From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Tue May 24 07:29:30 1994 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA12734 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Tue, 24 May 94 07:29:27 -0400 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA01564 for ; Tue, 24 May 94 06:55:28 -0400 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA02043; 24 May 94 05:23:15 EDT (Tue) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9405240523.AA02043 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #767 (May 24, 1994) Date: 24 May 94 05:23:15 EDT (Tue) JudgeNet Digest #767 Tue 24 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: Exam format (Renee Peloquin Mattie) eisbock and exams (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 12:09:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Renee Peloquin Mattie Subject: Exam format In Saturday's judgenet digest, Ed Hitchcock wrote, in response to Dennis Davison: > > It would be useless to have a test that everyone could get 90+ on > the first time around, wouldn't it? I believe the stats are that 85% of > examinees get at least 60% on the exam, qualifying them as judges. Seems > reasonable to me. > > >If I'm > >not a porter brewer should I be penelized for not knowing the history, > > If you are not a Porter brewer and don't know the history of that > beer, do you deserve to be a Master level judge? I think a broad range is > good, with questions on style and technical aspects for every exam. I have wondered about both of these things myself. 1) Why can't I get 90% on the test on my first try? Of course it seems reasonable that a higher ranking judge knows more than a lower-ranking judge. How best to test that? Would it be unreasonable to suggest different tests for different levels of certification? Making up question pools would require more work, but the lower-level tests might be easier to evaluate. And the majority of the tests are for lower levels of certification. 2) I can imagine someone being exteremely well qualified to judge English and American ales, but without a lot of experience of Belgian styles. Assuming I take and pass the BJCP test next time it comes around, I wouldn't really be qualified to judge all styles. Even if I am matched with an experienced judge, I could only take the word of my mentor that the beer is quite to style. I might be learning, but not adding much to the judging. Once upon a time there were so few judges, they could all know each other at least by reputation. Now that the pool of judges is growing so quickly, would it be useful for judges to have "beer style amendments" to their "titles"? Renee Peloquin Mattie rmattie at ccantares.wcupa.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 10:19:25 -0800 From: mfetzer at ucsd.edu (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer) Subject: eisbock and exams James spence wrote: >A stronger version of Doppelbock. Deep copper to black. Very alcoholic. >Typically brewed by freezing a doppelbock and removing resulting ice to >increase alcohol content. OG is 1.092-1.116 alc/vol is 8.6-14.4 > >Does that help clear things up? There is indeed a gap between doppel and eis, >but it amounts to only about 0.5% alcohol. Yes and no. As several sources have stated, it's illegal to freeze to concentrate, so let's for a moment pretend nobody does that, and instead just brews to higher gravities. If we're going to pigeon-hole beers, and on judings nail people that don't fit into their particular style/substyle, then we have to at least pigeonhole the spectrum continuously, no? What do I do with my o.g. 88 bock? Dump it down the drain? Sure I can lie, tell you it was either > 91 or < 83, but why? According to the 'fits to style' requirements, I cannot hope to enter it in any category. As far as the exams go, consider this folks: I doubt any professinal testing organization returns the exams to the exam takers. E.g., do contractors get their exam back when they get their license? Do lawyers get their bar exam back? Etc. Do they? I don't know, but I doubt it. I suspect if alll these organizations and the BJCP returned their exams, each one of those exams would end up in court in this suehappy nation of ours, to try to sue just one more point of someone. Just my personal theory. :) Mike - -- Michael Fetzer pgp 2.2 key available on request Internet: mfetzer at ucsd.edu uucp: ...!ucsd!mfetzer Bitnet: FETZERM at SDSC HEPnet/SPAN: SDSC::FETZERM or 27.1::FETZERM ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************