From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Wed Feb 8 07:29:30 1995 Status: O X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil t nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["18193" "" " 8" "February" "1995" "05:13:09" "EST" "JudgeNet Administrator" "judge-owner at synchro.com" nil "458" "JudgeNet Digest #963 (Feb 08, 1995)" "^From:" nil nil "2" nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: by truelies.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.6.9/2.2) with X.500 id HAA08246; Wed, 8 Feb 1995 07:29:27 -0500 Received: from goodman.itn.med.umich.edu by truelies.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.6.9/2.2) with SMTP id HAA08238; Wed, 8 Feb 1995 07:29:26 -0500 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA16673 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at umich.edu); Wed, 8 Feb 95 07:29:23 -0500 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA01116 for ; Wed, 8 Feb 95 06:06:55 -0500 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA03334; 8 Feb 95 05:13:09 EST (Wed) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9502080513.AA03334 at synchro.com> From: judge-owner at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #963 (Feb 08, 1995) Date: 8 Feb 95 05:13:09 EST (Wed) JudgeNet Digest #963 Wed 08 Feb 1995 THE BEER JUDGE DIGEST digest submissions: judge at synchro.com administrative requests: judge-request at synchro.com send cancellations & rank updates to the administrative address messages sent to the wrong address will be ignored FTP Archives: guraldi.hgp.med.umich.edu in /pub/judge WWW Archives: http://guraldi.hgp.med.umich.edu/Beer/Judge Gopher Archives: guraldi.hgp.med.umich.edu Editor: Chuck Cox Archivist: Spencer Thomas Publishers: SynchroSystems and the Riverside Garage & Brewery Contents: Need advice on BJCP exam (bickham) Dr. Beer guidelines (bickham) Re: Dr. Beer guidelines (Jay Hersh) Re: Beer judging and tasting (Algis R Korzonas +1 708 979 8583) BJCP Change: We asked for it ("Roger Deschner ") Changeover ("Kieran O'Connor") Cut the Shuck & Jive and Let's Go (Fred Hardy) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 09:14:02 -0500 (EST) From: bickham at msc.cornell.edu Subject: Need advice on BJCP exam Jeff Frane wrote: > ... Having just proctored an > examination in which 8 people paid $50 each to *take* the exam, I am > further mystified. I'll add that I'm in an awkward situation, having agreed to administer an exam on April 1st. This is a few weeks before the formal withdrawal by the AHA occurs, so what advice would you recommend to the 8-10 potential test-takers? I feel that since the have been studying, they should still plan on taking it, especially since the exam format won't change dramatically any time soon. But then again, the exam will not be graded and recorded before April 18th, so can they be sure that their score will be included in any AHA and/or BJCC records? Thanks, Scott bickham at msc.cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 09:17:24 -0500 (EST) From: bickham at msc.cornell.edu Subject: Dr. Beer guidelines This is a long item to repost, but there have been a couple of requests for Dr. Beer type information. Jay Hersh posted this a couple of years ago: - ------------------- Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 11:46:56 EDT From: Jay Hersh Subject: Re: Dr. Beer guidelines OK, due to popular demand and the fact we're not talking about anything else lately, here is the latest guidelines writeup I've been passing out to folks.... JaH This is a record of past guidelines used for hosting Dr. Beer Seminars. Each is slightly different as we have tried to change the seminars in the never ending task of perfecting the substances and levels used. Comments are provided to help you and us guage our success. General Info on how to do this: We normally use a light relatively flavorless beer that was free of original defects. usually Carling Black Label. It is cheap, and of the 8 or so comparable cheap beers (why trash good stuff) it is the most defect free. The improtance of a fresh beer to doctor can not be stressed enough. Remeber to keep undoctored reference samples for side-by-side comparison during the session. Non-drinkable samples were made with non-food grade chemicals. If you have access to FDA approved additives, these if added in appropriate quantities (we make no guarantee of the toxicity of the above specified levels, you'll have to check this out and take responsibility on your own) are probably drinkable. You'll need one bottle of doctored beer for every few people (assume 2 to 3 oz per person). You'll need bottle caps to recap after adding substances. All substances should be added less than 24 hours before, except for skunky and oxidized which need advance prep as indicated. In addition to beers for doctoring you'll need 8 to 16 oz reference beer for each person. Prepare samples as noted. The order listed is the serving order we've been using I believe. The idea is to do the strongest nastiest one toward the end. Splitting this into 2 sessions is not a bad idea as the palette can get saturated and tired. The full range of samples takes 2-3 hours. Be sure to have some type of plain munchy like french or italian bread and water (hopefully not skanky water) for palette cleansing. Basically you can proceed similar to competitions or other tasting events. It is a good idea to serve these blind. Let people try to guess what they are tasting then after a minute or two tell them. Many people will pick this up. Stress the fact that flavor perception is devoid of the additional cues like sight that allow perceptual recognition. The idea behind doing this is to train and refresh (strengthen) the cognitive association between sensing and being able to assign (correctly) a descriptor to that sensation. Feedback is encouraged. It will help us revise this program. Good Luck. - Jay Hersh, Steve Stroud hersh at expo.lcs.mit.edu STROUD%GAIA at leia.polaroid.com snail Mail: Jay Hersh aka Dr. Beer 15 Dunbar Ave. Medford, Ma. 02155 ************************************************************ Original Posted 10/90 reference beer = Carling Black Label size = 16 oz Flavor/Aroma Amount Drink? Comment - ------------ ------ ------ ------- 1) Alcohol 10ml pure ethanol Y could have used a little more, perhaps 12-15 ml/bottle 2) Clove 10ul eugenol N too strong, cut in half? 3) Winey 30ml Chablis wine Y Fine (make sure it is fresh) 4) Estery 2.8ul t-Amyl Acetate Y OK, maybe increase 50-75% (banana) was borderline this time previously used .028ml which was much too strong 5) Nutty 5 drops Almond Extract Y OK 6) Phenolic 4mg Phenol N Slightly weak, some people couldn't detect this. 7) Buttery 5 drops butter extract Y OK (diacetyl) 8) Sulfury 30 mg Potassium N Good Metabisulfite (K2S2O5) 9) Skunky Previously dark strored, Y Good fresh Molson in sun 3 days 10) DMS 0.08ul (made by diluting N OK 50uL pure DMS to 50ml w/ pure ethanol, then adding 80ul of this to each bottle) 11) Stale open bottles to air, recap, Y very light, needs more time heat to 100F for 10 days 12) Sour 10ml white wine vinegar Y Too sour, cut in half ul - micro Liter ml - milli Liter Comments: All amounts for 16oz. bottles. We used a light relatively flavorless beer that was free of original defects. We chose Carling Black Label. It was cheap, and of the 8 or so comparable cheap beers (why trash good stuff) it was the most defect free. The improtance of a fresh beer to doctor can not be stressed enough. Remeber to keep undoctored reference samples for sise-by-side comparison during the session. Substitutes : Cloves or allspice can be made into a liquid extract (don't add these spices directly to beer the will cause it to gush heavily!) and added in place of Eugenol. 2g of allspice is recommended but I have no direct experience with this (it sounds like way too much). Banana extract if you can find it will be made from food grade Amyl Acetate (just as butter extract is basically food grade diacetyl, and Almond extract is Benzaldehyde). You can add this instead. Quantity unknown though 4-5 drops is my guess. Metabisulfite tablets (Camden tablets) from a homebrew supplier can be substituted for Potassium Metabisulfite. These are used by winemakers to kill yeast. Quantity unknown. ********************************************************************** Guidelines for AHA National Conference 6/92 Reference Beer == Pabst Blue Ribbon size = 12 oz. long neck bottles Flavor/Aroma Amount Drink? Comment - ------------ ------ ------ ------- 1) Alcohol 12ml pure ethanol Y good 2) estery 90ul banana extract Y still way too low perhaps try corn spirits next time 3) nutty 60ul almond extract Y too low (was fine in Carling) 4) diacetyl 75ul butter extract Y good 5) phenol 9mg N 6) clove 2 eyedropper drops Y good clove extract 7) Stale open bottles to air, recap, Y good this time heat to 100F for 10 days 8) Skunky Previously dark strored, Y Good fresh Molson in sun 3 days 9) Sulfury 22.5 mg Potassium N only half got it Metabisulfite (K2S2O5) could be bumped up 10)Lactic 380ul 85% DSP Lactic Acid Y good (i.e. food grade!!!) 11) DMS 0.08ul (made by diluting N OK 50uL pure DMS to 50ml w/ pure ethanol, then adding 80ul of this to each bottle) ul - micro Liter ml - milli Liter Comments: George Fix suggested using Corn Spirits to replace Banana extract for the estery. He indicated that these contain 1000 times as much esters per unit volume as beer. Some scratch calculations indicate that if this is correct, to doctor a beer to raise the ester level to 2 to 3 times threshold level (as defined in George's book by the Flavor Unit terminology) one would use 1ml of Corn spirits. We have yet to try this, but plan to do so soon. Please let us know if you do try this. - ------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 95 08:25:00 -0600 From: korz at iepubj.att.com (Algis R Korzonas +1 708 979 8583) Subject: Re: Beer judging and tasting Tom writes: > could someone recommend a book, FAQ or some other >document which I could use to learn more about beer tasting? I am especially >interested in developing solutions (presumably in a base brew of some sort) >so I can experience (taste) the various flavors described for various beers. For this I would recommend "Evaluating Beer" published by Brewer's Publications. It contains a section on doctoring beers to experience flavors, just as you requested. If you can't find it at your local hb store, call the AoB at 303-447-0816. Another book that was reportedly targeted for judge preparation is The Beer Enthusiast's Guide. I'm afraid that, in my opinion, this book has too many errors and omissions to be useful. I've heard that it's author is a very dedicated and zealous beer enthusiast and a great organizer, but perhaps the book was rushed or something. I'm afraid I have to advise against it. Al. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 08:52:51 CST From: "Roger Deschner " Subject: BJCP Change: We asked for it I've been an observer of the recent heightened level of discussion over BJCP. I must say it was good to see James Spence in person at the HWBTA Nationals in Barrington last weekend; not because I necessarily agree with his position, but at least James is not ducking the issue or the inevitable criticism. He was there, facing some of the most vocal critics in person. (And HWBTA officials were conspicuous by their absence, except of course for our esteemed local sponsors - Chicago Indoor Garden Supply.) Watching the Net, the only proposal so far which has alarmed me is the one that goes something like "Let's reconstitute BJCP just like it was and then think about establishing a bureaucratic path for improving it." That would not be progress, or worth all this discussion. Do that, and AHA's proposed competing program will become reality and will prevail. If you have archives for JudgeNet, go back to Karen Barella's letter, and read backwards from there. A lot of our discussion has been about ways to CHANGE the BJCP in various ways. Let me summarize briefly: o Exams are irrelevant, are graded too slowly, cost too much, etc. o It's too easy to advance from Recognized to Certified o It should not be possible to advance from any level to the next without a certain portion of your points being from actual judging o The style description for (pick a style) is totally off the mark o Other miscellaneous "pissing and moaning" (some of it posted by Yours Truly) So what is this miraculous transformation? As of Karen's letter all these complaints are no longer applicable? I do not know whether AHA is on target or has misfired in this - time will tell. Even if they have misfired and shot themselves in the foot, the complaints we have registered about BJCP still apply. Folks, change is occuring. In part because we asked for it. It's not always going to be pretty. But remember - WE ASKED FOR CHANGE. That's what this is all about. And I hope that somewhat befuddled newcomer Tom Puskar's post is a reality check: "Hope this political thing clears up soon so you can all dedicate yourselves to the really important things like helping us nanobrewers make better beer." =============== "Civilization was CAUSED by beer." ===================== Roger Deschner University of Illinois at Chicago rogerd at uic.edu Aliases: u52983 at uicvm.uic.edu U52983 at UICVM.BITNET R.Deschner at uic.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 11:25:54 -0500 (EST) From: "Kieran O'Connor" Subject: Changeover it seems to me that the easiest and most efficient way to changeover is to do changeover with the current policies on points, certification, sanctioning and everything else in place. We can deal with the issues we want to change later. We need to establish a mailbox somewhere so that we can communicate with the non-wired judges: a majority of judges I'm sure. That way we have a place where people can communicate, ask for sanctioning for upcoming events (the AHA departure date is soon!) and deal with the BJCP. More importantly we need to ask them if they are willing to go along with the new BJCP. As others are mentioned, this involves getting the database and doing a mailing--which of course involves funds. I think we need a bit of help on these mechanical issues from those in chage now. BTW--I would be willing to help in any way--licking stamps, database, whatever. Kieran O'Connor E-Mail Address: koconnor at mailbox.syr.edu Syracuse, N.Y. USA In vino veritas; in cervesio felicitas. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 20:23:59 -0500 (EST) From: Fred Hardy Subject: Cut the Shuck & Jive and Let's Go After reading large quantities of hog wash, it was refreshing to read Scott's and Rick's comments. Wake up folks, there is no free lunch. If we care about the BJCP we should be prepared to dip into our pockets to make it go. I propose an annual membership fee ($20-$30), and $5.00 for each submittal after a competition as a recording fee (the organizer gives the judge/steward a certification form, the judge/steward forwards it for recordation along with the recording fee. Why record and track 100's of off-the-street judge novices who could care less? Here in the DC area where Rick Garvin and muself are located there are lots of judges who really care about the program having a life. It is not a bad spot to center revival of the program. Will we get points for the 1st round national AHA? I have judged there for the last 2 years, but if there are no points, I will neither judge nor enter (8 entries last year). I'm waiting for James Spence to put out the word, but I do not really expect to hear anything. As for the AHA starting their own program, I say, "to Hell with the AHA." I also think it highly unlikely that Pat Baker is independent of any organizations (ever hear of the HWBTA?). As far as I can tell, he has served the BJCP well, and I would welcome the continued involvement of the HWBTA and Pat. As for capturing a data base, that is the easiest part. Find an administrator, and beg a few Thousand $s to buy a PC and printer, and build the data base by having interested judges send their BJCP point verifications from the old program, along with their annual dues, and you have the input data for the new base. As far as sanctioning, the only requirement was to have $40 and file an organizer's report. This ain't rocket science, folks. The major expense of an ongoing program will be postage, and even that can be minimized with bulk mailing. I would like to participate in formulation of a BJCP which represents the interests of homebrewers, judges and sponsors, and which promotes quality judging and administration (yes, quality administration is possible!). I hasten to point out that the JudgeNet can play a roll, but it does not reach the majority of folks who care. For that, I propose using the Summer 1994 zymurgy listing of clubs to send out information mailings which will reach most judges. Great if we could get James' data base. It is mostly correct, sort of, and would be a neat starting point. The club listing is a fall back if the AHA digs in its heels (heel?). Pat, since no one seems to be in charge, I nominate you. Give us more than history and current status, and let's get on with it. Cheers, Fred ============================================================================== We must invent the future, else it will | happen to us and we will not like it. | [Stafford Beer, "Platform for Change"] | email: fcmbh at access.digex.net ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************