To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #966 (Feb 11, 1995) JudgeNet Digest #966 Sat 11 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: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 07:52:46 CST From: "Roger Deschner " Subject: Capping for that blind brewer I'd suggest using the swing-cap "Glolsch-type" bottles. The bottles are permanently attached to the caps. Many homebrewers use them because of their convenience. Recycled Grolsch bottles work OK, and the price is right, although they are green and therefore allow light damage. I would suggest buying them full of beer and drinking the beer, because then you can wash them out immediately, and know that your bottles are really clean without any need for visual inspection. (It's OK beer, too.) Brown bottles of the same type are a common item at many homebrew shops. Replacement rubber washers are readily available. But this is a Beer Judging forum, and that is the only problem. Grolsch type bottles are usually not allowed in competitons. For the few bottles you plan to enter in a contest, you could haul out your capper and put up with its difficulties, having used the easier swing-top bottles for most of your batch. Many homebrewers do exactly that. =============== "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: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 11:03:56 -0800 (PST) From: Jim Cave Subject: WORT U BREWIN' 95 The Royal Canadian Malted Patrol will be hosting its 5th annual "WORT U BREWIN'" competition on Saturday March 18th 1995. Naturally, we will be looking for qualified beer judges to sample and rate what we hope will be a quality showing of beers! Last year we had 110 entries and this year we hope for 125-150. Your judging talents are internationally renowned and I would like to take this opportunity to invite all of you to judge with us this year. Please RSVP if you can attend. Ideally we would like 25-30 qualified judges to attend. During the evening of March 18, we will have a Banquet, which the judges are most welcome to attend. Again, please RSVP. Judging will be at 09:00 a.m. Saturday March 18 at Vancouver Community College, King Edward Campus 1155 E. Broadway, Vancouver B.C. We will have 9 categories for judging: 1) Pale lagers 2) German Lagers (including bocks, octoberfests etc) 3) British Pale ales and Bitters, 4) American Pale ales, 5) Milds, Browns and porters, 6) Stouts (& Porters) and 3 specialty categories for everything else, one of which will include wheat beers. If you would like to enter beers, the closing for entries is March 12th. Cost is $6 CDN ($5 U.S.) and 3 bottles of beer! Entries can be delivered to Spagnols (Annacis Island, New Westminster) and at other selected locations. Please call Peter MacLaughlin for details (604-943-1080) about entries or Peter, or myself Jim Cave, (604-987-8262; cave at psc.org) for judging arrangements. In addition, there will be a BJCP exam, to be held in Vancouver the next day, Sunday March 19, 1995. For details, contact Betty Ann Sather, (74443.3040 at compuserve.com). Thank you, Jim Cave ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 14:14:21 -0700 (MST) From: Jim Liddil Subject: Forwarded Message from John Dale I am forwarding this for John Dale. I am only the messenger. He is working on subscribing to the judgnet once he gets up to speed. John is a member of the BJCC. Again I am only acting as a go between :-) Jim Liddil ******************************************* John Dale Email: MDHB07E at prodigy.com February 10, 1995 Communism looks like a fair and wonderful plan for everyone. Power to the people. Everybody is taken care of. The reality is, as history has shown, that the system doesn't work in the long run. As I read through the many judgenet opinions, I see you feeding off of each others opinions, or maybe the editor makes it look that way. It's easy to bash but much more difficult to come up with a workable solution. REALITY CHECK! In my year as BJCC committee chairman, I worked to resolve issues that had recurred at each BJCC meeting for (some of them) seven years. Since we meet only once a year, most of the work must be done via mail. Even with only 4 voting members, getting any answer from the members was very difficult. I resorted to making ballots that the members only had to check a few boxes and send them back. Even then, it took phone calls to get the ballots returned. And now Russ has to call me to get a response. OK, I have a few human failings. Most of you are in homebrew clubs and I assume, due to your activity on Judgenet, are pretty active. You already know that just a few members do the majority of the work for the club. Getting a commitment from most of the members is a real hassle. This is a reality in most volunteer organizations. Everybody wants simple, clean solutions. If you think a truly democratic organization is going to really work, look at your own experiences with reality. If all of the judges were on judgenet, it would have a better chance. The facts are that many are not. I have only had my computer connected for a few weeks. I still do not know how to get on Judgenet so will send this via Email to somebody who does. So do you exclude those who are not as high tech as you from the decision making process? From Jim Liddil's message, I gather that less than 10% of the judges are on the net. That's not very representative. As long as I have been involved in the program, Pat Baker has worked, in my opinion, to make the BJCP into the Baker Judge Certification Program. Pat has a very strong personality and, if you do not fully agree with him, will try to bully you over to his position. If that is not successful, he will start with the personal attacks like you are obviously not smart enough to understand or you just don't have the business experience so do it my way. When we as a committee directed the co-directors to do anonymous grading, Pat candidly said he would not comply. He felt it necessary that certain people (especially repeat testers) receive the score they expected. The point is Pat will do whatever he wants regardless of anybody else's instructions. Pat is fully retired and, to my knowledge, has no major interests outside of beer. He has the time and money to lobby/bully many brewers to his point of view. If Pat is running the show, be assured that it will be the Baker Judge Certification Program. If you plan to have a successful program of the scale of the current BJCP, approximately 1200 judges, you'll need an almost full time person to keep things together. I'm sure Pat will gladly fill that position but be prepared to do it his way. In the copies of Judgenet that I saw, nobody mentioned the abrupt summary execution (OK, firing) of the two HWBTA members to the BJCC, namely Eric McClary and Dave Norton. Were any of the HWBTA members consulted? How about judges? I know Eric did not even get the courtesy of a phone call and maybe some explanation. Being familiar with the personalities involved, I would speculate that Pat Baker bullied Desmond Lundy to fire them because they were not playing the Baker game. Pat must have felt he could control the new members better than Eric or Dave. Another major concern of mine is that it appears, from both reading Judgenet and phone conversations with other individuals, that Chuck Cox, the Judgenet editor, is a Baker puppet. Chuck has a lot of influence on what you read and which opinions get on the net (I think, since I do not really understand how the net works yet.) If my unedited letter does not appear on the net, I'll use the address list and Email it to you directly. The AHA is not a utopian organization. They try to keep most of the people happy most of the time. When I asked for more high tech brewing articles, they explained that a large portion of their readership were relatively new brewers and needed the flow of basic articles. I am reminded of a discussion with a brewpub manager in Boston about their beer being to cold. He said that as it was, many customers complained that it was to warm. He said "Yes, it tastes better a little warmer, but I can't go bankrupt trying to educate the public. I give them what they want." The AHA works, in my opinion, to generate revenue through subscriptions, books, shirts, conferences, etc., to support not only their paid staff but programs like the BJCP. No, the program was never fully financially self supporting even though you thought the exam fees were much to high. This is a full time job for the staff and their livelihood. They are not just good samaritans working for the good of the brewing community. Like most of you, they do care about what they do and are trying, to the best of their ability, to supply the brewers with a quality product, and again, keep most of the people happy most of the time. It's just good business and helps insure job security. Having a full time staff allows you, the judge, to actually call and talk to someone and get a timely response. Try to call an organization like the BJCP (no office of their own) or the HWBTA. I have recommended to Karen that they set up a judge board of advisors, similar to the AHA board of advisors, elected it the details can be worked out. That will allow them to be much more responsive to your needs while still having input from the trenches. If you tie yourself to getting a consensus for every decision from a group of volunteers or a democratic vote, you'll run into the same bureaucratic gridlock that the BJCC did. Something, even if you don't fully agree with it, will get done. It's easier to work with an action and try to influence it, than no action at all. The idea of elected representatives has come up on the Judgenet and previously at BJCC meetings. The committee agreed in concept to the idea but there are some major logistics obstacles to overcome. How would candidates be nominated? How would they campaign? Balloting? Just the postage for one mailing to 1200 judges costs $384.00. Could/should we afford it? Should we exclude Recognized Judges to cut expenses? The BJCC had not come up with a solution that was even marginally satisfactory, in my opinion. So again, it comes done to the reality of making it all work, within budgetary constraints, and keeping most of the people happy most of the time. Not an easy task. The AHA judging program, whatever it may be called, will go through some growing pains as they try new ideas and the members beat them about the head and shoulders for the heresy of CHANGE. Such is life. They will, at least I hope, be much more responsive to the judges than the BJCC has been. Thanks to Jim Liddil for routing my letter onto the Judgenet. Sincerely, John Dale, Member BJCC ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Feb 95 16:07:17 -0600 From: gjfix at utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix) Subject: Dr. Beer I must confess that it was I who suggested the use of moonshine to simulate undesirable esters in beer (cf. Frank Dobner's post in #965). After trying this Frank reported back to me (as he did in #965) that the experiment was a failure. I was initially disappointed, but upon checking found that the commercial moonshines available in stores are in some sense frauds. They use the same grain bill as traditional "shine", but are fermented with commercial yeast using commercial equipment. They are essentially dilute versions of Everclear. I have never had the courage to taste "real moonshine", but I have smelled a few samples. Invariably the first sensation is a general fruitiness followed by a belt of nail polish. Then comes other fruity tones, each with their own special raunchy character. How anyone could drink this crap is beyond me, but what one has with it (albeit in concentrated and magnified form) is all of the bad esters that can arise in a natural fermentation. My problem with the simulation of fermentation products with artificial additives is that the effect is nothing like the real thing. My fear is that doctored beers done this way may confuse more than educate. This is particularly the case with esters. All beers known to me have selected esters at or above threshold, even bland ones like Coors. (Indeed, once one concentrates and works beyond the wateriness, the citric/pineapple tones are clearly detectable). The hard part is not detecting them, nor correctly ascertaining their intensity, but rather picking out the good ones from the bad ones when they are blended in with other flavor tones. In fact, on those few rare occasions when I have seen a bad evaluation by BJCP judges, invariably esters have been involved. Moreover, it has gone both ways in the sense there have been cases where a beer has been overrated due to a failure to identify flaws, and conversely underrated due to the detection of a desirable tone that was misunderstood. I now feel the only way to properly doctor beer is through test brews where the effect is deliberately achieved (e.g., fermenting the brew at high temperatures with lager yeast to get some of the bad esters). I realize this is a pain and as waste of brewing materials, but at least the defects more closely resemble the real ones that judges might see in selected competition entries. George Fix ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Feb 95 16:53:10 EST From: Brew Free Or Die 08-Feb-1995 1650 Subject: Call for judges! There's lots of activity here following the AHA's announcement that they are ending sponsorship of the BJCP, and that's great (the activity, not the announcement. Well, actually, it probably will turn out great...). While this group will probably never reach quorum status, it's good to have active, timely discussions in an almost realtime format. To that end, I encourage every subscriber of this list to seek out BJCP judges whom they know to not be subscribers and encourage them to subscribe. This flow of information is vital now more than ever. Active involvement here from those who really make the BJCP what it is, i.e. its judges, can only benefit the program overall. There are currently less than 10% of active BJCP judges subscribed here - let's all try to do what we can to increase participation. It's possible that the BJCP will be able to save postage costs if on-line members agree to receive information in that format. I encourage homebrew club newsletters to publish the subscription information for this list, mentioning not just the immediate need for active participation, but also the merits of continued participation. I've seen lots of great discussions take place here, and positive changes as a result of those discussions. Your club newsletter can get the word out that JudgeNet is a forum where intelligent, reasonable discussions of issues concerning the beer judging community take place. Please encourage your editor(s) to publish JudgeNet subscription information. Subscription information is included below. Tell prospective subscribers that they need only send their subscription request to the administrative requests address, in the format shown. Ensure that apprentice judges (both those that have judged and those that would eventually like to) know that they are as welcome here as BJCP-ranked judges. I'm told that AOL users are often given the wrong subscription address. The only correct address is judge-request at synchro.com. Subscription administration is now handled automatically. If you send a blank or improperly formatted message to judge-request, you will receive a reply with the following instructions: TO SUBSCRIBE: Send a message to judge-request at synchro.com containing the following line: subscribe address first_name last_name rank address: your Internet address first_name: your first name last_name: your last name rank: your judging rank ranks: apprentice: any unranked or inexperienced judge recognized: BJCP Recognized Beer Judge certified: BJCP Certified Beer Judge national: BJCP National Beer Judge master: BJCP Master Beer Judge misc: BJCP officers, non-BJCP judges (send details to chuck at synchro.com) For example: subscribe chuck at synchro.com Chuck Cox master You must provide all requested information. For multi-word names, use underscores (_) or dashes (-) to connect the words (i.e. Edward_James Forsythe-Smythe). Chuck recently posted the Who's Who for this list. If anyone needs a copy to see who is and isn't subscribed here, I'd be happy to send it. I'm looking forward to a better BJCP and JudgeNet when all the dust has settled. -Dan - -- Dan Hall Digital Equipment Corporation MKO1-1/A10 Merrimack, NH 03054 hall at buffa.enet.dec.com (603) 884-5879 "Adhere to Schweinheitsgebot Don't put anything in your beer that a pig wouldn't eat" --David Geary ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 21:06:03 -0600 (CST) From: Christopher Nemeth Subject: Re: JudgeNet Digest #965 (Feb 10, 1995) Fred Chambers-- At a minimum, you deserve a bench-style capper, so that it is much easier to: * place your beer bottle squarely in the target area on the base * place a cap up into the magnetic holder * know that when you press the lever down, it will be correctly aimed at the cap/bottle along its centerline. If you agree and would like one, let me know by return email and include your U.S. postal address. - --Christopher Nemeth, BJCP Certified Judge, Chicago Beer Society ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Feb 95 18:13:02 PST From: GSMITHBEER at eworld.com Subject: Re: #2(3) JudgeNet Digest #963 (Feb 08, 1995) Thought I'd send in a reply regarding comments by Mr. Al Korzanas on my first beer book "The Beer Enthusiast's Guide". Mr. Korzanas suggested the book would be inappropriate for people studying for the BJCP examination. Although the book was not written expressly for BJCP study it was used as the only text material for three classes I taught for examination preparation. The results were 43 out of 44 taking the exam passed with an average score of approximately 75, and 7 examinees scored over 80. I used the material myself to prepare for the examination and I'm a National judge. As the old saw goes - the proof is in the pudding. To the claim there were omissions - yes for example, somehow corriander was left out of the style profile for Wit. This will be corrected in the next (third) printing. Gregg Smith ------------------------------