From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Sun Apr 10 06:36:12 1994 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA08300 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Sun, 10 Apr 94 06:36:07 -0400 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA15430 for ; Sun, 10 Apr 94 06:08:07 -0400 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA29947; 10 Apr 94 05:15:23 EST (Sun) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9404100515.AA29947 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #734 (Apr 10, 1994) Date: 10 Apr 94 05:15:23 EST (Sun) JudgeNet Digest #734 Sun 10 Apr 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: 1995 Style Guidelines for Altbier ("Roger Deschner ") Re: Porters (Jeff Frane) Score Sheets (Dennis Davison) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 09:30:55 CDT From: "Roger Deschner " Subject: 1995 Style Guidelines for Altbier It seems to be that time of year - improving the Style Guidelines. In all this discussion of Porter, which I truly hope will come to some sort of consensus, let us not forget a couple of other styles which have problems, like Dusseldorf Altbier. I am brewing a batch this weekend, and as usual, I am being generous with the hops. James Spence was right in correcting me a while back that the 1994 guideline for Altbier was the same as 1993 - I went back and checked. So now let's fix Altbier for 1995. Back to my batch. I am targeting it to be 50 IBUs. If my calculations and my admittedly limited brewing skill and the grace of the Brewing Gods all cooperate, I'll actually get somewhere close to 50 IBUs. If I enter it into a contest where the guidelines are followed strictly, it will be out-of-style. There appears to be a contradiction between the text description "medium to high bitterness" and the chart "25-35 IBUs". How I think this should be fixed: "Units of bitterness vary from the lower 30s to the 50s." - Michael Jackson, in Pocket Guide. And I'm not so sure about the prohibition against hop flavor and aroma - one concept of Alt is that it is "IPA that's been cold-conditioned and has a German accent in both malt and hop". In describing Schumacher, one of the Dusseldorf beers, Jackson says, "a lovely delicacy of aromatic hop character." Better text for the style guidelines: "Hop flavor and aroma OK, but should not predominate." I would also suggest adding something like "Special seasonal variation called 'Sticke' is higher gravity, and is dry hopped." A final note: There's a transatlantic air fare war on right now. Roger Deschner University of Illinois at Chicago R.Deschner at uic.edu =============== "Civilization was CAUSED by beer." ===================== ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 11:10:52 -0700 (PDT) From: gummitch at teleport.com (Jeff Frane) Subject: Re: Porters Scott Bickham provided a fortuitous input from MJ: > In that case, the porter should be less opaque and have > more of a brown malt and less of a coffee character. He went on to say that > since porters and stouts have similar origins, one would expect the style > differences to become blurred, but he would like to see more of what are > known as traditional or plain porters to be brewed. These get the color > and roasted character from brown malt and don't have the sharp bite of > black malt. > > Do I hear any seconds to this motion? > I think this is an excellent starting point, and that Traditional Porter is the appropriate beer to define. Also, some good information from Paul Edwards: > To put an historical spin on the Porter debate, the following excerpts are from > a small book entitled "Guinness - Dublin" published in 1955 by Arthur Guinness, > Son & Company, Ltd.: > > Not much detail is provided on the brewing process, other than the use of > roasted unmalted barley is implied for all the beers including Porter. > Perhaps the historical use of the word Porter for a low gravity, draught Stout > is akin to the Bitter (draught) vs Pale ale (bottle) terminology used in > England? Perhaps it was just a bit of marketing when Guinness dropped the use > of Porter in favor of Stout for it's lower gravity draught black ale. > I would aid to this a tidbit my father recovered from an entirely non-brewing source, that the development of porters in Ireland was tied to the English control over the hop trade, with huge tarriffs on their import into the English-governed island. As a result, the Irish, according to this text, turned to porter brewing -- presumably indicating a low hopping rate. > So imagine what it'd be like if the BJCP required potential judges to submit > samples of their own beers of particular styles (in addition to the written > exam) before certifying them to judge that style at a sanctioned competition. > I don't know how we could do it, but I think it's a wonderful notion. James Spence writes: > Jeff, judging by the language and vehemence, you tipped over the edge a bit. I probably did; I resent being spoken to as though I was either a child or too stupid to follow someone else's argument. > This is a fascinating argument, I wish I had more time to put into it. It's > strange how the most interesting arguments are those to which a suitable > resolution will probably escape us. Do be careful about how you use > analogy--analogies are for simplifying the meaning of an argument, not for > supporting it. > You could check; my memory is that I didn't use the word "analogy" at all -- that was Chuck Cox. > Yes, we do remember our members. We are nice people who care very much about > the job we are doing. And we try to do the very best we can at them. > I am glad to hear that the AHA is "remembering the members", but there are times when the evidence of that is faint. As an insider, you may not be aware of it, but the organization does have a reputation for top-down arrogance toward the membership. It's something that the Board of Advisors has contuously had to remonstrate with the staff about. It's true that the AHA is better about this today than before, but I do not think it is a pervasive policy. To put it in Tom Peters'-type form, the AHA is still not a customer-oriented organization. > I hear something like this in your argument: Noone can decide what a beer > style is. But, until we do decide, every judging is compromised, etc. What is > a porter? Now's your chance. You're speaking to the right person. If you > want to eliminate the category, make that suggestion if you want--if you think > that is a reasonable and constructive solution to the ambiguity of the > category. > My suggestion to eliminate porters was only partially serious. I think the current definitions are worlds better than they were a few years back when the primary distinction was that porters were brewed with black malt and stouts were brewed with roasted barley. Seriously. But as someone else points out here, the distinctions need to be precise and reasonable. For my own perspective, I think the porter category should be clearly spelled out as an historical beverage, brewed with brown malt and within a distinct gravity range. If necessary, perhaps a sort of "Modern Porter" category as well, along the lines of Yuengling and perhaps with room for hoppy versions. But I am still not convinced that simply tossing out such a mercurial category isn't the best answer. And finally, Al Korzonas (who seems to think Chuck Cox and I were agreeing), writes: > > Why not? Have we tried? Did the Americans give up when the Germans > bombed Pearl Harbour? After I finish my taxes (probably Apr 15th), All I can say is that I hope your bookkeeping is better than your history, Al! Although maybe your dad fought the Japanese on the beaches at Normandy. - --Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 19:34:55 -0400 (EDT) From: Dennis Davison Subject: Score Sheets As an orginizer, I've learned that if you don't have at least 15 local judges (within an hours drive) and another 10 judges that'll drive for a couple of hours you'll have to rely on apprentice judges to help. Not to say they don't score beers well, some of them just are lax on the comments. I'll try and have at least a Certified judge teamed with them. But at times this may not happen because of the heat of the contest. I know that most of the Midwest competitions have judge registration forms whith there competition forms. This has enabled us to #1 know how many judges to expect and #2 start pairing up judges before the contest, thus eliminating some of the hassles on the day of the competition. Sure there are no shows and this makes it a bit harder. And yes, most of the judges are entrants and it's even a hassle finding a way to schedule them. But if most of this can be done before hand it hopefully will ease some of the problems. One competition goes one step further and appoints a head judge for the table. A dubious honor, but a way to make certain that some of the less experienced judges get some additional knowledge when judging. I like this idea. It doesn't mean that this is a Certified judge but a judge that has been around at several competitions. Remember not all judges feel like taking the exam for a second or third time. (Hell, it's been almost 20 years since college and it's a hassle studying and writing a million page exam. I can expess myself better in person than on paper). Now, where I have a problem on score sheet comments is, Do I explain malting technique changes to an extract brewer ? You never are 100% certain that you have an extract beer or an all grain beer. (There's always some room for doubt.) My question is should there be 2 seperate entry classes ? Or should you be told before hand that this is extract or all grain ? This would make it a lot easier for comments that fit the type of beer you have. Anyone have any opinions on this ? Dennis Davison exe01679 at char.vnet.net Exec-Pc, Milwaukee, Wi 414-789-4210 99 carboys of beer on the floor, 99 carboys of beer. If one of these carboys should happen to keg, then 98 carboys of beer on the floor. ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************