From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Thu Mar 31 06:28:35 1994 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA22439 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Thu, 31 Mar 94 06:28:30 -0500 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA14330 for ; Thu, 31 Mar 94 06:08:59 -0500 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA10746; 31 Mar 94 05:11:54 EST (Thu) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9403310511.AA10746 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #728 (Mar 31, 1994) Date: 31 Mar 94 05:11:54 EST (Thu) JudgeNet Digest #728 Thu 31 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: 40+ beer (Rick Garvin) Re: JudgeNet Digest #727 (Mar 30, 1994) (John Lenz) jel3 at CORNELL.EDU Porter again, with a suggestion (WESTEMEIER) Porters and Pigeonholes (sblack) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 11:42:12 -0500 (EST) From: Rick Garvin Subject: Re: 40+ beer > 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) As the judge cooridinator for the contest in question (HWBTA) I believe that Dennis has a legitimate reason to be upset. This is because the procedures for determining a winner in the Stout category were not disseminated. I tried to contact Dennis via the Purple Foot two weeks ago when the problem came up, but apparently he did not get the word. We had 40 stouts to judge. These were split up between two sets of judges at the same table. Each set of judges picked the top three in their set of twenty to promote to a second round. Two judges from each set picked the top three of six in this second round immediately after completing the first round. No score sheets were filled out in this second round. Dennis's beer made it to the second round, but it was not in the top 3. The selection of the top 3 was unanimous. Some may argue with this procedure, but it is the same as was employed for Stouts at the Chicago NHC first round last year. Tim Artz, one of our Stout first and second round judges at HWBTA, played the same role with Stouts at the NHC. I believe that this process provides the most accurate feedback to the brewer while keeping the administrative overhead manageable. The problem occurred here when relative rankings for the second round beers were not explicitly reflected in numerical scores. At this point we move into the subjective area of scores vs. rankings. I am not of the school that beers should receive an absolute score that can be derived via an algorithm, it is just not doable. It follows from this that relative rankings below first, second and third based on the numerical score have no meaning. In this case, however, we were taking beers from two different sets of judges with two different scoring dynamics. Comparing scores across sets of judges is interesting but not useful (except to illustrate the fallacy of absolute scores). I expect to here some disagreement on this belief. So, what do I think that we should do? I see two choices: 1) Adjust scores on the original score sheets in the second round. 2) Write new score sheets for the second round. The first is messy but could be accomplished by a cover sheet a la NHC. The second adds to the administrative burden. But, I do not see any alternatives. Which do I favor? Probably new score sheets. I apologize for putting such a large response in JudgeNet, but since this had been brought up publicly I chose to. The HWBTA National was a good time and we had 65 excellent judges working with us. I am happy with how things worked out. And now for some FREE BEER. If any one is interested in judging "Spirit of FREE BEER" in Washington, DC on April 30 let me know. Cheers, Rick ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 06:49:25 -0500 From: (John Lenz) jel3 at CORNELL.EDU Subject: Re: JudgeNet Digest #727 (Mar 30, 1994) Jeff Frane writes, after quoting a pair of correspondents who have chimed in on the current Porter discussion: > > 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 > I couldn't agree more. We only have to re-read the current debate to get a pretty good idea that consensus on this (these?) elusive style(s) will be difficult to achieve. An as long as we are making nominations for categories to delete, how about the so-called "specialty" beers. I've not had many of these, but have yet to have one that I'd really call special. Seems to me like this is another category that is completely lacking in anything like an objective standard against which to judge it. It's not like there aren't already enough legitimate categories to support a contest. Op uw gezondheid, John ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 18:39:38 -0500 (EST) From: WESTEMEIER at delphi.com Subject: Porter again, with a suggestion Jeff raises an excellent point. He says 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. I think he's right. I've brewed several of the "old" porters from the "Old British Beers..." book published by the DPBC, and they are uniformly excellent. They are also uniformly unlike anything you can buy today in the US. Making them the old fashioned way, with old fashioned ingredients that you have to create yourself by modifying currently available ingredients is fun, instructive, and satisfying, but it makes beers that the average person doesn't quite know how to classify. I would like to suggest that we resolve the porter problem by simply redefining the category. Pick one (my vote goes to Yuengling) and call it the ur-porter for development of an official style guideline. The style was essentially lost once, let's not lose it again, just because we are having difficulty defining it. Ed Westemeier Cincinnati, Ohio westemeier at delphi.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 94 18:20 CDT From: sblack at utxvm.cc.utexas.edu Subject: Porters and Pigeonholes It is well to remember that the task of the annointed beer judge is made all the more difficult by a simple fact: beer styles and the perception thereof evolve and will continue to evolve. More over, this evolution (or variation) occurs and has occured along multiple axes; raw materials, processes, storage facilities, delivery systems, presentation methods, etc. Therefore, to expect any one or even any group of people however well intentioned, beribboned and articulate to fix the evolution (or variability) of beer styles into finite categories or pigeonholes, would seem quite the folly. My point is not to suggest that we stop trying to arrive at a working or general consensus or definition concerning a given style, say Porter. But we need to remind ourselves that such efforts will always fall short. This is a long winded way of saying: relax and have a homebrew, stylistic overlap is an historical fact that the modern homebrew movement can not alter. You may or may not find it comforting or at least vaguely interesting that archeologists, such as myself, spend an inordinate amount of time trying to force gradational variation into the pigeonholes we call "artifact types". That, of course, is one reason I am wont to make and drink homebrew! But I have noticed some interesting parallels between beer judge discussions of style and archeological discussions of type (or style). Some have noted that the propensity for humans to divide gradations into artificial NAMED categories is so pervasive (cross-cultural) that it may well be a "hard-wired" feature of the human mind. Apparently there are parallels in philosophy with the so-called "aristoleian" logic -- a thing IS or IS NOT something and the great gray inbetween does not exist -- and in linguistics. What I think it all means is that a person could spend the better (or worse) part of a life trying to construct beer pigeonholes and trying to get a group, say AHA beer judges, to agree on the exactness of such pigeonholes without really appreciating diversity or making any meaningful headway. On that note, I'll stop and sniff a porter, you know, that darkish beer in the keg that won't quit. I've got an Arkansas Brown Ale (made from whitewater and tar) a brewing and need the room! Yours in the homebrew nudging cause, Ma Black ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************