From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Thu Jun 9 07:12:56 1994 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA23709 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Thu, 9 Jun 94 07:11:53 -0400 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA08071 for ; Thu, 9 Jun 94 06:43:26 -0400 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA04525; 9 Jun 94 05:28:58 EDT (Thu) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9406090528.AA04525 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #781 (Jun 09, 1994) Date: 9 Jun 94 05:28:58 EDT (Thu) JudgeNet Digest #781 Thu 09 Jun 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: Praise, no complaints (bickham) quality of judges (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 08:42:46 -0400 (EDT) From: bickham at msc.cornell.edu Subject: Praise, no complaints I just thought I'd mention that although my beer didn't advance to the second round from Kingston, the American ale judges (Bill Slack et al.) held it back for the right reasons. It was actually a failed Koelsch entered as an American wheat because it had a fairly strong wheat character and I overdid the flavor hops. It was a very quaffable beer and actually won blue ribbons at the IBU and Crescent City competitions, but these judges picked up on the higher hop bitterness and cored it in the low 30s. Hmm, I guess 23 IBUs *is* too much for an American wheat ;-) Scott - -- ======================================================================== Scott Bickham bickham at msc.cornell.edu ========================================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 16:01:23 -0800 From: mfetzer at ucsd.edu (The Rider) (Michael Fetzer) Subject: quality of judges I've been a beer judge for only about a year now, and have judged only 5 or 6 competitions. I've always worked with very good people, apparently, and have been taught to write constructive comments on the judging sheets, and that scores should not be too disparate between the judges. In fact, I understood that there should not be more than a 7 point spread from the highest to the lowest judge score. Today, I got back the results of my first entries into competitions. Since I entered 5 beers, I received quite a lot of feed back. The results are dismal. Not from the quality of my beers, or from the quality of the scores, but simply from the quality of the judging and comments! Let me illustrate: Beer 1 - a pale ale Judge 1 has no comments whatsoever on bouquet/aroma, does not show how points are distributed, and notes strong diacetyl. Judge 2 has no comments whatsoever on bouquet/aroma, arrives at the same score as judge 1. comments for appearance are identical to 1, as are points. Commets for flavor mirror judge 1, points identical. Notes strong diacety. (If I was back in my classroom, teaching, I'd take 50% off both scores for cheating) Judge 3 has only one word on the entire form: sour (under flavor). scores varied by 14 points! Me: This was an Am. Pale Ale, not the greatest to be sure. While it may have some other problems, there's not a *hint* of diacetyl here... Beer 2 - a porter Judge 1 B/A: unmemorable, 5pts not broken down, Flav: watery, 12 pts not broken down. Other comments are reasonable. Judge 2 Good comments thrughout but points not broken down. Judge 3 B/A: 'slight aroma', Fla: doesn't taste like porter, no comment on D&OI. Points not broken down. scores varied by 4 Me: this was maybe borderline brown ale or brown porter, and definitely undercarbonated. Had no defects and no strong flavors, but w/ a o.g. of 52 and f.g. 14 I doubt it could be called 'thin'. Seems judges want more bang. scores varied by 3 Beer 3 - Judge 1 B/A: no aroma, Flav: too mild, not hoppy enough, otherwise he thought it was too thin. Points not broken down. Me: Definitely should have entered as a brown ale, even tho I tried for a porter. I got lousy extraction. Should have scored lower than Beer 2, but did not. Beer 4 - an apricot pale ale Judges had uniformly thorough comments, but every one suggested this was entered in the wrong category, should have been entered as a lambic. Several comments as to being winey. scores differed by 7.5 points. Me: Of all things, this was not a lambic. Simply a pale ale with a bunch of fruit thrown into the ferment. No wild yeasts (that I know of) or lactobacillus, and it's not like any lambic I've ever tried. Incidentially it won first prize. *chuckle* Beer 5 - weizenbock Judges had thorough comments. They liked this. All thought the beer matched style, was strong and assertive. scores differed by 11 points Me: This is like no weizenbock I've ever had, and I've had plenty. If anything, I should have called it a barley wine, but it was made with wheat malt. It's very young (was about 3 weeks when judged) and to me is very green. High alcohol content. In time, when it clears, this will turn into a good beer. Incidentally won 2nd prize in wheat category. So, what do I get from all of this? 1. Some of these judges had no clue what they're doing. I.e., they were judging a category that was not their field of expertiese. 2. Several of them do a miserable job with writing meaningful comments. If anything is written at all, it was not constructive (i.e., suggest what should be done to improve) 3. There's apparently no uniformity in the judging. On the one had, one judge clearly copied verbatim off another, on the other hand, point spreads as high as 14 points lead me to believe that at least some of the judges had no clue as to what's going on and that the group never reached a consensus on the particular entries. 4. Some comments are clearly pointless. I.e., what does 'unmemorable' or 'slight aroma' tell me, when I asked you to evaluate the bouquet of my beer? Is 'watery' along with a point score an adequate descriptor for the flavor of a beer? Tells me nothing about which aspects were good, and which were bad. How was the malt? how were the hops? Even just jotting numbers down next to the categories gives me an idea of how appropriate these things were. 5. Judges like *strong* beers. That weizenbock had IMHO only one thing going for it: alcohol. Other than that, it needs a lot of time to mature. Frankly, considering the care I take, and the people I judge with take, to make meaningful comments and to reach a consensus on a beer, I'm no longer surprised how much time we spend on each entry when judging. I'm also disappointed by how little care some of these folks have taken. Half the judges did a bad job, in my opinion. Now I ask you, people that have presumably more experience at having your beers judged, is my experience typical? If so, we're doing a lousy job at creating that body of qualified judges who among other goals "the most noble of all is to evaluate someone else's beer, to accurately and constructively assist them with the ultimate end of improving the quality of homebrew everywhere." Let me again emphasize that I'm not unhappy about the competition, how my entries placed, or how well my brews were liked. What I'm objecting to is the quality of the comments I received, and I see no better way to illustrate than to share my experience. If I were not also a judge, but only a brewer that has entered his crafts, I would be mortified by the results, and might refrain from entering into competitions again. Luckily I know there are some quality judges out there, and as with anything, some are not so good. I have some suggestions to offer as well, and would like to hear from you folks on that topic. 1. write sub point totals next to each sub category listed. E.g., if you thought the hop aroma in that Am. Pale Ale was mediocre, write 1 or 2 next to hops (out of 3). 2. write a comment on everything, with the possible exception of appearance (self explanatory if sub points are indicated). 3. use constructive criticism. I know my beer is brown, cloudy, malty, watery. Questions are: is it too dark for style? is it too cloudy for style? should there be less malt for style? Should I make it stronger, maltier, hoppier, add portland cement to give it body? 4. somewhere on that form, be encouraging and supportive. Start the D&OI category with a positive note, and then point out how to improve. While there's surely *some* thing wrong with every beer, there's bound to be something right, too. If the brew is badly infected, and the only thing it has going for it is that it's liquid, write it would make an excellent liquid nutrient for your herb garden. Seeing something like 'sour' as the only comment on the whole sheet isn't likely to make me ever want to enter beer again, or maybe even brew beer again. 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 ************************