From synchro!judge-owner at uu6.psi.com Tue Mar 28 03:36:53 1995 Status: O X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil t nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["18151" "" "28" "March" "1995" "02:18:19" "EST" "JudgeNet Administrator" "judge-owner at synchro.com" nil "431" "JudgeNet Digest #1008 (Mar 28, 1995)" "^From:" nil nil "3" nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: by truelies.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.6.9/2.2) with X.500 id DAA21951; Tue, 28 Mar 1995 03:36:51 -0500 Received: from goodman.itn.med.umich.edu by truelies.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.6.9/2.2) with SMTP id DAA21946; Tue, 28 Mar 1995 03:36:49 -0500 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA02547 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at umich.edu); Tue, 28 Mar 95 03:36:47 -0500 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA28786 for ; Tue, 28 Mar 95 03:34:33 -0500 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA27572; 28 Mar 95 02:18:19 EST (Tue) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9503280218.AA27572 at synchro.com> From: judge-owner at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #1008 (Mar 28, 1995) Date: 28 Mar 95 02:18:19 EST (Tue) JudgeNet Digest #1008 Tue 28 Mar 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: The Guild's Medieval Character (BrewsMead) Competition Results (S.P.S. Beer Stuff) Reply to Scott Birdwell ("Lee C. Bussy") Up all night beer ("Lee C. Bussy") Re: JudgeNet Digest #1007 (Mar 27, 1995) (GSMITHBEER) Regional vs. National (Robert L. Lamothe) When to pull the plug? (Chuck Cox) Withholding ribbons to inferior entries... (Andrew Patrick) TRASH V COMPETITION (WALZENBREW) re: additives in beer (Rich Lenihan) Award all the prizes (mike.keller) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 03:33:44 PST From: BrewsMead at eworld.com Subject: The Guild's Medieval Character Sometimes I laugh out loud after I write some of the stuff for this forum and reread it. Tracy and Bob have caught me and I must agree that it was the quote of the day. I giggled wildly after reading Tracy's post. I must thank you all for the attention and I look forward to keeping you amused with some interesting anecdotes over the near term. Elections are imminint and we should get serious about our democratic duties. Since Greg's post about regions is not necessarily the best subdivision I'd like to suggest that we reasonably divide the US and Canada into the areas I suggested before for the Guild. "We would like to take the best suggestions of many judges and brewers interested in the hobby forward in this venture. In that vein we will democratically elect a Guiding Council of Regional Representatives from 9 regions around the country and Canada. Northeast US Mid Atlantic Deep South Central States Plains Region Rocky Mountain Pacific Northwest Cal-Nev-Desert Canada These are arbitrary at present and need to be refined. The judges in each region will pick their own rep from their peers for handling the Guilds' affairs. As is customary in a deliberative society , Robert's Rules of Order will guide the discussions of this association. Any member may petition the council for change and their demands will be heard.The reps will deliberate and solve all issues before the Guild during their 1 year stint on the Council. Only the Vice-Chairman will stay on the board for 2 years to become Chair after one and lend continuity to the governance of the society. " Let's move toward that concept and utilize the basic democratic process to better the system. Another area for discussion is the Administrators positions that exist in the program at present. The tests and the rulings on points etc will need to be made by some group of people . I suggest that the existing group of Co Adnins and asst's resign and get replaced with new faces to continue the openning up of the system . The BJCC can handle this duty also in lieu of hasving appointees do it. That will eliminate appointees. Keep going forward, Bruce Ste vens ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 07:48:51 -0500 From: SPSBEER at netins.net (S.P.S. Beer Stuff) Subject: Competition Results The CRAZY Homebrewers (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) Hop Into Spring competition results are in. You can find them at Thanks to all who judged, stewarded, and entered. << Mike Snyder spsbeer at netins.net >> << S.P.S. Beer Stuff, Homebrew Supplies by Mail (319)393-1219 >> << on-line catalog--> http://www.netins.net/showcase/spsbeer/ >> ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 06:44:39 +0000 From: "Lee C. Bussy" Subject: Reply to Scott Birdwell Scott Birdwell asks what he should talk about down at the Blue Bonnet: Scott, in my conversations with the net-challenged judges out there, one thing seem to come up over and over again: "I thought the BJCP was over since they pulled out". Let them know that no way no how and they still belong to the best Judging Program ever instituted in the free world and there is no reason to worry about where their points go and such trash. This brings me to a related point: People, we need to do this now. Send out a mailing now. I mean R I G H T now. We do not have another second to loose. There are bunches of judges out ther with no clue as to what is happening except for the information in the AHA mailing. If we don't do it RIGHT NOW we will lose this. I don't know how much more firmly I can say it. - -- -Lee Bussy | The 4 Basic Foodgroups.... | leeb at southwind.net | Salt, Fat, Beer & Women! | Wichita, Kansas | http://www.southwind.net/~leeb | ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 06:51:01 +0000 From: "Lee C. Bussy" Subject: Up all night beer Peter M. Garofalo writes: >As a member of the pharmaceutical industry, I am especially wary of such >additives being wantonly added to beer. I don't intend to make a mountain of >a molehill, but I believe this is a potentially harmful situation, for >brewers, competition organizers, and judges. Any thoughts on regulating >additives? This is a valid point but I think that this is all common sense and anyone who would add such substances to a beer is of the same character as the people who put cyanide in the Tylenol. I have judged "Up all night Pale Ale" before and I knew it going into the round. To do such a thing without identifying it as such is very dangerous and well downright stupid. This falls into the same category as the "Alternatively Hopped" beers that get talked about on rec.beer or whatever it is. - -- -Lee Bussy | The 4 Basic Foodgroups.... | leeb at southwind.net | Salt, Fat, Beer & Women! | Wichita, Kansas | http://www.southwind.net/~leeb | ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 06:38:03 PST From: GSMITHBEER at eworld.com Subject: Re: JudgeNet Digest #1007 (Mar 27, 1995) Yes Scott you should talk at the bluebonnet. I'm also with you on the $5. Count both myself and my wife Carrie (one of our newest national judges) to each shell out the $5. As far as regions which may languis I think that's the job of the committee.....that is to oversee operations in the broad sense, appoint working groups to deal with problems and to set goals and philosophy. That's enough to keep any volunteer organization busy, the work-a-day tasks need to be delegated to folks we (they, the new BJCP Board) can count on. One other issue.....did we have a motion on the by-laws? I agree with Russ' version if we include reference to regions. Gregg Smith ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 9:11:34 EST From: rll at sun_cmc.iol.unh.edu (Robert L. Lamothe) Subject: Regional vs. National Greetings, I've seen alot of discussion about "Regional vs National" in the makeup of the new BJCP. What I wonder is do they have to be exclusive? It would seem to me that the organization would have to function at least to some extent on a National level. An overseeing body that makes certain uniformity exists throughout the country. For the sake of efficiency I believe that the program must be run regionally, all judges will report and be connected with thier regional representatives. By breaking regions into workable sizes, information, test scores and competition results will be logged and reported quickly. Each month the regional groups could send their reports to the National organization. Analogous to this is to look at the US in comparision to say the USSR. Here we have State and Socal government that reports to the Federal government. In the USSR everything was done at a National level. The USSR collapsed. While we have our share of problems, at least some of them can be solved on a local level. I think for the sake of the future we also examine the possibility of working on a local level. While it might not be feasable to implement now, there may come a time when it will be a necessity. Again I still see a problem with all the discussion going on. From where I sit, the problems are still not well defined. The new goals and objectives of the BJCP are not well defined. Rather than identify the problems and work a solution that way, everyone is offering solutions and hoping that it will solve the problems. It's kind of a scatter gun approach. I ask again, lets define the problems, and saying "lets make it democratic" isn't enough, people have gripes, there are reasons for those gripes, there are solutions to these problems if we keep the horse where it belongs. There exists and interim BJCC, let them be more than a figurehead. As one judgenet poster pointed out, the BJCP has a good rep, but could lose it quickly if solutions aren't found. Solutions can't be found if problems aren't defined. -Bob - -- * Robert L. Lamothe University of New Hampshire * * rll at unh.edu Interoperablity lab room 337 * * (603)862-4349 Morse Hall * * * * "All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own * * importance." * ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 10:48:24 EST From: chuck at synchro.com (Chuck Cox) Subject: When to pull the plug? Let me begin by saying that I think the BJCP is still alive and can still be resuscitated. However, it is also my opinion that the BJCP is dying. While I haven't given up yet, I think it is time to discuss when it would be reasonable to pull the plug. It is my assumption that there is a demand for a truly representational judge's organization. If we wait until the BJCP is clearly dead before we start creating such an organization then the task will be very difficult. In order to get a running start in the event that the BJCP fails, I think that we need to establish criteria to define when to give up on the BJCP, and begin preparations to replace the BJCP. The harsh reality is that we are now in competition with the AHA and they have taken the initiative. As far as the vast majority of the membership is concerned, the BJCP is already dead. The sooner we contact the judges and offer them an alternative to the AHA program, the more likely we are to succeed. In order to become a representative, viable & independent organization, I think the BJCP must: 1) have control of its assets. 2) have control of its database. 3) have an election process in place. 4) explain the situation to the membership. 4) have an administrator. It is my opinion that if the above criteria are not met soon, then the BJCP will fail or at least will be irrelevant. At this time only item #2 has been (partially) addressed. The next question is when to give up. My feeling is that if the above are not completed by the end of March that we should start forming a new organization, and that if the BJCP has not met the criteria by mid-April then the new organization should become active. I think we could put together a quick email nomination & election process and create a core organizing committee in a week, and they could have basic bylaws in place within another week, followed by a mailing. What do you think? - -- Chuck Cox SynchroSystems / Riverside Garage & Brewery - Cambridge, Mass. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 10:20:56 -0600 (CST) From: Andrew Patrick Subject: Withholding ribbons to inferior entries... I have to take issue with Cam Ireland on this point. I have judged some flights where every entry out of 10 or 12 had very serious flaws. I dont think that seriously flawed beers should be awarded ribbons. Yes, I know it is a great American tradition to celebrate mediocrity, but these beers did not even deserve to be called "mediocre". I'm sure that you would agree that the Olympic swimmer in your analogy put forth at least a mediocre level of performance. A lot of competitions follow a guideline stating that beers with an assigned score under 25 should not be eligible for ribbons. I agree with this guideline. 25 is a _very_ low score, and if the beer in question cannot achieve a 25 or better, it is seriously flawed, way off style, or probably even both. In any case, it does not seem right to award ribbons to such a beer. If we reward people for making inferior beer, we are giving people incentive to make more inferior beer. Andrew Patrick (andnator at mcs.com), http://www.mcs.com/~andnator/index.html Brewmaster, Harlem Brewing Co, Inc; Certified Beer Judge Founder, HomeBrew U BBS Network (Chicago/Milwaukee/Houston) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 17:49:26 -0500 From: WALZENBREW at aol.com Subject: TRASH V COMPETITION The Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers is proud to announce our Fifth Annual All-Category Homebrew Competition, to be held in Pittsburgh, PA on May 20, 1995. This competition is sanctioned by both HWBTA and AHA and is open to all beer, mead and cider categories as listed in the 1995 AHA National Competition category descriptions. Please note that Sake entries will not be accepted. If you are interested in an entry package, please call or e-mail me with your postal address and we will send it out by US mail. Last year's winners received 50 lb sacks of malt, 10 pound bags of hops, and cases of canned malt extract, all donated by Pennsylvania extract manufacturers and breweries. Best of Show also won a Samuel Adams neon sign, generously donated by the Boston Beer Company. While we can't guarantee the same prizes this year, they will be similar. All winners will also receive ribbons. You can enter using standard sanctioned competition recipe and bottle forms, and the AHA 1995 National Competition category list (note - AHA list was revised in 1995). Entries are $5.00 each - make checks payable to Mark Benson, Registrar. The entry deadline is May 6, 1995. Note that you can enter as many times as you wish in any category or subcategory. UPS entries to: TRASH V c/o Country Wines 3333 Babcock Boulevard Pittsburgh PA 15237 If you're a judge we need your help! Pittsburgh is centrally located, only a few driving hours from Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryl and, most of New York, New Jersey and Ontario. Beds for judges, and rides to/from the airport will be available. Judges may also pre-register entries if they wish to bring their beers with them. We plan to have a banquet (free to judges and stewards and their spouses) after the competition. And as we are sanctioned both with AHA and HWBTA, your points can be recorded in the program of your choice (or both). Last year we had 172 entries, and we expect over 200 this year. Please e-mail or call me for more information. Cheers, Greg Walz, Organizer (412) 331-5645 voice; (412) 331-5364 fax WALZENBREW at aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 21:12:18 -0500 From: rich at lenihan.iii.net (Rich Lenihan) Subject: re: additives in beer I'm not particularly enamored of Rheinheitsgebot in my own brewery but I feel that any contest entry that doesn't comply with this "law" should bear a label stating what "special" ingredients it contains. As judges, we should expect beers to contain water, malt, hops and yeast but who knows what else could be added? I'd be willing to stretch my rule to include unmalted barley and wheat and maybe some sugars but where do you draw the line? The list of things that creative homebrewers can think to add to their beers is endless: honey, chocolate, spices, preservatives, clarifiers, fruits, vegetables and even cannibis (although I myself would not waste my "special hops" on beer judges). Even seemingly benign ingredients (such as chocolate) can cause severe reactions in people with allergies. I'm not against creativity; I just think there should be truth in packaging. -Rich ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 95 03:01:00 UTC From: mike.keller at genie.geis.com Subject: Award all the prizes I have to agree with Cam Ireland in JND 1007. A competition is an event that takes place at a certain time, with only _these_ participants (the ones who saw fit to enter), and that's how the awarding of places should be handled. The prizes are named first, second, third, best of show, etc, not "a Top Rank Pale Ale," "a Second Rank Bock," etc. The entries are competing against each other, not against the "standard," although mentally each entrant is always thinking about how they measure up. Now, if the events are sanctioned and winning a sanctioned event gave the entrant some points toward some year end prize (like winning the Winston Cup or something), THEN there's a case to be made for withholding prizes, since someone could enter only small events and possibly build up a bunch of points against weak competition. But until brewing is judged in as clearcut a fashion as racing (yeah, there are some beers I'd like an instant replay of!), this seems unreasonable. Mike Keller Managing Sysop, Zymurgy RoundTable, GEnie ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************