From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Wed Mar 30 10:05:29 1994 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA03876 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Wed, 30 Mar 94 10:05:24 -0500 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA02935 for ; Wed, 30 Mar 94 09:07:44 -0500 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA05951; 30 Mar 94 05:11:43 EST (Wed) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9403300511.AA05951 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #727 (Mar 30, 1994) Date: 30 Mar 94 05:11:43 EST (Wed) JudgeNet Digest #727 Wed 30 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: Porters (Jeff Frane) 40+ beers and porters (Dennis Davison) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 11:10:12 -0800 (PST) From: gummitch at teleport.com (Jeff Frane) Subject: Re: Porters Al Korzonas writes: > > There have been a number of complaints posted in various digests over > the years that the AHA descriptions of the Porter and Stout categories > are inaccurate. Personally, I would like to have this dispute settled, > have a "Traditional Porter" subcategory added to the AHA descriptions > and have the other two subcategories corrected based upon a consensus > opinion of their descriptions. > And Bob Guerin writes: > > OK about the caramel, but wrong about the black patent. Brown Porter > should get its dark roasted flavor from chocolate malt, and should have > little or none of the burnt character which black patent can produce, and > which is within the style of a robust porter. > > The Porter category in the AHA style guidelines contains both a robust and > a brown subcategory. A porter will be judged based on the style guidelines > for the subcategory that the brewer specifies on the entry form. There is > no preference given to one style or the other in judging. > > All of which leads me to wonder: why the hell have a Porter category at all? It's obvious that the term has no real meaning at all in 1994. One hundred years ago, yes, but no more. If the term embraces everything from Yuengling to Anchor and all stops in between, it means nothing. I mean, it's either brown or black, hoppy or malty, roasty or toasty, thin or medium or heavy, it either has chocolate malt or black malt or it doesn't. It's ridiculous and if you can find three judges who *agree* on what a porter "really is" I'd be amazed. As far as I can see, a porter was a beer brewed with ingredients no longer available, and to specifications no longer reliable. There is no consistent commercial example to compare with. So what's the point? Simply to provide a catch-all for stouts that aren't stout enough, or brown ales that are too dark? Fooey. - --Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 19:09:56 -0500 (EST) From: Dennis Davison Subject: 40+ beers and porters I'd like to get this out there for general consensus. I don't want to sound like I'm pointing fingers at anyone and I will state right from the start that I have no ill will or feelings as to what has happened. I know the hassles of running a competition and what's involved so I do take my hat off to all those organizers out there. Let's just say, I had entered a beer in a competition. I got my score sheets back and found that I had a 40 point average score. Then I looked at the 3 winners scores on the overall winners score sheet, and noticed that the 1st place beer was scored as 39, the 2nd place scored 38 and the 3rd place scored a 32. Not knowing that they broke the category into several flights I was furious. After thinking about it for a day, I did realize that they must have broken the category. (Also after conversing with someone that was there I was told they had 40+ beers in that category). Now my next question arose. Why didn't a 40 point beer get advanced into the second round ? (The 3 ribbon winners were all from the same sub-category as mine). I don't know about you guys but if I had 4-40+ point beers in a first round I'd stress to advance all of them to the 2nd round. Hell, I'd love to judge a first round with 4-40 point beers. (ps This beer had been judged 5 times previous and all 5 times it was 40+ so it's not just ego here, it's a damn good beer) My 2 cents worth on this Porter debate: A Robust Porter should not have a roast character from the black patent. In to many competitions I have noticed a definate roast character in some of these porters. Granted, some of the problems may be the hardness of the water. Also, the balance between the Black and Chocolate malts should be of great importance. A good example of this was Boulevard's Bully Porter. Last year the poter was to stout like. This year (with a few changes) it's a wonderful Robust Porter. Dennis Davison exe01679 at char.vnet.net Exec-Pc, Milwaukee, Wi Life's a bitch , without a beer. ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************