From JudgeNet Fri Sep 4 22:20:30 1992 From: Jay Hersh Subject: Re: anonymous FTP [stuff deleted -MLH] BTW I have already archived this on the machine export.lcs.mit.edu in the file digest/study_guide JaH -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Sat Sep 5 22:26:56 1992 From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Subject: Re: anonymous FTP Robin Garr sez... > > One way or another, I'd like to get a copy of any updates for the CompuServe > Wine/Beer Forum library, for the benefit of brewers who don't have easy > access to Internet. > > Heretofore, I've captured updates as they appear on JudgeNet, and that > process seems to work fine for us. Let me make one thing perfectly clear... Regardless of what is done vis-a-vis archive sites and posting to other lists, I will continue to post new editions of the study guide to JudgeNet. The current edition is the 2nd edition which was posted to JudgeNet earlier this summer. If you need another copy, let me know. Unless the exam changes significantly, new editions will be infrequent. -- Chuck Cox In de hemel is geen bier, daarom drinken wij het hier. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Tue Sep 15 22:52:12 1992 From: Kurt Swanson Subject: Online version of scoring sheet? Is there any such thing??? Of course a nice LaTeX version would be nice, but is there even a simple ascii version? This would have made my review of Gammel Brygd (HBD:to appear) much better... -- Kurt Swanson, Dept. of Computer Science, Lunds universitet. Kurt.Swanson at dna.lth.se -- -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 16 22:38:05 1992 From: uunet!msc2.msc.cornell.edu!bickham at uunet.UU.NET (Scott Bickham) Subject: Re: Online version of scoring sheet? If there is sufficient interest, I can find a way to scan a version and make it available in PostScript format. ASCII would be tougher unless the small type characteristics were omitted (like on the BJCP Exam). Scott -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 16 22:38:28 1992 From: uunet!teak.cray.com!tee at uunet.UU.NET (Tony Ernst) Subject: Michael Jackson/plea for judges Attention Judges - Sherlock's Home (a brewpub) and the Minnesota (home)Brewers Association are sponsoring a regional homebrew competition, and WE NEED JUDGES! The competition is officially sanctioned by the AHA, and is open to all residents of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, North & South Dakota. It will be held over the weekend of October 24, 1992. The Best of Show judging will feature Michael Jackson, and will take place on Sunday, October 25 at Sherlock's Home. In conjunction with this, there will be a public event to promote homebrewing, featuring Michael Jackson, home brewing supply and equipment displays, info on Minnesota homebrew clubs, and of course Sherlock's Home will serve their excellent beers and "real" ales. Certified/Recognized Judges are very scarce in Minnesota, so we really need help from out-of-state judges. If you are interested in helping or would like more information, please contact me. Thanks! -Tony Ernst Minnesota Brewers Association (612) 683-5480, or Toll Free 1-800-284-2729, ext. 35480 tee at cray.com "Beer. If you can't taste it, why bother!" -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Thu Sep 17 22:36:51 1992 From: bob at rsi.com (Bob Gorman) Subject: AHA Style Descriptions Hi All, Does anyone have the Beer Style Descriptions as supplied by the AHA in an on-line ASCII format? I think this would be a useful thing to have on line. For one it could be used as a companion to Chucks Intergalactic Study Guide to the BJCP Exam. Also the people here on JudgeNet could on a periodic basis review different style definitions, make corrections and enhancements, and then have the AHA revise them. As an example; the recent discussions on the HBD about the characteristics of Porters vs. Stouts. We as a colloective group could revise the descriptions of those two catagories and have the AHA update the current style defenitions. Another example would be Jim Fitzgeralds suggestion of making the sub-categories of Pale Ales into major categories like: Bitters, English Pale Ales, American Pale Ales and IPAs. So, does anyone have or want to create an ascii on-line version of the AHA style descriptions? Cheers! -- Bob Gorman bob at rsi.com Watertown MA US -- -- Relational Semantics, Inc uunet!semantic!bob +1 617 926 0979 -- -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 07:17:00 1992 From: uunet!cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov!mlh at uunet.UU.NET (Michael L. Hall) Subject: JudgeNet Archive Site I have just finished updating the archive site for JudgeNet. All the important info is in the README file, which is included at the end of this message. The site includes the two versions of the study guide as separate files. Chuck, if you want to put a blurb about this site in your "Welcome" message, be my guest. Maybe the first couple of paragraphs from the README file? Whatever you think. Mike Hall hall at lanl.gov -------README file------------------------------------------------------ The JudgeNet Archives Available by anonymous ftp from cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (128.165.144.121), in the directory /pub/judge. Limited ftp site -- only open to members of the JudgeNet. Please do not post this site on any widely spread medium (i.e. the HBD or Usenet). Feel free to distribute the files as much as you wish. These are selected archives from JudgeNet (the Beer Judge Mailing List). They have been selected, manipulated and categorized by me. My sole criterion for selection of a message is archival value. This archive will probably not be updated in a timely fashion. Since these files are small (now), I am leaving them in the uncompressed form. As they get bigger, I may have to switch to compressed (.Z) format. Michael L. Hall hall at lanl.gov ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last updated: 9/17/92 The current categories are: Size Name Description, if needed ---- ---- ---------------------- 79342 BJCP Messages about the Beer Judge Certification Program. 3051 JudgeNet 2041 README This file. 34228 bottles 504 cleanmail Ignore this file. 9266 events 127432 judging.forms 99154 procedures 23056 smells.n.tastes 128109 studyguide Messages about the studyguide. 18538 studyguide_v1 Study Guide, version 1, February 1992. 30122 studyguide_v2 Study Guide, version 2, July 1992. 43675 styles 19042 whoswho ========================================================================== The Beer Judge mailing list is an Internet mailing list dedicated to the discussion of issues of interest to beer judges and competition organizers. Anyone with an interest in judging or organizing beer competitions is welcome to join. To subscribe to the mailing list, send your email address, name, and BJCP rank (use 'apprentice' if not ranked) to: judge-request at synchro.com ========================================================================== -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 07:20:04 1992 From: uunet!grex.ann-arbor.mi.us!jdg at uunet.UU.NET (Josh Grosse) Subject: Re: Online version of scoring sheet? Scott wrote: > If there is sufficient interest, I can find a way to scan a version > and make it available in PostScript format.... Scott, if/when you scan it in, please make a non-postscript version, would you, in a common-use bitmap format such as GIF or TIFF? (Boy, I hope the network doesn't see this letter multiple times, we've had some disk-full problems with our local e-mail system...) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Grosse jdg at grex.ann-arbor.mi.us -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 07:30:39 1992 From: uunet!grex.ann-arbor.mi.us!jdg at uunet.UU.NET (Josh Grosse) Subject: Re: AHA Style Descriptions Bob wrote: > Does anyone have the Beer Style Descriptions as supplied by the AHA > in an on-line ASCII format? The "BRF" program that was distributed earlier this year has the AHA guidelines built into a comma-delimited file, "AHA.DAT". If you don't have a copy, I can send it to you. Note: This does not have the comments, just the SG, IBU, and SRM numbers. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Grosse jdg at grex.ann-arbor.mi.us -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 07:41:53 1992 From: uunet!techbook.com!gummitch at uunet.UU.NET (Jeff Frane) Subject: Re: AHA Style Descriptions > > Hi All, > > Does anyone have the Beer Style Descriptions as supplied by the AHA > in an on-line ASCII format? > > I think this would be a useful thing to have on line. > > For one it could be used as a companion to Chucks Intergalactic Study > Guide to the BJCP Exam. > > Also the people here on JudgeNet could on a periodic basis review > different style definitions, make corrections and enhancements, and > then have the AHA revise them. > > As an example; the recent discussions on the HBD about the > characteristics of Porters vs. Stouts. We as a colloective group > could revise the descriptions of those two catagories and have > the AHA update the current style defenitions. > > Another example would be Jim Fitzgeralds suggestion of making > the sub-categories of Pale Ales into major categories like: > Bitters, English Pale Ales, American Pale Ales and IPAs. > > So, does anyone have or want to create an ascii on-line version > of the AHA style descriptions? > > -- Bob Gorman This seems to me an excellent idea, but surely the AHA has something on file that they use to set up the descriptions in Zymurgy? They must have the text in either a word processing file or something like PageMaker that can be exported to ASCII. Personally, I'd really like to hash out the pale ale/bitter/etc categories -- a taxonomy I think is extraordinarily artificial and unfortunate. Jeff Frane -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 07:44:05 1992 From: uunet!iepubj.att.com!korz at uunet.UU.NET Subject: Style Descriptions Bob writes: >Another example would be Jim Fitzgeralds suggestion of making >the sub-categories of Pale Ales into major categories like: >Bitters, English Pale Ales, American Pale Ales and IPAs. There's a problem with that. If we increase the number of major categories, the Best of Show judging will become too large. As it is now, it's 23 beers! >As an example; the recent discussions on the HBD about the >characteristics of Porters vs. Stouts. Before everyone goes looking through their back issues of HBD, this discussion was on the Brewer's Forum, not HBD. Al. From synchro!chuck at uunet.uu.net Mon Sep 21 08:08:33 1992 Subject: New Welcome Message To: hall at lanl.gov From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Howdy- Here is a copy of the updated welcome message that is sent to new JudgeNet subscribers. It now incorporates information about your archive site. ------------------------- Welcome to JudgeNet -------------------------- You are subscribed to JudgeNet, the Beer Judge's Mailing List. This is an Internet mailing list dedicated to the discussion of issues of interest to beer judges and competition organizers. Anyone with an interest in judging or organizing beer competitions is welcome to join. submissions: judge at synchro.com administrative requests: judge-request at synchro.com Please send subscription and unsubscription requests to the administrative address. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The JudgeNet Archives Selected archives are available by anonymous ftp from cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (128.165.144.121), in the directory /pub/judge. Limited ftp site -- only open to members of the JudgeNet. Please do not post this site on any widely spread medium (i.e. the HBD or Usenet). Feel free to distribute the files as much as you wish. Consult the README file in the archives for further details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chuck Cox List Administrator Michael L. Hall Archive Administrator -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 22:48:49 1992 From: uunet!mscg.com!klm at uunet.UU.NET (Kevin L. McBride) Subject: Re: Online version of scoring sheet? > > If there is sufficient interest, I can find a way to scan a version > > and make it available in PostScript format.... > > Scott, if/when you scan it in, please make a non-postscript version, would > you, in a common-use bitmap format such as GIF or TIFF? Actually, a better way would be for the person with the LaTeX version of the score sheet to convert the TeX DVI output to PostScript and make that available (I'd do that myself except that I was never able to spend the time hacking on dvi2ps to make it run on my system.) Scanned images in an Encapsulated PostScript format are fine but they tend to be very large and take an extremely long time to print, particularly if your printer is hooked up to a 9600 baud serial line. Case in point: The BFD logo that appears on the Brew Free or Die newsletter is a scanned image EPSF scanned at 300 dpi. The file is a little over 380K and takes over 5 minutes to download to my printer. I've got no problem with there being an image version if people really want that. All I'm saying is that the PostScript produced by LaTex should be cleaner, much smaller, faster to print and generally more convenient. -- Kevin -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 22:50:01 1992 From: STROUD Subject: ASCII score sheet HOMEBREWER'S SCORE SHEET Entry No. ___________ Round No.____________ Category _____________ Style _____________ Judged by: _____________________________________________________ Bottle Inspection: _____________________________________________ Maximum Score BOUQUET/AROMA (As appropriate for style) 10 __________ Malt Hops Other Fermentation Characteristics ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ APPEARANCE (As appropriate for style) 6 __________ Color Clarity Head Retention _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ FLAVOR (As appropriate for style) 19 _________ Malt Hops Balance Conditioning Aftertaste ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ BODY (Full/thin as appropriate for category) 5 _________ ______________________________________________________________ DRINKABILITY & OVERALL IMPRESSION 10 _________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ TOTAL (50 possible points): _________ Scoring Guide: Excellent 40-50, Very Good 30-39, Good 25-29, Drinkable 20-24, Problem <20 -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 22:50:22 1992 From: "Rad Equipment" Subject: Best of Show Subject: Best of Show Time:7:57 AM Date:9/21/92 Talking about the AHA Style Descriptions and the idea of expanding the larger categories (like Pale Ales) into individual new categories has brought up the subject of BOS judging. The reference was made regarding the problems with the introduction of more categories becoming a greater burden for the BOS judges who already have 23 beers to contend with. My own opinion is that the BOS should be dropped. (Ah! Blasphemy!) I have never liked the concept, in any competition. I don't think it is valid to judge apples against oranges and have to declare one better than the others. Further I think that the BOS is just someplace to show off the big name judges and to grandstand the event (whatever event it may be). The old popularity poll at the GABF was a more accurate concept for deciding the "most liked" at one event until it was taken advantage of by the marketing man in Boston. (Yes, I realize that you couldn't do that sort of thing with a homebrew comp.) I don't really expect that the BOS will ever vanish. I just thought, since the topic came up, I'd toss out my $0.02 worth of an opinion and see what discussion it raised. It's been too quiet around here of late. BTW, who else here (besides Jay and Martin) have been included in the AHA NHC Committee? RW... Russ Wigglesworth CI$: 72300,61 |~~| UCSF Medical Center Internet: Rad Equipment at RadMac1.ucsf.edu |HB|\ Dept. of Radiology, Rm. C-324 Voice: 415-476-3668 / 474-8126 (H) |__|/ San Francisco, CA 94143-0628 -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 23:13:04 1992 From: Kinney Baughman Subject: Re: AHA Style Descriptions >The "BRF" program that was distributed earlier this year has the AHA >guidelines built into a comma-delimited file, "AHA.DAT". If you don't have >a copy, I can send it to you. Note: This does not have the comments, just >the SG, IBU, and SRM numbers. Hi Josh: I'll take you up on your kind offer. Please send me a copy. I'm judging at a competition in Raleigh this Saturday. Cheers! ___ ----------------------------------------------------------- ___ | | Kinney Baughman | | | | baughmankr at conrad.appstate.edu | | \ / \ / | "Beer is my business and I'm late for work" | --------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 21 23:36:55 1992 From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Subject: Re: Best of Show Rad Equipment sez... > > My own opinion is that the BOS should be dropped. (Ah! Blasphemy!) I have never > liked the concept, in any competition. I don't think it is valid to judges > apples against oranges an have to declare one better than the others. Further I > think that the BOS is just someplace to show off the big name judges and to > grandstand the event (whatever event it may be). If the competitors want BOS, they should have it, after all they're paying for the competition. It may be difficult to compare different styles, but presumably the competitors are intelligent enough to understand that the results are highly subjective. In fact, they are only fooling themselves if they think any aspect of a homebrew competiton is perfectly objective. Just because the results aren't perfect doesn't invalidate the concept. If people can accept BOS for wine, dogs, and cars, surely they can accept it for beer. What is wrong with grandstanding? Many organizers feel that a public event is important to the competition. A public BOS serves not only the competitors, it also helps educate the public and publicize the event. BOS judging is often the only public event in a competition, and many state fair competitions require some sort of public event. I personally feel that a master judge should be informative and entertaining during BOS. Anyone can be pompous and boring, it takes talent and experience to engage the audience. Yes, BOS is often used to reward 'big name' judges. Since we don't get paid, its about the only incentive that can be offered. As an example, I will be judging for the umpteenth time at the Maine Moonshiners Muster at the Common Ground Country Fair. I judge BOS every year, and expect to again this year. I enjoy judging BOS, and I consider it part of the attraction of judging at this competition. Competitors come from all over Maine to enjoy the fair and observe the BOS judging. I'd still go if there was no BOS, but it would be less interesting to me, the competitors, the organizers, and the attendees. I think it would be rather patronizing to eliminate BOS just because some beer judges think it's an imperfect competition. If you are personally uncomfortable judging BOS, let someone else do it. If you take BOS so seriously that you require perfect objectivity, you should relax and quaff some homebrew until you feel better. Ultimately, who would benefit from eliminating BOS? -- Chuck Cox In de hemel is geen bier, daarom drinken wij het hier. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Tue Sep 22 13:53:17 EDT 1992 From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Subject: Best of Show [This was posted to the HBD, but I included it here. -MLH] Howdy- Over on JudgeNet we are having a lively discussion about the validity of Best of Show competitions. To paraphrase the arguments: Con: Best of Show tries to compare apples to oranges, so the results are meaningless. Pro: The competitors know Best of Show is highly subjective, but they like it anyway. I'd like to hear from the competitors. Should homebrew competitions include a Best of Show judging? I am particularly interested in the opinions of homebrewers who have entered at least one competition and are not beer judges. I recommend sending your opinions directly to me instead of cluttering the digest. - -- Chuck Cox In de hemel is geen bier, daarom drinken wij het hier. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Tue Sep 22 22:16:51 1992 From: "Rad Equipment" Subject: Re: Re- Best of Show Reply to: RE>Re: Best of Show Gee Chuck, don't keep your feelings bottled up like that. Let it out, tell us what you really think! (;-). Sorry if I stepped on your toes with my BOS comments. It was just my opinion and it applies to ALL events which employ it, cars, dogs, & flowers included. I don't see what is patronizing about wanting the judging to be as legitimate as possible. I can see your point as to the positive publicity aspect of the BOS however I have not observed the public interest to which you allude. None of the competitions I have participated in, save the AHA National, offers a BOS which is open to the public, nor publicized as some sort of draw. I wasn't aware that the competitors were "wanting" a BOS. In my experience the organizers decide to offer BOS or not. I can't remember ever hearing a complaint from an entrant that a particular comp didn't offer a BOS. Don't worry, I'll not offer to judge BOS in any comp. And, should you ever hear that I am a BOS judge, please confront me on the point. Now, let's go have a beer... RW... -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Tue Sep 22 22:57:04 1992 From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Subject: Re: Best of Show Rad Equipment sez... > > Gee Chuck, don't keep your feelings bottled up like that. Let it out, tell us > what you really think! (;-). Sorry if I stepped on your toes with my BOS > comments. It was just my opinion and it applies to ALL events which employ it, > cars, dogs, & flowers included. Sorry, didn't mean to sound pedantic. > I don't see what is patronizing about wanting the judging to be as legitimate > as possible. Expressing an opinion is fine. If we start advocating changes to competitions without considering the competitor's opinions, that would be patronizing. > I can see your point as to the positive publicity aspect of the BOS however I > have not observed the public interest to which you allude. None of the > competitions I have participated in, save the AHA National, offers a BOS which > is open to the public, nor publicized as some sort of draw. > > I wasn't aware that the competitors were "wanting" a BOS. In my experience the > organizers decide to offer BOS or not. I can't remember ever hearing a > complaint from an entrant that a particular comp didn't offer a BOS. Hmm, your experience is different from mine. I've never judged a competition that didn't have BOS. And all the BOS's I've seen have been public, at least to the extent that competitors were invited to observe. Specifically, I am thinking of the AHA & HWBTA nationals, the Dixie Cup, and all of the regional and local New England area competitons. Perhaps this is a regional issue. I've never heard a competitor say they did or didn't want BOS. I assumed that it was desired since it was part of every competition I've seen. Perhaps we should find out. I'll post a query to HBD, that should get the juices flowing! > Don't worry, I'll not offer to judge BOS in any comp. And, should you ever hear > that I am a BOS judge, please confront me on the point. Perhaps you should try judging some local BOS's, it might change your mind. -- Chuck Cox In de hemel is geen bier, daarom drinken wij het hier. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Tue Sep 22 23:22:46 1992 From: uunet!iepubj.att.com!korz at uunet.UU.NET Subject: New scoresheet Thanks to Steve for the ASCII scoresheet, but I have a more up-to-date one. It is from the 1993 National Homebrew Competition Commettee packet, and includes the suggestions I made through JudgeNet a few months ago. Al. HOMEBREWER'S SCORE SHEET Entry No. ___________ Round No.____________ Category _____________ Style _____________ Judged by: _____________________________________________________ Bottle Inspection: _____________________________________________ Maximum Score BOUQUET/AROMA (As appropriate for style) 10 __________ Malt Hops Other Aromatic Characteristics ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ APPEARANCE (As appropriate for style) 6 __________ Color Clarity Head Retention _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ FLAVOR (As appropriate for style) 19 _________ Malt Hops Balance Other Flavor Characteristics Conditioning Aftertaste ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ BODY (Full/thin as appropriate for category) 5 _________ ______________________________________________________________ DRINKABILITY & OVERALL IMPRESSION 10 _________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ TOTAL (50 possible points): _________ Scoring Guide: Excellent 40-50, Very Good 30-39, Good 25-29, Drinkable 20-24, Problem <20 -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 23 00:07:06 1992 From: uunet!iepubj.att.com!korz at uunet.UU.NET Subject: 1993 NHCC I was on the 1993 NHCC. Al. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 23 18:56:59 1992 From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Subject: Beer Judge Study Guide [This was posted to the HBD, but I included it here too. -MLH] Howdy- As many of you probably know, I recently released the second edition of the Beer Judge Exam Study Guide. Since it is over 30k long, I decided not to post it to the digest. Thanks to the efforts of Stephen Hansen and Michael Hall, it has been been added to the HBD archives. The file name is 'beerjudgeguide'. See the digest header for details on accessing the archives. - -- Chuck Cox In de hemel is geen bier, daarom drinken wij het hier. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 23 23:26:07 1992 From: uunet!techbook.com!doug at uunet.UU.NET (Doug Henderson) Subject: latex scoring sheet Hi all, I am quite involved with the TeX typesetting system (LaTeX being a macro package that lives on top of it), and would be happy to whip up a score sheet if there is any interest. I can also supply the EPS file for same, as my DVIPS can make such a beast. I have already made some TeX brewers worksheets in TeX form; any interest, let me know. Doug Henderson doug at techbook.com -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 23 23:29:16 1992 From: uunet!iepubj.att.com!korz at uunet.UU.NET Subject: BOS I don't understand why there would be an opposition to a BOS. As a competetor, I like the challenge and the potential esteem. As a judge, I again like the challenge of judging 23 different beers against 23 different style descriptions AND don't forget, you're getting to critically savor the 23 "best" beers in the competition -- count me in! I have never judged a BOS -- I was not high-enough ranked to be asked for the BOS in the Nationals and in a recent local competition, I had a first place winner, so I was ineligible to judge BOS. It was bittersweet (the moment *and* my winning stout ;^). In any event, I cast my vote to keep BOS -- who does it hurt? Al. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 23 23:30:06 1992 From: uunet!mwvm.mitre.org!m14051 at uunet.UU.NET (John DeCarlo) Subject: Reply to "Re: Re- Best of Show" (09/23/92 00:41:05) Well, the issue is really "what does best of show mean?" Does it mean that among the bitter, the cherry ale, and the imperial stout that the bitter was closer to the perfect bitter than the imperial stout was to the perfect imperial stout? If so, why not just use the numerical score (bitter got 49 out of 50, while stout got only 48)? If, more realistically, it is "which beer do the judges like the most?", then it is a popularity contest more than anything else. Presumably, the rest of the judging is more straightforward than this. Thus, someone could enter the perfect bitter and not be able to win against a good stronger beer because the 99% beer tasted better to more judges than the 100% beer. Presumably it happens all the time. When I see a BOS, I do tend to think of it as a put down for the rest of the beers (well, it won the Dry Stout category, but didn't win BOS, it must not have been great.) In fact, the only purpose of BOS seems to be to highlight the fact that a beer doesn't need to be good to win in its category, just the best. Internet: jdecarlo at mitre.org (or John.DeCarlo at f131.n109.z1.fidonet.org) Fidonet: 1:109/131 -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 23 23:30:31 1992 From: Jay Hersh Subject: Re: Best of Show >My own opinion is that the BOS should be dropped. (Ah! Blasphemy!) I strongly concur with Russ on this, and have for quite some time, despite the fact that I like getting the extra points when I am occasionally chosen to judge this. If this was eliminated then it would also simplify the national competition in that the second round could be distributed the same way the first round was in 91. JaH -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 23 23:32:11 1992 From: uunet!techbook.com!gummitch at uunet.UU.NET (Jeff Frane) Subject: Re: Best of Show > Russ Wigglesworth sayeth: (and that's *his* mailer screwing things up) > > I can see you point as to the positive publicity aspect of the BOS however I > > have not observed the public interest to which you allude. None of the > > competitions I have participated in, save the AHA National, offers a BOS which > > is open to the public, nor publicized as some sort of draw. > > > > I wasn't aware that the competitors were "wanting" a BOS. In my experience the > > organizers decide to offer BOS or not. I can't remember ever hearing a > > complaint from an entrant that a particular comp didn't offer a BOS. > And then Chuck Cox respondeth: > Hmm, your experience is different from mine. I've never judged a > competition that didn't have BOS. And all the BOS's I've seen have been > public, at least to the extent that competitors were invited to observe. > Specifically, I am thinking of the AHA & HWBTA nationals, the Dixie Cup, > and all of the regional and local New England area competitons. Perhaps > this is a regional issue. > And then Jeff weigheth in: The Oregon State Fair has always has a BOS panel (not public) composed primarily of professional brewers. I always thought it added a nice penache to the competition, and the first few years (before I took over the competition) my beers ended up being judged by them. I thought it was a real treat getting feedback from people whose judgement I respected so much. On the other hand, the only reason I *got* feedback is that I was stewarding and lurking in the background. The year I won BOS I wasn't there and got comments third-hand; most brewers don't even have that opportunity, so for them it's probably not such a big deal. We continue to hold the BOS because we've always done it, and because (quite frankly) it's the highpoint of the competition for *me*. I noticed that there were very few people watching the BOS this year in Milwaukee (my first AHA conference), which surprised me at first. After watching a little while, though, I could see it was really pretty dull. I mean, there were all *those* guys drinking great beer and sounding off about it and I had squat! My gut feeling is that Russ is right, but that it's a hopeless case. People have come to expect a Best of Show, no matter how absurd it is to compare an excellent wheat beer to an excellent barleywine. (And how often do light (no, not LITE) beers take BOS compared to big and/or monster beers?) Frankly, I'm glad that the AHA has started honoring the person who wins the most points in a competition along with the BOS (Homebrewer of the year, my ass). A pity they didn't have something like that when Gary Bauer was winning all those lager awards and never BOS. Frankly, I think winning multiple blue ribbons is a much bigger achievement than making the one beer that hammers its way through the final round. Endeth: Jeff Frane -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 01:17:10 1992 From: "Mika O. Latokartano" Subject: Re: latex scoring sheet > Hi all, > I am quite involved with the TeX typesetting system (LaTeX being a macro > package that lives on top of it), and would be happy to whip up a score > sheet if there is any interest. I can also supply the EPS file for same, > as my DVIPS can make such a beast. I have already made some TeX brewers > worksheets in TeX form; any interest, let me know. > Doug Henderson > doug at techbook.com Based on the recently posted ASCII-scoring sheet, I yesterday typed it on Word for Windows 2. I'll probably reformat it once more to make it fit on one page, as it currently takes up two. I printed it out also with a smaller font to fit it to one page, but in my opinion it doesn't look that good (too darn small). I understand WfW2 can save a file in .ps format so I could post the current two-page version of it to those of you who are interested. Cheers! - Mika Mika Latokartano mol at tukki.jyu.fi -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 01:37:03 1992 From: uunet!mscg.com!klm at uunet.UU.NET (Kevin L. McBride) Subject: Re: latex scoring sheet > Hi all, > I am quite involved with the TeX typesetting system (LaTeX being a macro > package that lives on top of it), and would be happy to whip up a score > sheet if there is any interest. I can also supply the EPS file for same, > as my DVIPS can make such a beast. I have already made some TeX brewers > worksheets in TeX form; any interest, let me know. > Doug Henderson > doug at techbook.com I'll take the EPS form of both of those, please, as well as the TeX source just in case I ever find the time to continue hacking on this beast. (Kinda hard to do when I've got my head buried inside the OSF/1 kernel.) Thanks! -- Kevin -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 01:57:49 1992 From: Kurt Swanson Subject: Re: latex scoring sheet Doug at techbook.com writes: > I am quite involved with the TeX typesetting system (LaTeX being a macro > package that lives on top of it), and would be happy to whip up a score > sheet if there is any interest. I can also supply the EPS file for same, > as my DVIPS can make such a beast. I have already made some TeX brewers > worksheets in TeX form; any interest, let me know. Yes! I'm interested! Whip away! Please email me your other tex forms, or maybe see if you can get them put on an FTP server.... -- Kurt Swanson, Dept. of Computer Science, Lunds universitet. Kurt.Swanson at dna.lth.se -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 02:22:24 1992 From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Subject: noise C'mon folks, lets not clutter the list with personal messages. Like most mailing lists, if you reply to a posting, it goes to the entire list. Please think before posting. If your message is not of interest to the group, then send it directly to the individual you wish to contact. If you don't know how to do this, Read The Friggin Manual, or ask your System Administrator. Not only do personal messages clutter the list, they cost me real money. I own SynchroSystems, and Internet access costs come right out of my pocket. Obviously, I don't mind subsidizing legitimate discussions, but I am tired of paying to send personal messages from people who won't take the time to use the correct address. I'm not interested in moderating the list, so I'll probably start dropping repeat offenders from the list. You have been warned. -- Chuck Cox In de hemel is geen bier, daarom drinken wij het hier. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 02:23:20 1992 From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Subject: FAQ I received the following message from Paul dArmond , and am passing it on to the list. I already gave him permission to use excerpts from the Study Guide. Paul is not on JudgeNet, so keep that in mind when sending responses. > Chuck, > As you read in the forum, we are looking for collaborators in > putting together some FAQ (frequently asked questions) or introductory > files on homebrewing topics. Would you (and some of the denizens of > JudgeNet) be willing to put together something on what judging is about, > and what's involved in participating in contests? Nothing big or fancy, > but informative enough that a beginner could get informed. This could > help improve the signal/noise ratio on the net, and make things friendlier > for new arrivals. > > The judges study guide is exactly the sort of thing that's needed. I > assume your earlier note was about getting it in the archives. As a > matter of fact, seeing it in the forum got me motivated to get this > started. So far, we have people committed to faqs on suppliers, malts, > gadgets and books. > > Thanks, > Paul -- Chuck Cox In de hemel is geen bier, daarom drinken wij het hier. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 02:43:37 1992 From: Jay Hersh Subject: Re: Best of Show Jeff said: >Frankly, I'm glad that the AHA has started honoring the person who wins >the most points in a competition along with the BOS (Homebrewer of the >year, my ass). A pity they didn't have something like that when Gary >Bauer was winning all those lager awards and never BOS. Frankly, I >think winning multiple blue ribbons is a much bigger achievement than >making the one beer that hammers its way through the final round. these are exactly my sentiments, and have been for quite some time. Perhaps the NHCC can maintain it's charter past 93 and address this issue. Jay -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 03:03:05 1992 From: uunet!iepubj.att.com!korz at uunet.UU.NET Subject: Distributed Judging Jay writes: >If this {best of show] was eliminated then it would also simplify the national >competition in that the second round could be distributed the same >way the first round was in 91. I would be against this. One of the many attractions of the National Conference (to me) is the judging of the National Competition second round. It doesn't take that long, gives judges from homebrewer-deficient areas a chance to judge, and seems to fit well into the grand scheme of what I expect the National Conference to be. I don't exactly recall the `91 first round -- I was busy with a different hobby that year and didn't enter the National Competition -- but I faintly recall different styles going to different regions. Is that right? Do you propose distributing styles across the country again, Jay? If this is true, I would be very much against it. I still don't understand why someone would object to Best of Show. Perhaps we could take this off-line. I must be missing some part of your argument against BOS, because to me it seems the only arguments against BOS that have been presented are: 1. it's too difficult to be a meaningful award, and 2. removing it would allow an increase in the number of major categories. I agree that #2 would be nice, but the benefits of BOS (to me) which I wrote in my previous mail outweigh the benefits of #2 and I personally don't agree with #1. Al. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 03:41:53 1992 From: STROUD Subject: AHA NHC Committee Someone on this list just indicated that the rules (guidelines ?) for next years Nationals have already been sent to the printer. For those of you who are on the committee (Jay, Martin, Al?), does this mean that it is too late to petition the AHA to add 'Biere de Garde' to the list of recognized styles? It's a shame to ignore such a nice beer, when such mediocre styles as 'American Dark' rate their own category. How about it, is it too late to make changes? Steve -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 03:43:06 1992 From: uunet!iepubj.att.com!korz at uunet.UU.NET Subject: Re: BOS John writes: >If, more realistically, it is "which beer do the judges like the most?", then >it is a popularity contest more than anything else. I have a two data points that contradict this, which I'd like to share with you. At last year's Brewer's of South Suburbia (BOSS) Challenge, the Best of Show went to a Cream Ale. I believe that of the three judges, two of them openly admitted, during the BOS judging, that Cream Ale is not their favorite style, but that "this Cream Ale is typifies the style perfectly." At this year's ABNORMAL Competition the same happened for the two top BOS beers: a Cream Ale and a Blueberry Mead. One of the judges kept saying: "I don't generally like Mead, but I must say this is outstanding" while another was saying "the difficulty in making a Cream Ale so well balanced must be considered." There was no resolution between the two judges and the tie was broken by the third judge who happened to like both styles and deemed the Blueberry Mead a better Mead than the Cream Ale was a Cream Ale. I quickly tried many of the beers at the ABNORMAL BOS and agreed with the judges' decision. Alas, my poor first place stout was merely great, not outstanding as were the Cream Ale and the Blueberry Mead ;^). Al. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Fri Sep 25 22:16:53 1992 From: Jay Hersh Subject: Re: Distributed Judging Al asks about my concept of how the national competition might look without a best of show. The idea I tossed out for 93 was to keep the first round the same as last year, all categories going to regional sites for judging, then for the second round each of the regional sites would do a few categories each. There is little difference to most first round winners since they still need to mail their entries on to the second round. Only folks like Byron or Steve Daniels would be inconvenienced by having to possibly send to multiple sites. Since there are many sites, it would be easier for people to travel to these sites than to the national conference, so I don't really get your point about folks from homebrew-deficient areas, it seems to me getting to the national conference is more costly and tends to attract more of the hardcore crowd anyway. To me best of show has always seemed very artificial. The apples vs. oranges comparison is problematic, and of course calling the person who wins this brewer of the year over someone who has won more ribbons is really lame, as Jeff indicated. > I must be missing some part of your argument >against BOS, because to me it seems the only arguments against BOS that >have been presented are: > > >1. it's too difficult to be a meaningful award, and > >2. removing it would allow an increase in the number of major categories. But these are very strong arguments. What point is there in giving a meaningless award, especially when it limits the number of categories that can be offered just to accommodate keeping the size of best of show manageable?? I don't want to take this discussion private unless Chuck specifically asks me to since I feel that this is important for the judges and the competition committee to discuss since it is a limiting factor and is controversial. JaH -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Mon Sep 28 22:27:03 1992 From: uunet!cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov!mlh at uunet.UU.NET (Michael L. Hall) Subject: Judging Irregularities The following are excerpts from the HBD. I have almost nothing to do with this, save being the person that is passing this along. I'm moving the discussion here because I think it contains some interesting questions for us, as judges. The fact is that sometimes things happen at competitions that are unexpected. Judges try to be as fair as possible under the circumstances. What happens if the judges do something that they think is fair, but that may go against the rules of the competition? Let's have some discussion... Mike Hall Here come the inclusions (ignore if you read the HBD; they are copied straight from there). -------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Sep 92 10:09:02 MDT From: mlh at cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall) Subject: BOS Mead Judging at the Nationals There has recently been a discussion in the HBD about the BOS Mead Judging at the Nationals. Let me summarize with some excerpts: Micah Millspaw wrote: > Also I question whether this mead won Byron that prize, > or he won it for some other reason, known only to the AHA. Geoff Reeves responded: > Whatever other complaints one might have about the AHA, how it is run, > or how it handles various activities, the judgings are run as fairly > as possible. [...] > Furthermore a friend of mine (and member of our club), Gordon Olson, > judged the meads in the finals. He was once meadmaker of the year > and knows his meads. Not only did he come back raving about this mead > but he would never take part in any 'fixing' of the competition. Then, Tom Altenbach said: > Here are the facts. Immediately after the best of show (3rd round) mead > judging in Milwaukee, I had a conversation with one of the judges, > Brian North, who told me that there had been a "problem" with the mead > judging from the second round. We didn't get into the details of what > the problem was. However, the 3rd round judges took the top 3 meads > from each class and REJUDGED them all, instead of just picking between > the 1st place winners to decide best of show. Brian told me that this > resulted in a switch of the 1st and 3rd place meads in one of the > classes. Examination of the returned scoresheets shows that Micah's > mead was judged 1st in his class by the second round panel, and his > scores were higher than those given to Byron's mead. [...] > > It would be nice to hear first hand from the judges involved and the > competition director, to understand their reasons for these actions. Well, I thought that things should be clarified a bit, so I sent complete copies of all the postings to Gordon Olson, one of the BOS judges and a member of our local homebrew club (Yea HillHoppers!). He wasn't able to post directly to the HBD, so I'm including his posting for him. Mike Hall hall at lanl.gov ______________________ Gordon Olson responds: This is my first posting to the HBD, so I hope it gets there OK. In response to HBD 970 and 971, I was one of the mead judges at the AHA National Competition held in Milwaukee. My opening remark is to remind everyone that until the winners were anounced, none of the judges knew who brewed which mead. We judged each mead solely on its own merit. In the second round I judged traditional meads. We had many excellent brews, with four of them getting more than 40 points for an average score. One mead was made from wild honey and became controversial. I thought it was too stongly flavored and too wild tasting, almost medicinal. Another judge thought that it was wonderfully complex and flowery. The one mead we all agreed on was a simple mead that was clean and well balanced. It was assigned first place. The wild honey mead was given second place as a compromise. Third was given to a sparkling champagne-style mead that was deemed to be perhaps too appley in its nose. Dave Welker, the competion organizer, had been called in to give his advice on the discussion of the wild honey mead. He carefully did not express his opinion, but encouraged us to reach a compromise. Later Dave asked two of us who judged the traditional meads and two from the non-traditional table to get together the next day to judge best of show. Probably due to the controversy about the wild honey mead, Dave brought the top three finishers from each category to the BOS judging. This surprised all of us, but we said: Why not, let's taste six good meads instead of two. We quickly found that the melomels and metheglins this year were not as good as the traditional entries. To my surprise, the mead we had placed first the day before, now tasted more mediocre than I had remembered and the other judges quickly set it aside as good but not great. The other judge from the traditional category did not recognize it as the same mead. It appears that there was significant bottle-to-bottle variation! Which bottle should be judged? The decision as to what to do was not lightly made. We decided that the four assembled judges were the best qualified, unbiased (we had no entries of our own, of course) judges available and we had to judge the merits of the mead in the bottles in front of us. Then the discussion quickly narrowed down to the merits of the wild honey versus the sparkling champagne-style mead. We split two against two on which was best. After much discussion, the sparkling mead was given a very narrow victory. With that done, the question arose as to what to do about the previous day's judging and results. It was decided to make the second round consistent with the BOS judging. I modified my previous day's scores by one point on one sheet and by two points on another sheet. The scores were so close that that was all that was required to give numerical victory to the sparkling mead. So the "problem" that Brian North was referring to was what to do when there is significant variation between the bottles that are judged. Another "problem" was what to do when an unusal mead with wild honey shows up in the competition. I have judged best-of-show at our state fair competitions. None of them were as tough as the AHA mead BOS this year. Be assured that the judges do not take their jobs lightly and the judging is truely a "blind" tasting. I hope that this message clarifies what happened. Two years ago my sack mead was first place in the traditional category, but I did not make it as Mead Maker of the Year. Next year, I want to be winning BOS rather than judging it. Gordon Olson ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Sep 92 11:39:24 -0500 From: oconnor at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor) Subject: AHA mead competition This is a commentary on the BOS judging at the AHA nationals in Milwaukee. I base my comments entirely on facts outlined in Friday's HBD by Gordon Olson (thru Michael Hall). Based on those facts and the Rules and Regulations governing the AHA competition, it is clear that the first and third place awards in the Traditional Mead category and the BOS award, Mead Maker of the Year, and perhaps top club award should all be changed. First let me say that I know none of the principals involved personally. Neither Byron Burch, Micah Millspaw, Gordon Olson, David Welker, ... Nor do I question in any way the integrity or sincerity of any of the people involved. In fact, it is transparent by Gordon's post that he is conscientious, sincere, honest and well-intentioned. He should be respected and commended both for the integrity he brought to the competition as well as the candidness of his post. However, the Rules and Regulations of the competition were not followed on the last day of judging and this directly affected the outcome in both the traditional mead class as well as BOS. The rules clearly state that the BOS judging will involve the 1st place winners from each class. A mistake was made, apparently by David Welker, in bringing the 1st, 2nd, 3rd place to the BOS judging. The judges then erred in judging the 6 meads although this is quite understandable considering the organizer presented them for judging. Finally, score sheets from the previous round were altered in order that the BOS judging appeared to be within the rules and regulations. In other words, the judges were aware of the fact that they could not award the BOS award to the 3rd place mead in a class. These series of mistakes, however honest and well-meaning they were, have seriously diminished the integrity of the competition. Fortunately, I believe all of the data is available to correct these errors and restore the credibility of the competition. The rules and regulations were followed through the finals of each class judging. It is a simple matter to award the proper award to Micah Milspaw and Byron Burch based on those results. The BOS award should properly be awarded to either Micah's mead or the 1st place mead from the other category based on the scoresheets of the final day of judging as the rules clearly suggest. That is easily done if the AHA retains copies of the scoresheets. If the AHA does not retain the scoresheets, it is not which of those 2, and only those 2, should get BOS. I would suggest it be awarded jointly in that case. (i meant to say it is not CLEAR which of those, and only those 2 should get BOS). Finally, it is my understanding that the club competition was very close this year and i suspect that a proper amendment of the results inthe mead competition might well affect that as well. I am not a judge nor a member of a club (except D.U.M.B., donalds united making beer) nor have i entered a competition for several years. But I do think competitions have a good deal of value for homebrewing, but that value is greatly diminished if the integrity of the competition is compromised as in this case. Hopefully, this will be rectified by the AHA in the near future. Finally, I wish to emphasize once again that I do not believe for a second that Gordon Olson nor anyone else involved did anything other than make an HONEST mistake. -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Tue Sep 29 18:04:17 EDT 1992 From: James Spence <70740.1107 at compuserve.com> Subject: Nat'l Comp. Mead Judging [This was posted to the HBD, but I included it here too. -MLH] The AHA's position on the Mead best-of-show. We became aware that there were some concerns in the way the best-of-show meads were judged this year via a letter we received from Micah in July. After receiving Micah's letter, I looked into the situation to find out what happened. I discovered that there were some inconsistencies in the way the best of show meads were judged compared to previous years. I also discovered that all 4 judges and the judge director unanimously agreed on the final decisions. The AHA stands by their final decision as a fair representation of best of show. I wish we had run a perfect competition, but unfortunately, we did not. We are always striving to improve the competition and Micah's letter informed me of a situation I was previously unaware of. I assure you all that steps have and will continue to be taken to avoid any future misunderstandings and inconsistencies. Anyone who wants to participate on the National Homebrew Competition Committee may contact me through CompuServe (70740,1107) or at PO Box 1679, Boulder CO 80306 (303) 447-0816. For those currently on the committee, a new package is in the works for everyone and I hope to have it the mail shortly after the GABF. It will include a working list of those people who have agreed to participate as well as first round judging topics. Sincerely, Karen Barela AHA Vice President -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 30 04:28:59 1992 From: "Roger Deschner 6-9433" Subject: Re: Judging Irregularities Yup, this does raise some interesting questions, but I hope not too many. I judged in Milwaukee, although I did not judge mead. Bottle-to-bottle variations are but one of the curve balls you inevitably deal with. This is a more unusual, and more difficult case - where the samples are noticeably different. All sorts of unspoken horrors go through one's mind, about mislabeling of entries by contest organizers, etc., despite the almost universally perfect record of national and local contest organizers. These "unspoken horrors" remain unspoken - but in your mind - when it is your problem to sit at a table and decide which of these beers is best in a limited amount of time. The less dramatic explanation is typically the case, such as a bottle cap that did not seal, a lump of crud which withstood bottle washing procedures, or something similarly mundane. The basic problem, which will be with us forever, is that sensory perception is an inexact science. We try to make it as exact as possible, through the use of multiple judges, standard score systems, calibration beers, etc., but very few of us will give the same beer the exact same score if we judge it twice. We might not even recognize it as being the same. I understand the AHA sprinkled in some "control beers" in Round 1 this year, to try to achieve a measure of calibration; I would be very interested to hear what they found from this exercise. After all this discussion, it is clear that a procedural error was made. However, I disagree that some change must be made to preserve the integrity of the competition. Rather, I feel that the greatest integrity of these competitions is the veil of anonymity which surrounds beer judging. You don't know who made the beers you are judging, and that veil of anonymity was intact in the above accounts of the mead judging in Milwaukee - during the time that these technical violations of the procedures occured. Once the contest results are announced, the veil is gone, and the results should be cast in stone, barring a revelation that an ENTRANT violated a rule. If we get into the business of changing results afterward, when names are known, we are truly on a slippery slope! Therefore I feel that to make a change now, with all the names known, would be a much greater integrity problem than living with a technical flaw which was made by judges honestly and anonymously trying to cope with a difficult situation of bottle-to-bottle variation. -- Roger Deschner -------------------------------------- From JudgeNet Wed Sep 30 04:51:15 1992 From: uunet!techbook.com!gummitch at uunet.UU.NET (Jeff Frane) Subject: Re: Judging Irregularities I thought the presentation on the mead competition was well done; certainly the facts seem to have been laid out thoroughly. Unfortunately, although I know Dave Welker was trying very hard to put on an excellent competition (a herculean task), I agree with Don OConnor that he made an error in the Best of Show judging and that the AHA needs to rectify the error. I think that supervisors need a certain amount of flexibility in running competitions (I know *I* have), but the AHA rules are pretty clear. But the thing that bothers me the most is that the judges went back and changed the scores on the following day, purely in order to make the original results seem more in line with the BOS judging. I have sat with judges and reworked scores *during* the competition, to bring all judges results within a given range but what was done here was fudging, plain and simple. Beers and meads and whatever *have* to be judged in the moment, not a day or a week or a month after the fact. Having tasted beers tossed out in the Oregon State Fair, I have often questioned judges' judgment -- "whoa, that beer is good! much better than the one that took first place" -- but I would never consider changing the official results -- not even if I were one of the original judges. I think the AHA needs to grab the bull by the horns on this one and admit that a mistake was made, apologize to everyone concerned and then restore the original first place awards (and make whatever adjustments are necessary to BOS and club awards). A tough one, but fair. Jeff Frane --------------------------------------