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 (8.7.4/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA16571 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 1996 02:21:56 -0500 (EST) Received: from truelies.rs.itd.umich.edu (truelies.rs.itd.umich.edu [141.211.83.38]) by srvr8.engin.umich.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA05720 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 1996 02:21:19 -0500 (EST) Received: by truelies.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.7.4/2.2) with X.500 id CAA02657; Fri, 22 Mar 1996 02:21:18 -0500 (EST) Received: from uu6.psi.com by truelies.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.7.4/2.2) with SMTP id CAA02645; Fri, 22 Mar 1996 02:21:12 -0500 (EST) Received: by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA18795 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 96 01:42:03 -0500 Received: (from listadm at localhost) by synchro.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA00548 for judge-recipients at synchro.com; Fri, 22 Mar 1996 01:10:01 -0500 Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 01:10:01 -0500 Message-Id: <199603220610.BAA00548 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 #1239 (Mar 21, 1996) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JudgeNet Digest #1239 Thu 21 Mar 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: The nebulous "Specialty" cagegory (Brian J Walter - Brewing Chemist) Judging Aroma (John DeCarlo ) Icebreaker / calibration beer (Michael L. Hall) Re: Icebreaker beers (Spencer W Thomas) Re: JudgeNet Digest #1238 (Mar 20, 1996) (Mark Taratoot) Sniff First? (Fred Hardy) Results from the Knickerbocker Battle of the Brews '96 ("Francois Espourteille") Calibration (warmup) Beer (jim) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 00:06:26 -0700 From: Brian J Walter - Brewing Chemist Subject: The nebulous "Specialty" cagegory Howdy, While categorizing entries for our competition this weekend a co-organizer and I disagreed on what kinds of beers go into the specialty category. Is there any agreement amongst judges on this? My basic argument is that the specialty category is for unusual techniques like stienbier or for the use of other fermentables like honey, maple syrup, rye malt, etc. My co-organizer thinks the category is not limited as such above but should also include beers like "raspberry cocoa" beers, since they would most likely not do it in fruit or herb because they have _both_ of these ingredients. My take was that the raspberry cocoa be entered as either a fruit or an herb beer. If the flavors are balanced well and there is no clear domination then there may be no place to enter it. This is unfortunate, but the same is true for the mead category. There is no place to enter spiced fruit meads. (I suppose you could enter the rasp cocoa beer as a classic style fruit beer with the classic style being herb beer ;) While I have your attention: do chocolate beers go into the herb beer category, or are they alone specialty beers? 1996 NHC Guidelines 23. Specialty Beer Any ale or lager brewed using unusual techniques and/or ingredients other than (or in addition to) malted barley as a unique contributiton to the overall character of the beer. Examples of specialty beers includ (but are not limited to) beers brewed with honey, maple sap or syrup; worts heated with white-hot stones (steinbier); and low- or non-alcoholic beers. Examples do not include the use of fruit or herbs although they can be used to add to the character of other ingredients. Good Day, - --bjw Brian J Walter | Homebrewer, Certified | walter at lamar.colostate.edu Chem Grad - CO St Univ| Beer Judge, & President| RUSH Rocks Best! Fort Collins, CO | Mash Tongues Brew Club | GB Packers - 11 X NFL Champs ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 96 07:31:29 EST From: John DeCarlo Subject: Judging Aroma Ed Hitchcock writes: >What about those large competitions where the beers are poured by >the stewards and brought to the judges? Luckily I haven't been to one of those. I suppose then you write down under Aroma "don't know what the initial aroma was--beer was poured elsewhere and brought to the table". I don't see that you have any other choice. On a slightly-related topic, I now always test the aroma of the plastic cups provided to the judges. Some are neutral right out of the bag. Some have a horrible plastic aroma that takes a minute or so to dissipate. Those cups get aired out in a convenient location before use. John DeCarlo--My views are my own Fidonet: 1:109/131 Internet: jdecarlo at burp.org ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 96 09:44:41 MST From: hall at galt.c3.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall) Subject: Icebreaker / calibration beer Another important benefit of the calibration / icebreaker beer that I don't think has been mentioned is that it gets your mouth accustomed to drinking beer. When you have not had anything in your mouth for a while, your mouth sometimes gets acidic or dry. Or, in trying to correct this problem, you might have just brushed your teeth. In both of these situations, the first few swallows of beer may taste odd and unrepresentative of the actual taste of the beer. A throwaway first beer eliminates this problem. Of course, water and bread may have similar effects, but beer seems more natural to me, and it prepares your palate for what's coming up. Mike Hall Los Alamos Atom Mashers ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 11:45:40 -0500 From: Spencer W Thomas Subject: Re: Icebreaker beers >>>>> "BrewNews" == BrewNews writes: BrewNews> enjoy ... the aroma of your BrewNews> freshly sharpened pencil. A friend bought some "recycled" pencils. The "wood" part is made from recycled pop bottles and HAS NO SMELL! Amazing! Or, do what I do. Bring mechanical pencils. No sharpening needed, and no smell. =Spencer Thomas in Ann Arbor, MI (spencer at umich.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 08:51:09 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Taratoot Subject: Re: JudgeNet Digest #1238 (Mar 20, 1996) In JudgeNet 1238, David Housman asks: > Does anyone have the forms normally sent in competition packages (current > style guide, entry/recipe form, label form, and judge/steward entry form) in > electronic form so that they can be attached to a competition posting (or > pointed to) in order to provide a complete competition package via EMAIL? The 14th Annual Oregon Homebrew Competition and Festival (coming up soon!) has a set of web pages that allow for beer entry and judge entry. Visit http://www.peak.org/~taratoot/fest.html. The source code was originally written for another competition by Ray Brice and has been modified for our competition. You can download the code directly from the site if you like it. - -- Mark Taratoot "...though my problems are meaningless, taratoot at peak.org that don't make them go away." -Neil Young ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 12:07:52 -0500 (EST) From: Fred Hardy Subject: Sniff First? Since being well reprimanded for neglecting the basic lesson of Judging 101, i.e., sniff FIRST, I confess I can not justify my original comment. I can relate some, possibly erroneous, reasons that I made it. When anyone smells an odor, there is a residual impact which lasts from 30 to 60 seconds. During that window, the sniffer is busy, as it were, and other aromas are less perceived. If the original odor persists, it becomes diminished in importance, and actually disappears to the senses. When enjoying the nose of a fine wine, it is wise to let it breath to permit stale, corky aromas to dissipate. A quick swirl of the glass, and the flowers and complexity of the wine leap out (unless it's Gallo). My own experience indicates beer behaves the same way for the same reasons. The swirl picks up the essence of the liquid and holds it in suspension long enough to be enjoyed. According to Judging 101, if I wait I miss the "volatile" scents. I suspect this is an error in causalty. The volatile aromas are still there, but the nose went away. It was caused by: the sensors were still busy from the first sniff, and the aroma was not detected on the second one; the first aroma was sufficiently strong and persistent to move into the background and get lost; the beer needs a swirl to get the aromas in suspension so they can be perceived. What is very important to me is that the first sniff be carefully analyzed by the judge to identify as many aroma components as possible. This takes precedence over when the first sniff was made. Before checking to verify your first impression, wait at least a minute to give your sensors time to recover. Swirl the beer before the second sniff, and I suspect you will be amazed by how much the second sniff resembles the first. If, in fact, those delicate, volatile aromatics do disappear during the 15 to 20 seconds it takes a judge to admire the appearance, then who needs them? The ones that count are the ones that hang around to be enjoyed with every sip. Ooops, I forgot, you can never verify the first impression if those volatiles are really a) important, b) gone. I would also add that beer served from pitchers cannot be judged - those volatile aromatics already left, and BoS judges who pour n brews before tasting also missed those lovely aromas. Temperature also plays a significant part in aroma perception. Dull, lifeless aroma can often be replaced by complex, interesting and exciting ones by letting an ice cold brew warm a bit. Since the original dull aromas are no longer perceptible, a logical conclusion is that they are gone. Are they, or are they simply overpowered? Which impression is the one the judge should use to evaluate the skill of the brewer? Oh well, I guess I'll never pass judging 101. 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: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 15:27:50 -0500 From: "Francois Espourteille" Subject: Results from the Knickerbocker Battle of the Brews '96 Here are the results from the Battle of the Brews '96 held in Troy (NY) on March 03 1996. Sorry for the delay in posting the results, but I have been out of town most of the past two weeks and have not been able to keep with post competition duties. Score sheets are being mailing at this time, along with the prizes that were not picked up on competition day. Thank you for your entries, all 193 of them. Thank's also to the judges and stewards for their time and effort and to the businesses that provided prizes. Pale Ales and Bitters 1st John Barnes Salt City Brew Club (SCBC) 2nd Kurth Nelson Borderline Yeast Infectors (BYI) 3rd Thomas O'Connors III Maine Ale and Lager Tasters (MALT) Brown Ales and German Ales 1st John Tibodeau 2nd Thomas Duchesneau Albany Barley Converters (ABC) 3rd Andrew Bessey Porter 1st Michael Mogul Jr. 2nd Peter Garofalo SCBS 3rd Manny Holl Hudson Valley Homebrewers (HVH) Stout 1st Jim Raimo Saratoga Thoroughbrews (ST) 2nd Bruce Franconi HVH 3rd Manny Holl HVH Strong Ales and Barley Wines 1st Reed Antis ST 2nd Jim Raimo ST 3rd Manny Holl ST Belgian and French Ales 1st John Nicaise 2nd John Diana Mutually United Grape & Grain Zyg.(MUGZZ) 3rd Glenn Allen New York Notorious Brewer (NYNB) Light Lagers, California Common & German Wheat Beers 1st Thomas O'Connor III MALT 2nd Kurt Nelson BYI 3rd Reed Antis ST Pilsner & Vienna Lagers 1st Thomas O'Connor III MALT 2nd Peter Garofalo SCBC 3rd Peter Devitt & ST Thomas Myers Dark Lagers and Bocks 1st Glenn Novak ABC 2nd Michael Kuland & Ciaran Geraghty 3rd Jim Taylor HVH Fruit Beers and Lambic 1st Peter Devitt & ST Thomas Myers 2nd Jim Taylor HVH 3rd Francois Espourteille ST Specialty, Herb, and Smoked Beer 1st Wolfgang Kurth ST 2nd Reed Antis ST 3rd Glenn Novak ABC Meads and Ciders 1st Paul Krebs ST 2nd Mike Castelluccio 3rd Francois Espourteille ST BEST OF SHOW 1ST PAUL KREBS ST 2ND THOMAS O'CONNOR III MALT 3RD PETER DEVITT & ST THOMAS MYERS Best of Show judges were: Jay Hersh (master) Kieran o'Connor (national) Bob Talkiewicz (certified) Tim Olsen (registered) Thank you all for your participation. Direct any questions to espouf at rpi.edu Francois Espourteille, competition organizer. - -- ******************************************************************************** Francois Espourteille espouf at rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnich Institute Troy, NY "Pour ce qui est de manger qui ne peut ne peut, pour ce qui est de boire on ce force" ******************************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 96 14:30:16 MST From: jim at dwrock.dw.att.com Subject: Calibration (warmup) Beer >From: "JOHN A. JR. CARLSON " >I am glad this subject came up. I can remember talking to Jim Homer >(National) about the use of such a beer and he told me not to use the >term "calibration" but something like "ice-breaker" or "conversation beer." >Jim any comments on a proper term to use? I prefer "warmup beer." I think the term came from Steve Dempsey when he directed the NHC first round at Denver. >IMO, the better method is to match the conversation beer-style to the >style the judges will be tasting. I agree. Jim Homer jim at dwrock.dw.att.com ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************ -------