From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Sat May 7 06:30:28 1994 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA00511 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Sat, 7 May 94 06:30:24 -0400 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA04663 for ; Sat, 7 May 94 06:09:09 -0400 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA22872; 7 May 94 05:21:12 EDT (Sat) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9405070521.AA22872 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #754 (May 07, 1994) Date: 7 May 94 05:21:12 EDT (Sat) JudgeNet Digest #754 Sat 07 May 1994 THE BEER JUDGE DIGEST Chuck Cox , publisher 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 Published by SynchroSystems and the Riverside Garage & Brewery Contents: John Caleen's BJCP stuff (Rick Garvin (703-761-6630)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 12:05:01 -0400 (EDT) From: rgarvin at btg.com (Rick Garvin (703-761-6630)) Subject: John Caleen's BJCP stuff > > As to the notion of never awarding a lower score than a 19, that was > certainly stressed in the AHA first round in Kingston, NY. One of the > judges in attendance did give the calibration beer a 15, he was > chastised privately, and the judges were told a second time not to > score any beer lower than a 19. > > - ---------------------->8 I have argued this point before. There is no natural score that a beer should be awarded that is directly deducable. Each beer is filtered by an individuals subjective perception. (Asbestos underwear on) Our goals as judges are to: 1) Rank beers in the relative order that they exemplify the reference style. 2) Identify the flaws/superlatives of a given beer in a manner that is understandable by the brewer. How should we rank the beers? Well the method that I advocate and teach in my Judge class (30 BJCP judges so far with more awaiting their results!) is a top down approach. > > That brings up an item. Should we score from the > bottom up, or the top down? > Is a beer perfect unless we can justify why it isn't, > or is it water until we > justify it's beer? (Hmmm.... it's liquid... stays in the glass... > that's 19 points already!) > Bottom up approaches, whether you are estimating the cost or time to complete a project or scoring a beer, inflate scores. You should deduce the score and then justify it. A judge should be able to smell, look at and taste a beer and in the first 60 seconds after starting to judge a beer be able to say with conviction what score range it should be awarded. What are the ranges that should be used? They are right there on the score sheet. How do you know what the score should be? In my judging and in my class I (from memory) use the following guidelines: 40+ Outstanding. One of the best beers of this style that I have ever tasted in my life. 30-39 Excellent. A wonderful product. Needs minor work. 25-29 Good/Fair. Roughly in style. Needs work. 20-24 Fair/Poor. Major style and/or brewing problems. <20 Nasty. Brewer lacks a basic understanding of style and brewing process. Where in each range should a beer go? It depends on its competition. All that REALLY MATTERS (!!!!!) is that all the beers that are better get a higher score and all those that are less good get a lower score. What is the difference between a 42 and a 38? This is not a useful question. What place did your beer come in? This is the important question. Numerical scores are only a tool to determine ranking. Essentially, the ranges have been dictated by the AHA score sheets. I am not interested in arguing the 50 vs 20 point scale. I do believe that we should standardize on one scale. And, more importantly, determine appropriate score thresholds for beers of a given quality and give direction on how to place a beer in a score range. I really think that Bruce Feist's truth table is a wonderful tool. If we can agree on the discriminators that place a beer in a given row and column it should help us consistently place a given beer in the same range across judges. This approach is something that I have done for years. It is easy for judges to set a 10 minute/beer pace with this approach. Cheers, Rick (sniff, not going to Chicago for first round) ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************