Return-Path: listadm at synchro.com Received: from srvr8.engin.umich.edu (root at srvr8.engin.umich.edu [141.212.2.81]) by srvr5.engin.umich.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA27185 for ; Fri, 23 Feb 1996 02:01:33 -0500 (EST) Received: from totalrecall.rs.itd.umich.edu (totalrecall.rs.itd.umich.edu [141.211.144.16]) by srvr8.engin.umich.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id BAA07760 for ; Fri, 23 Feb 1996 01:58:50 -0500 (EST) Received: by totalrecall.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.6.12/2.3) with X.500 id BAA03099; Fri, 23 Feb 1996 01:58:50 -0500 Received: from uu6.psi.com by totalrecall.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.6.12/2.3) with SMTP id BAA03080; Fri, 23 Feb 1996 01:58:45 -0500 Received: by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA10155 for ; Fri, 23 Feb 96 01:45:15 -0500 Received: (from listadm at localhost) by synchro.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA02768 for judge-recipients at synchro.com; Fri, 23 Feb 1996 01:10:00 -0500 Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 01:10:00 -0500 Message-Id: <199602230610.BAA02768 at synchro.com> To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) From: judge-owner at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Subject: JudgeNet Digest #1219 (Feb 22, 1996) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JudgeNet Digest #1219 Thu 22 Feb 1996 JudgeNet 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 WWW Archives: http://www.umich.edu/~spencer/beer/judge Editor: Chuck Cox Archivist: Spencer Thomas Publishers: SynchroSystems and the Riverside Garage & Brewery Anti-Prohibitionists may also be interested in LiBeerty: The Libertarian Beer Digest Subscription info: libeerty-request at synchro.com For BJCP General Information contact: geninfo at bjcp.synchro.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents: AFC Contest (whbob) Judging Point Awards ("Manning Martin MP") Your help. Beer Consumer Report. (WolfeTap) Re: Difficulty of Brewing (Steve Casselman) Re: Judge Education/Feedback ("Lee C. Bussy") Re: Difficulty of Brewing (Fred Hardy) More on Point Awards ("Manning Martin MP") BoS judging/"difficult to brew right" ("Thomas W. Ausfeld") Hail to Ale? / difficult to brew (get right)? (Robert Paolino) Judge education/quality (Btalk) BoS "Dead Heat" (PGarofal) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 14:19:21 -0800 From: whbob at arcane.UCSD.EDU Subject: AFC Contest HELP..WE NEED JUDGES FOR THE AMERICA FINEST CITY This is the third annual America's Finest City Home Brew Competition and as in the past we have found it has been slow at getting enough qualified judges. We do expect between 300-400 entries and hope to have 35-45 judges for this year. This competition is fully sanctioned. Date: SATURDAY MARCH 2nd, 1996 Place: AleSmith Brewing Co. 9368 Cabot Dr. (Miramar area off Miramar road) San Diego CA 92126 Phone 619 549-9888 Time: 09:30AM Please call me at home in the eveings at 619 458-9840 or call Dion Hollenbeck in the evening at 619 459-8724. Come and join us..AleSmith will serve there ESB and lunch will be served, as well as soft drinks and water. Hope some of you can make it. Ciao, Bob Whritner Judge Coordinator ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 1996 18:11:04 U From: "Manning Martin MP" Subject: Judging Point Awards After fermenting this idea for a while, and bouncing it off of several people at the recent Spirit of Belgium, I've decided to rack it into this forum. Here's my put: Fundamentally, the experience that a judge gains is directly proportional to the number of beers (s)he judges in a competition setting. So, I propose that the BJCP simply award one point for each completed score sheet. The current system has points awarded on a per competition basis, with extra points given for number of entries, or "regional" or "national" status of the competition. These provisions are, I believe, based on the assumption that increased point awards are necessary to attract a sufficient quantity of judges to the larger competitions. This in effect allows judges to "buy" points by spending the money to travel to and attend large competitions. Conversely, it can also happen that if a judge lives in an area where large competitions are frequent, a high rank can be attained with relatively little real experience. (Organizer points are another matter, and clearly there should be larger awards for larger competitions, as the workload is proportionally higher.) Considering this, one shouldn't wonder how it can be that, in the current system, one can find a highly ranked judge who really isn't all that good at judging. A points-per-beer-judged system would also encourage organizers to even out the judging load, so that all judges receive approximately equal opportunity at a given competition, and it would give fair compensation to judges who, for whatever reason, had to judge a large number of beers at any one competition. I think it does still make sense to impose a limit on the number of points awarded for any one day's effort, simply due to limits on the amount of alcohol one's body can process. I would also question the point awards for best-of-show judging, which should be no greater than for judging an equal number of beers in categories. This seems to be a case of the rich getting richer, as BOS judges are generally well along in the program, otherwise they wouldn't be selected to serve on the panel. Really, I think the honor of being selected should be compensation enough, and as often as not, at least some of those on the BOS panel are not in the BJCP anyway. Just trying to start some interesting dialog, Martin Manning ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 18:34:05 -0500 From: WolfeTap at aol.com Subject: Your help. Beer Consumer Report. We have a very unique web site that we would love your participation and input on. Our company is Malt of the Earth. We have put together a web site that is currently focused on rating all beers produced in the United States and brewpub restaurants as well. It is called the Brew Harvest Consumer Report. It gives you the ability to rate beers and brewpubs interactively. Your vote then is compiled with all other votes for that particular beer or brewpub restaurant to form a consumer rating. For a particular beer you can compare its rating against the average for the beer style category thus letting you know how it compares against other beers in its beer style. We have included most of the beers produced in the United States available for evaluation or to look up. The beers are listed by brewery and beer style. Consumers can look the brewery up by name, zip code, area code, city and state. Its a great way to check out microbrews before actually buying them at the liquor store or to plan a brewpub road trip! We have just gone live and have not made it widely known as of yet. We wanted to invite you to have access to it first so as to load it with professionally evaluated data before we make it available to the masses. Our hope is that the geographic distribution and size of your forum will lead to knowledgeable input for most of the beers and brewpubs in our database. We also seek your opinion about the site and how it can be improved. Our Internet Web Site is http://www.maltbev.com. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 96 0:39:51 PST From: sc at vcc.com (Steve Casselman) Subject: Re: Difficulty of Brewing > and will not need someone else's opinion of which beer is more "difficult > to get right." I don't buy into the "more difficult to brew" tie breaker argument because beer is art. It is like saying "painting #1 wins because it has more colors" Flip the coin does not really turn me on either. I think a judge must bite the bullet and find a difference. if the score is 48 to 48 then go to the next level 48.6 to 48.6? Try harder, there is always *something*. In a BOS you have other judges to talk to (although some just talk at:) Unlike other rounds of judging is a cooperative event. You should make it work with as little randomness a possible. Steve Cassselman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 07:08:50 +0000 From: "Lee C. Bussy" Subject: Re: Judge Education/Feedback On 22 Feb 96 at 1:10, "Manning Martin MP" wrote: > How about attacking this in a proactive fashion? Aren't you being passive and reactive just asking? Sorry, I couldn;t resist! :) > It seems as if it > would be easy enough to compile a judging handbook with suggestions > for filling out score sheets, and examples. These could even be > style-specific, like some of the comments on Phil Seitz's Belgian > guidelines, where common faults and particularly difficult aspects > of each style are listed. I'm all for re-vamping the current Judges guide, study guide, whatever it's title is. Chuck et all did a fine job on it but it really is time to redo it. Possibly defining the content in an outline type fasion and assigning/asking for volunteers for each individual chapter/section? I (or apparently Manning Martin would!) would be happy to rough out an outline and say post it on a web page for everyone to browse, comment on and volunteer for. > The idea could be extended to include sample competition > announcements, entry rules, organizer's information, etc. (I have This might be under the charter of the Competition Committee. If not, it should be. :) Damn good idea though. I'm sure it wil be picked up on. But, this was the original subject: Scott Bickham wrote: >Though the BJCP is not in the business of judge education, I would >support some kind of feedback for judges in the program. I think this is separate than what you propose... maybe not. This would entail alot of work for someone and to tell you the truth it would cost more money. How would we even suppose to do it? I'll tell you one thing that we might consider... continuing education for judges. It would have to be optional of course and since it would cost, it would have to have a small fee attatched. Perhaps offering a test which could be sent out to the judge upon request at an interval of no less than 6 months. This could be a multiple choice or fill in the blanks type test with the requirement to taste beer X or a specified style and comment upon it. For the BJCP's part, they could charge say $20-$30 for the service, and the Judge could perhaps receive 1/2 to 2 experience points depending upon the grade received. This would allow judges in remote areas to remain current and perhaps in the future this could be incorporated into some sort of recertification program. - -- -Lee C. Bussy/leeb at southwind.net "Insanity in idividuals is something rare - but in groups parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." - Nietzsche ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 08:28:49 -0500 (EST) From: Fred Hardy Subject: Re: Difficulty of Brewing For anyone following this thread (if you're still awake), I wrote: > >It would be of great help to judges everywhere if the acknowledged > >experts could rank order beer styles in order of "difficult to get > >right." Then us mere judges could simply refer to the table when two or > >more beers came down to a dead heat during judging in either a mixed > >style flight or BoS. Al commented: > Your sarcasm does nothing to help this discussion or resolve this dilemma. Al, if this strikes you as sarcastic, my apology. I'm quite serious. I can not provide direction on which style beats another on a difficulty to make basis. Then again, you're the Master judge, not me. > Let us remember that hopefully the BOS judges will be highly experienced > and will not need someone else's opinion of which beer is more "difficult > to get right." Sorry, Al, it just won't do. If you want to champion "more difficult to make" as a basis of elimination, help us less exhalted judges by providing a scale we can at least discuss. If it has merit, such a scale would go a long way towards quantifying what is usually a subjective judgement. 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 ------------------------------ Date: 22 Feb 1996 09:23:51 U From: "Manning Martin MP" Subject: More on Point Awards I'd like to add what I hope was obvious concerning a points-per-beer-judged point award system: the points required to reach a given rank will have to be increased. What's not obvious is what the new criteria should be, and how does one convert existing points. I propose that since a "good" round of judging, currently worth 0.5 points, would include 10 beers, a ratio of 20:1 seems appropriate. So, for example, a Certified rank requires judging 100 beers in competitions, a National 400. To me, those relationships seem much more concrete than the current point system. (By the way, since "certified" in this context means that the BJCP guarantees that a certain standard is met, and there is no assessment of the quality of judging at any rank, what exactly is being certified by the mere accrual of points? ) As for converting current points already earned, I'd say that everyone should keep his or her current rank, and points earned in excess of that rank should be simply multiplied by 20. This wouldn't be universally fair, but no system short of retrieving all previously completed score sheets would be. MPM ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 09:27:12 EST5EDT From: "Thomas W. Ausfeld" Subject: BoS judging/"difficult to brew right" Here's the scenario: You're judging a BoS, it is narrowed down to three beers: #1 - Stout category - Guiness #2 - Dopplebock - Celebrator #3 - Pilsner - Pilsner Urquell Who wins???? I'm curious to the response. IMVHO, I feel that it comes down to personal preference of styles. Yes, I will contend that "diffucult to brew right" should be weighed in, but I fail to see having to pull out a chart to see who won. Who would win the above? Guiness? how hard is it to brew, don't forget the extra step of adding soured beer to the batch, thats hard to get right. But wait, Celebrator, thats tough to match the alcohol/malt/hops balance. Now Pilsner Urquell, considered the standard of pilsners, decoction mashing may be considered tough by some. Which is harder to do, Differential equations or Thermodynamics? Should I get more credit for an 'A' in Diff eq's than say algebra? Who makes the decision which is harder anyway? Way too subjective for me. I see one recurring theme to threads like difficult to brew, scoring top down, and evaluating judging sheets. There are several ways to get the same result and not any one way is right.. What is the result? Giving an honest opinion/critique to someone who has paid for it. Some do it better than others. Its important for those who do it better not to get down on those who don't. They need to help make them recognize thier deficiencies CONSTRUCTIVELY, they won't change unless they feel they are either truly wrong or going to get the boot. In the same vain, they can't let them continue, its your name and the BJCP that gets hurt by dis-satisfied customers. Some people inherently get apathetic and lazy if they are not personally responsible for thier actions. Judging is a privledge, if you don't hold up your end, you're gone. Ask yourself this, Why do I judge? Some are here for the beer, some for education, some for the challenge, and some for the ego trip, and some for a combination of all. This answer will decide what quality judge you will have. Maybe this question should be asked on the exam. It's very easy to get a cynical view of the whole judging thing. There is no clear cut answer, sometimes you have to rely on someone's opinion, which is not always easy. In the judging I have witnessed, I've seen judges who disagree. The one who states his/her case best and was more tenacious, "won", (read - got his/her way, right or wrong). Some of Norman's not to be publisized comments regarding luck being your biggest factor in winning are not far off. That's why I feel that quality control is by far the biggest issue, i.e. getting the "poor" judges either "up to snuff" or axed. Then, as Al put it," judges will not need someone else's opinion of which beer is more 'difficult to brew right'". Sorry for the bandwith, just some thoughts. Tom Ausfeld (Thomas.ausfeld at hitchcock.org) Newbury, Vermont Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer. - Henry Lawson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 08:57:56 -0600 (CST) From: Robert Paolino Subject: Hail to Ale? / difficult to brew (get right)? At last night's weekly meeting someone asked if anyone had seen results from the AHA Hail to Ale club-only. I admit that I haven't read HBD for months, but I haven't seen anything here, either, and I've at least glanced at these. - - - - - Al criticised Fred's "sarcasm" about developing a guide to rank degrees of difficulty. Judging a BOS and coming down to those last few damn-close-to-perfect beers IS tough, and it's unreasonable to expect to find a hard-and-fast rule to apply. No, I don't have an answer, probably because there is no single answer, but Fred is correct--if you use difficult-to-brew as that final criterion, it's (to use my own analogy, so don't blame Fred for this one) like going to a hierarchy of poker hands. A full pilsener beats a three of a pale, but a four of a weizenbock beats the full pilsener, and a Royal Orval beats them all. Now go have a beer, Bob Paolino uswlsrap at ibmmail.com Madison rpaolino at earth.execpc.com Winner of the 1995 Great Dane Challenge Start your (beer) engines! The first pint of NGHAB "American Special Bitter," dry-hopped with Columbus, will be pulled Friday, FeBREWary 9, around 6pm at the Great Dane. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 10:49:14 -0500 From: Btalk at aol.com Subject: Judge education/quality First of all, I want to say that I agree completely with the recent comments by Martin Manning and Pete Garofalo. I feel that the BJCP should be involved in judge training and education. What better way to improve (ensure?) judging expertise than by having the sanctioning organization oversee its members training? This may be a bit much to ask of a fledgling organization such as ours, but a step would be to make the materials available as Martin suggests. Passing the exam is one thing, but it is no guarantee of judging competency. To echo Pete Garofalo-we've all had or share of poorly done score sheets and the good ones set an example to strive for. Hey, I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything there is about the sensory evaluation of beer. I do know my weak points and work to reduce their number, but it isn't easy to do. Reading is no substitute for tasting. It is tasting with an experienced mentor (for lack of a better word) that will help you put the correct words to what your palate is telling you. Only when you have the words can you put them on paper. The Doctored Beer tasting is something I've been threatening to actually do for a long time. I realize it isn't perfect but is is a start and it will at least provide something to go by. If this Dr Beer thing could be expanded and embellished to cover more flavors, it would become a _must do_.for the majority of judges. Perhaps there are other sensory training tools already out there that would have application to beer evaluation. Later, Bob Talkiewicz, Binghamton, NY ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 13:56:34 -0600 From: PGarofal at USCCMAIL.uscc.bms.com Subject: BoS "Dead Heat" I've been sitting on my hands on this one for awhile, now. Both Fred Hardy and Al Korzonas raise some good points, but I have a basic question: how often is BoS a "dead heat"? I've done several, and most were obvious early on. The toughest one I did, however, was distilled down to a dopplebock vs. a raspberry lambic. The panel was swayed by the degree of difficulty in making a lambic, I'm afraid. Though I thought that the dopplebock was better, I was outvoted. So it goes. FWIW, I do believe that the degree of difficulty is a valid argument, even though it caused a dead ringer for Celebrator to lose out. I've got to believe, however, that it's a rare instance where two beers are entirely even in the eyes (and noses, etc.) of the BoS panel. Maybe it's not easier to make a Pale Ale than a lambic, but it is possible to make a good one just by dumping a few cans of extract into a pot and throwing in some fresh hops. I know, I've tasted some great extract-based pale ales. I'd have a harder time believing that somebody got lucky with a lambic, though. I see this issue as one more aspect of our supposed expertise as judges; we're expected to know the brewing process, and therefore what is more difficult to "get right". The only suggestion I would add is this: how about awarding a second- and third-Best of Show? I'd feel better knowing that I was at least close (in fact, I have :-( ). This has been a regular part of our local competition in Syracuse, and all it costs is a couple of extra ribbons. As for BoS prizes, well...how about flipping a coin? Peter Garofalo ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************ -------