From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Mon Mar 14 06:32:50 1994 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA22673 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Mon, 14 Mar 94 06:32:46 -0500 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA15137 for ; Mon, 14 Mar 94 05:57:50 -0500 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA18051; 14 Mar 94 05:11:43 EST (Mon) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9403140511.AA18051 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #712 (Mar 14, 1994) Date: 14 Mar 94 05:11:43 EST (Mon) JudgeNet Digest #712 Mon 14 Mar 1994 THE BEER JUDGE DIGEST Chuck Cox , digest administrator Michael Hall , archive administrator digest submissions to judge at synchro.com administrative requests to judge-request at synchro.com send rank updates to the administrative address messages sent to the wrong address will be ignored FTP archive information in /pub/judge/README on cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov Sponsored by SynchroSystems and the Riverside Garage & Brewery Contents: AHA points scale (Ed Hitchcock) Re: Entry Bottles (Rich Fortnum) RE: Bottles and Judging (Darryl Richman) commercial soaps affect smell? (Bob Devine) English and American Pale Ales (Jim Larsen) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 10:12:41 -0400 From: Ed Hitchcock Subject: AHA points scale We had a club only competition last week, and the two other judges and I came to the conclusion that there is something fundamentally wrong with the AHA scoring scale. Basically, the top 10 points are rarely used, and the bottom twenty points are virtually never used (at least, not after the first round). Most beers in a competition wind up between 20 and 40. Sure, there are excellent beers well deserving of 40+, but they are in the minority. The more beers you sample, the more there are that come out at the same score, often with similar comments. It would be nice to be able to access a greater spread of points, considering a spread of twenty points for undrinkables is the same as the spread for the majority of good beers. It would make more sense to have ten points at the top and bottom of the scale for Excellent and undrinkable, and leave a thirty point spread for the rest. Or more drastic still, use all 50 marks for drinkable beers, and have a separate comment sheet for infected beers. A larger scoring range for good beers would allow better separation of quality vs accuracy to style. ____________ Ed Hitchcock ech at ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron: Draft beer in bottles. | Anatomy & Neurobiology | Pleonasm: Draft beer on tap. | Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________| ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 94 14:30:03 GMT From: Rich Fortnum < at beerich.demon.co.uk:rich at rich.fsd.mot.com> Subject: Re: Entry Bottles >Knowing the name of the brewer can influence your judgement. I have seen >myself judge a beer a few points higher than it deserved because I knew the >brewer made good beer. I later dropped the mark when I scored a better >beer lower, but it did illustrate the problem to me. > Allowing non-standard bottles doesn't affect your judgement per se, >but suddenly realizing while you're judging pale ales that your best friend >uses Orval bottles just like these... I think that is what the rule is >for, not to prevent you from scoring a beer badly if it's in a corona >bottle. Well then how about getting people to pour the beers for you, and you judge them. Sort of like a two person team. This way, beers could probably be judged quicker, and it would give the brewer the optimum bottle, according to the brewer. I don't know the legalities of this type of thing, but remember, everybody has a different pour (including judges) and packaging is a major part of the final touch of a beer. If I had to package a beer in a bottle different than what I usually package in, then it's probably not my best product, is it? In a way, this can be limiting, and it might change the reason for the competition in the first place, being people's best beers (which I think, means their bottling means also). What do people think here? At any competition, there would be many people who would volunteer to be 'pourers'. Perhaps studying judges? BeeRich Malting, Brewing & Distilling Science Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, Scotland e-mail: rich at beerich.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 94 10:17:55 TZ From: Darryl Richman Subject: RE: Bottles and Judging John DeCarlo x7116 writes: > Rick Garvin: > >Actually, non-standard bottles were disqualified, but judged so that > >the individuals could get the comments. There were three entries from > >one person in Grolsch bottles. They were not contenders. > > >I agree that relaxing the bottle requirement COULD make sense. How do > >we address the blind tasting issue? > > I wonder what other judges think about bottle restrictions. Is this > really a "blind tasting" issue or more of an administrative thing or > even just a historical issue. I'd like to believe that I'm generally unaffected by the information presented by the bottle. I rarely write comments in the bottle inspection area; only if the fill is extremely low or there's a ring around the collar, or if -- heavens forfend -- the bottle gushes. I don't feel the bottling restrictions are aimed in that direction. Instead, I think the bottle restrictions -- in particular, the size restrictions -- are intended to help out the competition organizers. I have some sympathy for the brewer who makes a craft product and wants to package it in a traditional shape, but that really affects only a small number of categories. I have a lot more sympathy for the organizers who get 300-500 bottles (or more) and have to find a cold place to put them. They need to be able to put them in standard cases and stack them. Bottles that are significantly taller than others, or too wide to fit into a normal slot, are a pain to deal with. As an entrant, I'd rather not have my beer require "special" treatment to get it into the sometimes tight areas that competition organizers are often forced to borrow. As a helper and organizer, I'd rather not have the additional trouble. --Darryl Richman ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 11:30:49 -0800 From: Bob Devine Subject: commercial soaps affect smell? Time for a weird question. I know that some "air fresheners" have a smell suppressor chemical so that even though a floral scent masks an offensive aroma, the manufacturers found that people also want a diminution of bad smell. My question relates to this: Do "deordorant soaps" used for showers also have this odor hiding chemical? I notice that my sense of smell seems lessened on days when I use that soap. (And yes there do seem to be days when I skip a shower. Being in grad school allows me to work at home with a PC and it does not complain about me. (yet)). I'm asking because I'd like to find a brand of soap that won't reduce the acuity of my sense of smell. Just trying to be a informed consumer and better judge.... Bob "now smelling like a basket of flowers" Devine ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 12:10:03 -0800 (PST) From: jal at teleport.com (Jim Larsen) Subject: English and American Pale Ales Frank Doner writes: > As I look at the 1994 Style Guidelines for National Homebrew Comepetition, > I see the following for two separate styles: > > 5. English-style Pale Ale > a)Classic English Pale Ale 1.045-56 OG 20-40 IBU 4-11 SRM > > 6. American-style Pale Ale > a)American Pale Ale 1.044-56 OG 20-40 IBU 4-11 SRM > > Obviously there are differences that are transparent to the granularity > of the characteristics above that I am sure I do not understand. Perhaps > it is yeast characteristics or hoppiness (flavor or aroma). Can anyone > give me objective differences between these two subcategories? According to the Zymurgy special issue on styles (1991), while the specs are the same, the ingredients differ. An English PA should have English malt and hops; an American should have American malt hops. These differences go beyond the gravity, bitterness and color. For example, English pale malt produces a maltier beer than American, cascades produce a different flavor than goldings. Jim ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************