From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Fri Apr 15 20:21:40 1994 X-VM-Attributes: [nil nil nil nil nil] Status: RO Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA07477 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Fri, 15 Apr 94 20:18:42 -0400 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA23494 for ; Fri, 15 Apr 94 09:47:56 -0400 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA08112; 15 Apr 94 05:15:20 EST (Fri) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9404150515.AA08112 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #739 (Apr 15, 1994) Date: 15 Apr 94 05:15:20 EST (Fri) JudgeNet Digest #739 Fri 15 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: Re: Dixie Cup (Jeff Frane) Styles and Competitions (Again) (Spencer.W.Thomas) Re: Porter & KILL ALL SPECIALTY BEERS (Rick Garvin (703-761-6630)) Re: Style revisions (Jim Busch) NHC Changes (Algis R Korzonas +1 708 979 8583) Managing the Dixie Cup (Allen Ford) Archive site (Michael L. Hall) Reclassifications (Martin Lodahl) Seconding Steve Stroud's suggestions (sblack) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 06:50:08 -0700 (PDT) From: gummitch at teleport.com (Jeff Frane) Subject: Re: Dixie Cup Sean Lamb writes: > > We're in the throes of working on this year's Dixie Cup Competition > and I have 2 fears. The first is that the number of entries that > we get this year will decrease from last year. The second is that > we will have a substantial increase over last year. It is this > second problem that I would like to submit to this forum. How > should you go about trying to judge 800 beers in a day and a half? > I don't like the idea of doing any "pre-judging" prior to the > weekend of the competition. How do you give 800 entrants a fair shake? > Any ideas would be appreciated. > I had a bad experience with the Dixie Cup last year, and am trying to separate my personal feelings, but... I think you should consider how to go about getting enough qualified judges to handle all those beers -- and I don't know how it would be even *possible* to assemble enough truly qualified judges to evaluate 800 beers in 1.5 days. Too much beer! I think that if the DC is going to be that big, you will need to follow the procedures other competitions are using (like the regional first rounds of the NHCC) and starting judging beer well in advance, over a series of weekends. I was told that last year's Cup had trouble recruiting the better judges in some of the larger categories (pale ales?) because they had entered beers in those categories. This is a tough nut to crack -- good judges tend to be good brewers, and the tend to brew the beers they're the most familiar with ... Catch 22. Perhaps the solution is to limit the size of the competition. Too much success can create its own problems. - --Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 94 10:11:34 EDT From: Spencer.W.Thomas at med.umich.edu Subject: Styles and Competitions (Again) Tom Leith MIR/ERL 362-6965 writes: > It seems to me the consensus is that, stylistically speaking, > robust porter is identical with stout, which used to be called > "stout porter". Or at the very least noone should really expect > even Certified AHA Judges to discern the difference reliably. I disagree. Robust Porter has a definite black malt note, and does not have a roasted barley note. Stout DOES have roasted barley. That's easy. =S ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 10:17:38 -0400 (EDT) From: rgarvin at btg.btg.com (Rick Garvin (703-761-6630)) Subject: Re: Porter & KILL ALL SPECIALTY BEERS Rick says: Stout has Roast Barley, Porter has Chocolate. Ross Perot says: It's just that simple! Steve Stroud says: > 5 - Drop the herb/fruit/specialty categories :-). Now there's a suggestion > that Rick Garvin could endorse!!!! Alleluia! Or, replace it with a National herb/fruit/specialty only contest. Call it "Needle in a hay stack" in honor of the probability of finding a potable one. I only drinkk specialty beers from people I know. And never anything with more than one line of ingredients in the description. Cheers, Rick ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 11:26:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Busch Subject: Re: Style revisions Steve writes: > > James, here are a couple places that I suggest that you make changes in the > categories for 1995: > > 1 - Fritz Maytag won't like this, but get rid of the 'California Common Beer' > as a separate category. The correct place for it is as a _subcategory_ under > American ales. Anchor Steam drinks like a pale ale and in a blind tasting > would be virtually indistinguishable from many other American pale ales. Indistinguishable from Sierra Nevada Pale ale or Anchor Liberty (I know , Liberty is too high in OG for the American Pale category, but thats another beef)? Subcategory, fine, indistinguishable, no way! > > 2 - Move witbiers into the category that includes Berliner weisses and weizens. > I don't care where they are brewed, flavor-wise there is more similarity > between wits and weizens then Berliner weisses and weizens, so it seems a good > fit. Heresy! Wits are sacrilege, and fundementally different from thier German "cousins". > > 3 - Move Flanders Brown ales out of the general Belgian ale category and into > the category that contains the lambics - but rename the category! (Sour > Belgian ales, or something like that). It really makes a lot more sense to have the Goudenband and Rodenbach-type beers in with the lambics, as opposed to > having them in with the dubbels and tripels. Now were into the difficulty of cramming all of Belgium into one all encompassing category. When you get down to it, a good "Goudenband" may end up against a good lambic, no matter where the subdivisions are. > > 5 - Drop the herb/fruit/specialty categories :-). Now there's a suggestion > that Rick Garvin could endorse!!!! Amen!! Maybe we can lobby for Charlie to drop the recipes from his book! > > I'm not sure where this new subcategory should go, maybe with > American Lagers or maybe someone has a better suggestion, but > we need a category for beers such as Baderbrau, Pete's Wicked > Lager and Samuel(tm) Adams(tm) Boston(tm) Lager(tm). I agree totally, and would add that Anchor Liberty has a place in the AHA competition. Lots of us brew American IPAs with no valid category to put them. What ends up is that a 1.062 IPA gets into the American Pale category and usually does well, since the "bigger is better" rule of thumb will continue to dominate judging. > Subject: RE: Bocks (nee, Porters) > I must admit to have not had Coors' Eisbock yet. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but Eisbock it aint. > > I haven't had a Sam Adams Doppelbock in several years, but at the time > it was a well made beer that didn't taste much like a traditional > German dark bock beer because of the chocolate malt character in it. Darryl, rush out and try this beer! SA DP is one of the best beers in america, I dont care what people think about Jim K. Sure, its not the same as Salvator, but it is a damn good DP, especially on draft. > > The Bock categories are ok as they are, except that the German beers > don't exhibit a strong chocolate or roasty character (forgive me if I'm > not quoting exactly, I don't have the category description in front of > me at work); they taste like the particular melanoidins that are > formed in making Munich malt. This character does not taste like sweet > caramel malt to me, either. Its also a result of the Strecker Degradation that occurs with Munich malts. This occurs when an amino acid combines with a reducing sugar to result in an aldehyde and a strecker aldehyde. Excellent chart on these reactions in the latest New Brewer, congrats to the New Brewer staff on a great issue! > > Also, I think that the emphasis on making huge, big, giant, tremendous, > towering, behemoth, leviathan beers for the Doppelbock category is > unwarranted; the best ones taste less strong than they actually are. > 1.060s). Similarly, if you discount EKU 28 and Kulmbacher Reichelbraeu > and a couple others, nearly all Doppelbocks are made in the 1.075-1.085 range. 1.085 DPs give me huge, big, giant, tremendous, towering, behemoth, leviathan hangovers! Good judging, Jim Busch ------------------------------ Date: 14 Apr 94 15:28:00 GMT From: korz at iepubj.att.com (Algis R Korzonas +1 708 979 8583) Subject: NHC Changes The recent flurry of proposals to change the style descriptions for the NHC reminded me of a gripe I have with the Belgian category. Currently, there are two Trappist styles listed: Dubbel and Tripel. Of all the trappist beers that there are, only about half fit loosely into these two subcategories. I feel that two new subcategories should be Trappist Single (e.g. Orval) and Trappist Strong (e.g. Chimay Grand Reserve, La Trappe Quadrupel, Rochefort 10). Also, the descriptions should include "complex fruitiness" for the Single, Dubbel and Strong subcategories and "higher alcohols acceptable" in the Dubbel and Strong subcategories. By the way, I like Steve's suggestion to move the Sour Browns to join the Lambics in the Belgian Sour Category, but must disagree about the move of Witbiers to the Wheat Category. My reasoning is that the judges who are familiar with German Wheat Beers may not be Belgian fans and the judges who specifically ask to judge Belgians are probably much better qualified to judge them correctly. Finally, a great many Belgian Ales contain spices. Perhaps "may contain spices" should be added to the Belgian Ale and Belgian Strong subcategories. Al. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 12:26:53 -0500 (CDT) From: Allen Ford Subject: Managing the Dixie Cup Sean Lamb writes: > We're in the throes of working on this year's Dixie Cup Competition > and I have 2 fears. The first is that the number of entries that > we get this year will decrease from last year. The second is that > we will have a substantial increase over last year. It is this > second problem that I would like to submit to this forum. How > should you go about trying to judge 800 beers in a day and a half? > I don't like the idea of doing any "pre-judging" prior to the > weekend of the competition. How do you give 800 entrants a fair shake? Before I offer my suggestions, I want to give you folks in Houston a plug. The Dixie Cup is, by far, the most entertaining and active competition I have ever judged in. What with the pot-luck dinners, Fred's beer and food tastings, four-bus pub crawls, seminar breakfasts, nightly raffles, late-night parties, and world's fastest homebrewer races, one almost forgets about the hard work of judging large categories. I look forward to it every year and recommend it highly to those of you who have never had the Dixie Cup experience. I certainly understand that you would like to keep the judging restricted to the one weekend, but I think the Dixie Cup is now at the size where, if it grows any further, it will not be possible to judge all the entries in a Friday night first round and a Saturday second round and still get in all the activities that we have all come to enjoy. Since I would never recommend cutting down any of the partying, I feel that the size of some categories coupled with the limited availability of competent judges demand that some early sorting occur, at least for the largest categories. Maybe this could be done Thursday evening or even the previous weekend. There is a good supply of judges in the Houston area who are competent to remove faulted beers from the competition. I know that I would appreciate not having to judge more than about 10 beers, depending on the category, at any one time. I feel that the overall quality of the judging would be improved if the judges' taste buds were still intact at the end of the session. What do all you other old hands at the Dixie Cup think? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 94 12:14:06 MDT From: mlh at cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall) Subject: Archive site Al Korzonas writes: > I proposed > a subcategory like this about a year or 1.5 years ago (are > JudgeNet Digests archived?) but it was called "Robust American > Lager" and I had come up with some suggested style descriptions. > James? How about a "Robust American Lager" subcategory? Yes, JudgeNet is archived! I currently do the archives. I will not be able to do it much longer, though, so if you would like to take over the archives, please send me some email! (hall at lanl.gov works). And to prove that the archives are useful :-), I found Al's original comment in the 9307 file: - ------begin Al------ I'd like to add two more categories: Robust American Lager -- to cover beers such as Samuel(tm) Adams(tm) Boston(tm) Lager(tm) and Baderbrau. Special Export Bitter -- to cover beers such as the bottled version of Young's Special London Ale (see my comments below). - -------end Al------- -Mike ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 09:07:08 -0700 (PDT) From: malodah at pbgueuze.scrm2700.PacBell.COM (Martin Lodahl) Subject: Reclassifications In JudgeNet Digest #738, Alan_Marshall answered my challenge: > Martin is a stick-in-the-mud. There! ;-) Whew. I'm usually called much worse! It's true, I haven't tried Niagara Falls Eisbock. I've had the others, though, and they all strike me as just stronger, sometimes darker versions of the usual American lagers, with no Bock-like characteristics. Al Korzonas suggested a "Robust American Lager" subcategory; that sounds like a more appropriate place for these beers. Steve Stroud then loosened my back teeth with this one: > 1 - Fritz Maytag won't like this, but get rid of the 'California Common Beer' > as a separate category. The correct place for it is as a _subcategory_ under > American ales. Anchor Steam drinks like a pale ale and in a blind tasting > would be virtually indistinguishable from many other American pale ales. > > Before any of you start objecting ("But it's an American Original!!") please > read Greg Noonan's article 'What Makes an Ale an Ale' in "Beer and Brewing, > Vol. 9" - from the 1989 AHA National Conference. It may change your mind. HORRORS! This is HERESY! But I'll agree that the present class description doesn't serve its purpose, as it's almost guaranteed to confuse. Beer writers in the early part of this century used the term "California common" to describe something that may be, but wasn't necessarily a steam beer, though the AHA is using it to mean a steam beer without actually saying so, due to Anchor's registration of the trade mark. If we accept that by "common" they really mean "steam," a new question crops up: are we talking about real steam beers, or the much more highly-developed, clearly world-class descendent that's the only beer legally permitted to be sold as such today? These represent two distinct styles without a great deal in common. So while I agree that something should be done with Class 23, my suggestion is the precise opposite: break it into two subclasses, one defined as an Anchor clone, and the other much broader, with an expectation of being a fairly rough-tasting, highly- hopped (with Clusters, Fuggles or some other traditional hop -- no perfumey Cascades, please), vigorously-carbonated (that seems to be a defining attribute) drinkin' beer. Oh, and to prove that I'm a stick-in-the-mud, that "Animal House" should be considered a "classic" shakes me to my core ... = Martin Lodahl Systems Analyst, Capacity Planning, Pacific*Bell = = malodah at pacbell.com Sacramento, CA USA 916.972.4821 = = If it's good for ancient Druids runnin' nekkid through the wuids, = = Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me! (Unk.) = ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 94 19:08 CDT From: sblack at utxvm.cc.utexas.edu Subject: Seconding Steve Stroud's suggestions I would second all of Steve's suggestions -- they are all excellent and overdue. On my one trip to Britain several years ago, I was surprised to find out that most of the barleywines I encountered (being August, all were bottled) were GOLDEN in color and not as strong or hoppy as the American examples (Bigfoot) I had come to love. Yet this style, which was represented by many of the big brewers (Bass, Fullers, etc.) is (or was to me anyway) virtually unknown on the side of the big lake. 1st rd 1991 Nationals: I am shocked and extremely pleased to encounter a homebrewed example of a Golden Barlewine made by Brian and Linda North. It was excellent and surpassed my favorite of the British examples I tried, Fuller's Golden Pride. I raved and scored it in the low 40s. I do not think that this subcategory is appreciated by all as it was apparently considered atypical by the second round judges. This subcategory should be recognized. As Steve says, Thoms Hardy and Old Nick for that matter, fall within the range of Old Ales. Here, Here (wish I was there, there) Steve Black ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************