your country.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the “Last updated” date above, and for material changes we will provide a more prominent notice. Your continued use of the Service after an update means you accept the revised Policy.

11. Contact Us

Questions about this Policy or your information? Email us at info@sbcf.beer.