From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Wed Mar 23 06:28:22 1994 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA20782 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Wed, 23 Mar 94 06:28:16 -0500 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA29993 for ; Wed, 23 Mar 94 05:58:11 -0500 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA00627; 23 Mar 94 05:11:51 EST (Wed) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9403230511.AA00627 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #721 (Mar 23, 1994) Date: 23 Mar 94 05:11:51 EST (Wed) JudgeNet Digest #721 Wed 23 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: Re: Growing Pains in St. Louis ("Roger Deschner ") Books... (Darryl Richman) Judging at meetings ("Phillip Seitz") Re: Huge out of control meetings (Rick Garvin (703-761-6630)) Re: Books... (Chuck Cox) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 08:40:10 CST From: "Roger Deschner " Subject: Re: Growing Pains in St. Louis Speaking as a member of the 500-member Chicago Beer Society, the major growing pain you face is that your club, as it grows, will unfortunately shed some of its earlier, friendly, intimacy. But you'll survive. A problem I see is the idea that everybody has to drink each beer at the meeting. I suggest that this is made more and more difficult, as you grow, by D.U.I. laws as much as anything. I would say that you need to have people bring fewer beers when they bring beer, and bring it more often. But your growth means that not everybody will get a chance to drink each beer there. That's growth, but it's probably not a fatal tragedy. You might also shed some of the work currently put into keeping track of who brought beer in which month. One thing we do is to concentrate on a particular style each month, at a separate meeting just for that purpose. People bring beer to that meeting in that style only, and there is usually a presentation about the style. We periodically have a "Beginner's Corner". We set up a table with a group of actual BJCP judges, and judge homebrew that beginners bring in, using official BJCP scoresheets - the whole 9 yards. The emphasis in the scoresheet comments is, of course, even more heavily weighted than usual towards how the brewer could improve their beer, although we are no more liberal with points than at an actual contest. The idea is to get beginners' beers critiqued in a non-pressure non-contest situation, and give them something written to take home. We also use it as practice for apprentice judges - we'll typically pair an apprentice with a BJCP judge to judge each beer. Things like this work because at our size, our meetings simply are *NOT* intimate, or even very organized; this means those who are judging beginner's beers really aren't missing anything by sitting in a corner and judging for a while. Many of you, if you came to a CBS meeting (1st Thursday of each month at Goose Island) and saw the spectacle of it all, would say we're completely off our rockers. I'm not sure I'd disagree. Roger Deschner University of Illinois at Chicago R.Deschner at uic.edu =============== "Civilization was CAUSED by beer." ===================== ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 94 08:32:15 TZ From: Darryl Richman Subject: Books... chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) writes: > The Beer Enthusiast's Guide > by Gregg Smith > > Contents: > - Beer and the Story of Civilization > - The Brewhouse and Brewing > - Styles > - Beer Characteristics > - Brewing Ingredients > - Preparing for the BJCP Exam > - Appendices Chuck, do you think this is complete enough to be a sole-source study guide for the BJCP? How much (and of course, where) do you think this book needs augmentation to provide a thorough study program? Also, I'd be interested in the group's opinion of BP's "Evaluating Beer"? I had a quick look at the table of contents and not much more. I must say that I'm flabbergasted at the $26 price for what is a set of reprints. But if it's truly one stop shopping for a study guide, I could still recommend it. --Darryl Richman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 94 12:00:48 -0400 From: "Phillip Seitz" Subject: Judging at meetings Tim Leith commented about the difficulties of training people and controlling tastings at large meetings. BURP has similarly large meetings, and most of the meeting time is spent in informal discussion and what passes for partying. When special programs are available (which is relatively frequent) they are offered in advance of the regular meeting time for those who wish to participate. The "party" format isn't as bad as it might seem. Most of us work too hard, so it's a time to unwind. While I'm not sure that a great deal of SERIOUS beer stuff goes on, there's no question that it gives people a chance to meet each other and to follow up on things later. I pursued this approach and was very pleased with the help I got from people. In other words, the meeting sets up the introductions and preliminary communication that is followed up off-line. In addition, we are discussing having a Belgian styles beer contest, and want to make sure we have a well-trained cadre of judges. The approach we're likely to follow is to set up a series of weeknight meetings that people will need to sign up for. This will provide more control over the meeting itself, and allow for limits on the numbers who attend. Each of the attendees would be expected to participate in the contest and to serve as "style masters" for the other judges in their categories. I'd love to give everyone the same intensive training, but it's just more than we can manage. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 11:33:05 -0500 (EST) From: rgarvin at btg.btg.com (Rick Garvin (703-761-6630)) Subject: Re: Huge out of control meetings trl at photos.wustl.edu (Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965) said: > > The St. Louis Brews is having some growing pains. When I joined the club not > very long ago, there were maybe 35 - 40 people at the meetings. > > Now -- well, at one meeting last fall there were about 100 people: attendance > has settled down a bit into the 75 range. We need 12 bottles for a tasting, > and the newcomers aren't really learning anything, especially about styles. > The meetings are arugably turning into beer drinking (contrast with tasting) > sessions, keeping control is difficult, etc. > > There has been talk about splitting the club along a couple of axes, but > nobody is thrilled with the idea. We *have* started having "beginner's > clinics" 30 minutes before the general meeting starts, which addresses some > problems but not others. > > One of the big concerns is making our members into good beer judges, whether > they know it or not. Education about styles, flavor, faults, etc. is a big > part of what we want to accomplish at the meetings. > As a long time BURPer I understand your plight. We grew from about 45 members to over 300 in two years. Meetings are definately past the point where it is comfortable in a house. We take thue heuristic approach to solving these problems. Most of the folks that BURP are involved in some form or another with the Federal Government and adding more structure to our lives is the last thing that they (epsecially me) want. So, we do not go the bylaw and edict route. As the BURP Minister of Education for 2 years I took it as my main task to create more BJCP judges (Ahhh, back on subject). This I did in a 4 week class that was very much off-line from the BURP meetings. We have gotten about 30 new BJCP judges out of this effort and have exceeded all expectations with regards to the level of interest in judging. I have another 20 people demanding that I teach the class again soon! So for the serious (:-{) jobs of teaching new judges I say go off-line. If I wanted to teach ANYTHING with any hope of retention I would do it off-line. I really like the BURP social club meetings that we have every month. We conduct some business and do some light-hearted education like trouble shooting problem beers informally. I had volunteered the slides that I used for the class and got about 25 requests for them. I have not gotten many comments back on them so I must not have embarassed myself too much with them. If I missed anyone the first time they are available in postscript and PowerPoint format. Cheers, Rick ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 94 13:12:53 EST From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Subject: Re: Books... Darryl Richman sez... > > > The Beer Enthusiast's Guide > > by Gregg Smith > > Chuck, do you think this is complete enough to be a sole-source study > guide for the BJCP? How much (and of course, where) do you think this > book needs augmentation to provide a thorough study program? Well, I have done some thinking about that. In the next edition of the study guide I hope to expand the bibliography with some indication of the judging level and area of coverage of each book. Here is my thinking so far... I would say that someone who understood the basics of Papazian and Gregg and had brewed a few batches and tried a variety of homebrews and commercial beers would have a shot at recognized. For certified you should really understand those two books plus Jackson and have brewed some advanced beers and sampled a number of homebrews and commercial beers. For national you should understand all the above plus have a good grasp of Noonan, Eckhardt, Miller and the styles series. You should have judged a variety of styles. You should have done some travelling to other major beer regions. For master you should have a solid understanding of all the above and perhaps have read some professional literature. You should have brewed and judged in as many different styles as possible. You should have travelled to a variety of major beer regions. For grand master you should be a frustrated boy scout who has taken merit badge collecting to a compulsive extreme. You should be able to order beer in Dutch, French, English, and German while falling-down drunk. - -- Chuck Cox SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass. ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************