Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 01:10:00 -0500
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Subject: JudgeNet Digest #1240 (Mar 24, 1996)

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JudgeNet Digest #1240                              Sun 24 Mar 1996

                               JudgeNet
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents:

  RE: JudgeNet Digest #1239 (Mar 21, 1996) (Pinhey Craig)
  Re: The nebulous "Specialty" cagegory    (Spencer W Thomas)
  Re: The nebulous "Specialty" cagegory    (hollen)
                                           ("Roger Deschner  ")
  Re: The nebulous "Specialty" cagegory    (Brian J Walter (Brewing Chemist))
  RE:calibration                           (Robert Paolino)
  Re: FWIW (BJCP exam weighting)           (Scott Bickham)

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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 96 10:11:00 EST
From: Pinhey Craig <CPINHEY at DHC.DOFASCO.CA>
Subject: RE: JudgeNet Digest #1239 (Mar 21, 1996)


|While I have your attention: do chocolate beers go into the herb beer
|category, or are they alone specialty beers?

This is something I am struggling with up here as well, do to the popularity 
of chocolate or coffee porters, or hazelnut chocolate coffee stouts, etc. 
 Where do these go? In our competitions, I would enter these in the 
specialty category.

Craig Pinhey
CABA Judge & Competitions Committee Chairman

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 10:21:44 -0500
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer at engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: The nebulous "Specialty" cagegory 

First, *you* should not be categorizing entries.  The *entrant* should
have done that for you.  You should NOT move entries from the category
in which the entrant has placed them, no matter how wrong you think
they are.  (That said, I have moved entries, but only when the brewer
put them in a particular category *based on bad advice I gave them*.)

Second, in all the competitions I've been involved in organizing,
we've never had enough entries to separate out "fruit", "herb", and
"specialty" as separate categories.  

Yes, it probably should be entered as a fruit or "herb" beer.
The real question is, how do you judge such a beer if it is entered in
the specialty category?  Do you give it a 24? "Wonderful beer, but
doesn't fit the definition of specialty category."  

Or do you, as organizer, call the entrant and suggest that they
recategorize their beer before it is judged?

But let me reiterate my first point: the *entrant* decides on the
category in which he or she enters a beer.  Your job is to judge it
according to the definition of the category.

=Spencer

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Mar 96 07:12:45 PST
From: hollen at vigra.com
Subject: Re: The nebulous "Specialty" cagegory


>>>>> "Brian" == Brian J Walter <- Brewing Chemist
>>>>> <walter at lamar.ColoState.EDU>> writes:

Brian> While categorizing entries for our competition this weekend a
Brian> co-organizer and I disagreed on what kinds of beers go into the
Brian> specialty category.  Is there any agreement amongst judges on
Brian> this?

It is not up to the organizers to categorize entries.  It is the
brewer's responsibility to do this.  The only time we will change a
category is if it is obvious that the brewer entered a pale and a
porter and switched the labels on the bottles, we will correct the
mistake if we catch it.

One of the comments from a judge last year was "This is a beautiful
Scotch Ale, but entered as a specialty beer, it cannot place well."
And of course, the entry got very low points because there was nothing
"specialty" about it, either in the taste or aroma, or on the entry
form indicating special ingredients.

dion
Asst. Organizer, AFCHBC

- -- 
Dion Hollenbeck (619)597-7080x119       Email: hollen at vigra.com
Senior Software Engineer     Vigra, Inc.  San Diego, California

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 21:34:23 CST
From: "Roger Deschner  " <U52983 at UICVM.UIC.EDU>
Subject: 

> you might get "calibrated" to the wrong thing.  The danger of misscalib
> reminds me of a tasting we had for a COC where the style profile was ou
> prior to the tasting of 3 beers competing for the runnoff.  The descrip
> the style, Duesseldorfer Alt in this case, overemphasized the need for
>  bitterness over maltiness.  In other words, the nice medium-high round
> maltiness character was NOT emphasized.  Needless to say, my Alt didn't
> it to the COC Alt competition, but later won a 2nd in the Shamrock comp
> in Raleigh.  The point is that it seems possible to me that a calibrati
> beer if not chosen very carefully AND is in good condition, could destr
> some truly great beers if those beers are forced to 'live down to' the
> It might be better to just go with the style guidelines, IMHO :)
>
> Best Regards,
>
> George E. Danz                    Snail Mail Address:

(Pardon crippled mail-replyer which inexplicably deletes a couple of
columns, but not the last ones. I'd figure it out but I have better
things to do, like rant and rave.)

George - you just HAD to say "altbier". At the risk of being repetitive,
the danger in using to-style calibration beers is exactly that. Not only
does the selection of the calibration beer result from the organizer's
limited amount of time to find "perfect" examples, and the possibility of
poor condition, but it also represents the organizers' prejudices about
what a style is. And so here, with Dusseldorf Altbier, we have a perfect
example of how the organizers' misconception of a style can skew even
judges who might know better.

I've been on both sides of this, and you can feel free to throw bricks at
me about mis-selected calibration beers if you're coming to AHA 1st Round
in Chicago, because I'll be one of the ones doing the selecting.

But anyway, back to altbier. Ten years ago Michael Jackson wrote the
Pocket Guide. Two years ago I wrote my Zymurgy article. Wayne Luttrell's
article about Altbier is in the current Brew Magazine. Al Korzonas
expends considerable bandwidth here and elsewhere about altbier. The
wondrous real Dusseldorf Altbiers have certainly gotten enough press
lately.

Why is this necessary? Frankly, I am getting frustrated. I had real
Dusseldorf Altbier two weeks ago - SCHLOSSER ALT, on tap at the Goat Hill
Tavern in Costa Mesa CA, and it was the real thing. (Pardon shameless
plug - go there and get some!) Not quite as assertive as Zum Uerige, but
still had that magical Dusseldorf combination of sturdy but not sweet
maltiness and assertive hoppiness, in perfect balance. And under the old
(since somewhat improved) AHA guidelines many judges were trained on,
even Schlosser Alt would have been judged both too hoppy and too malty,
not to mention too light in color. So we have a majority of American
beer-geeks off in dreamland thinking that altbier is sort of thin, brown,
lifeless, and either oddly bitter or oddly sweet, when the real thing is
none of those. (You know, like nearly all American-made beers calling
themselves 'alt".) And then they go and pick something like that to
"calibrate" the judges, and homebrewers like me and George Danz get
dumped on when we imitate the altbier we actually drank in Dusseldorf.
AAaaargh!

OK, don't believe me. Believe Michael Jackson. Look up Dusseldorf in his
Pocket Guide to Beer. 'nuff said; I need to douse these flames with some
beer.

What this means to the practice of to-style calibration beers (a practice
I generally support) I don't know. Maybe we'll use style examples for
everything EXCEPT altbier and give those judges American Light Lager or
Porter or something else totally different. But you had to know you'd
hear from me when misconceptions about Dusseldorf Altbier became part of
the issue.

Roger Deschner      University of Illinois at Chicago     rogerd at uic.edu
Aliases: u52983 at uicvm.uic.edu    R.Deschner at uic.edu     USUICZ3P at IBMMAIL
=============== "Civilization was CAUSED by beer." =====================

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 09:09:23 -0700 (MST)
From: walter at lamar.ColoState.EDU (Brian J Walter (Brewing Chemist))
Subject: Re: The nebulous "Specialty" cagegory

Spencer W Thomas wrote:
> First, *you* should not be categorizing entries.  The *entrant* should
> have done that for you.  You should NOT move entries from the category
> in which the entrant has placed them, no matter how wrong you think

I guess I was unclear.  The entry was not moved, nor were there any plans 
to move it.  As you say, that is the entrants job.  How dare you accuse 
me of such unethical behaviou ;)  

There was just a philosophical discussion over where it should have been
entered. Like say if I had brewed the beer, and was going to enter it in 
some competition.  Where should I enter it.

> Second, in all the competitions I've been involved in organizing,
> we've never had enough entries to separate out "fruit", "herb", and
> "specialty" as separate categories.  

Well, with 201 entries we finally crossed that line.

> Yes, it probably should be entered as a fruit or "herb" beer.
> The real question is, how do you judge such a beer if it is entered in
> the specialty category?  Do you give it a 24? "Wonderful beer, but
> doesn't fit the definition of specialty category."  

That was the point of the discussion.  My asst organizer said if he were 
to judge it as a fruit beer it wouldn't do well because he thinks it is a 
specialty beer.  So yes, some judges would give it a 24 for the above 
reasons.

> Or do you, as organizer, call the entrant and suggest that they
> recategorize their beer before it is judged?

If I thought there was a problem I would have called the entrant and made 
sure they understood the categories.  I didn't call because I thought the 
beer was entered properly.

> But let me reiterate my first point: the *entrant* decides on the
> category in which he or she enters a beer.  Your job is to judge it
> according to the definition of the category.

I agree wholeheartedly.  I guess I wasn't very clear in the post.  I 
follow the rules when judging and organizing.  It was more of a 
philosophical question of "What is the specialty category for?" and 
specifically where do we as judges and organizers think we should place 
_OUR_ combo fruit/herb beers.  Do they belong in the Specialty category 
or is there no category for them?

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: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 08:47:42 -0600 (CST)
From: Robert Paolino <rpaolino at execpc.com>
Subject: RE:calibration

In JudgeNet Digest #1238 (Wed 20 Mar 1996)
John DeCarlo<jdecarlo at mitre.org> wrote:
>Aroma will change in some beers.
>
>I had sniffed my beer immediately after being poured, found a strong floral
>aroma and some slight sweetness--which I wrote down.  However, a few minutes
>later, the aroma was almost completely that of cooked corn.  If I hadn't
>gone back to recheck the aroma, it would have gotten past me.

I "recheck," but for me it's an almost continual process rather than a
deliberate action. My nose is in the glass while I'm tasting to evaluate
flavour, body, et cetera.  Yes, I'm concentrating on those components, but
if something is significantly different in the nose, I'm going to notice
it (I hope) and make additional comments (perhaps a change in aroma score)
as appropriate.

Bill Giffin <billg at maine.com> wrote: 

>When you have a moderate to large competition having a calibration beer or
>what ever you want to call it take valuable time, 20 minutes to half an
>hour.  The calibration beer truly doesn't improve the judging yet it will
>cause your competition to run longer.

I disagree that it's a waste of time--it's 20 minutes well spent.  An
example: A local homebrew shop conducts an annual stout competition with
30+ entries of different styles of stouts and about 6-8 judges. First, a
disclaimer--it's a fairly informal event, with lots of spectators who get
tiny tastes of all 30+ of them for a separate "people's choice award. 
(It's a 6-bottle entry--2 for the judges and 4 for the crowd.) There's
live (acoustic) music, food, and more beer--not exactly your usual
competition atmosphere.  And I should also say that it's not exactly run
like a tight ship--there's a lot of social time and some time spent
waiting for the next beers.  That disclaimer is intended to excuse me for
a somewhat "unjudge-like" activity before the competition :-).  With a
fairly long social period before the competition actually gets rolling, I
and others did take advantage of that keg of Capital Blonde Doppelbock. 
Skip ahead to calibration round .  We're told to score the beer as a dry
stout.  A couple of us (myself included) score it mid-to-upper 20s; the
others are in the high-30s.  The calibration beer was canned Guinness. 

The hugeness of flavour of that blonde doppel clearly altered my
perceptions of the calibration beer and it was good that we had a
"throwaway" beer to judge as a first beer rather than one of the entries. 
For most of the evening, my judging partner and I were within a few points
on all the real entries. 

Sure, you can criticise our drinking doppelbock before judging (and it's
not something I do before more serious competitions), but most competitions
start with coffee and pastries of some kind, and those can be palate-
trashing as well. How many of us _regularly_ use that plain toothbrush
and water immediately before judging? 

"Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment at rad-mac1.ucsf.edu> wrote:

>I agree, this "first beer" should never be held up as an ideal example and the
>judges should be warned against comparing the rest of the flight to it. The

Absolutely!

>is to avoid strong flavors which could interfere with the real beers of the
>flight by dampening the judges palates.

Like doppelbocks :-)


Now go have a beer,


Bob Paolino                                     
Madison                                    rpaolino at earth.execpc.com

               Winner of the 1995 Great Dane Challenge
The winning "NGHAB American Special Bitter," dry-hopped with lots of
         Columbus, is almost gone.  Drink it while you can!
                          Hops are our friends!


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 11:45:20 -0500 (EST)
From: Scott Bickham <bickham at dave.nrl.navy.mil>
Subject: Re: FWIW (BJCP exam weighting)

Mark Johnston <msjohnst at srvr.third-wave.com> wrote:
> 
>         First off, the sarcasm isn't necessary. I am not criticizing the BOD
> or any member of the BJCP staff. This test arrangement has been in place for
> many years, through no credit or fault to existing administration. In
> addition, I do not expect instant results - they've got enough work cut out
> already.

Honestly, no sarcasm was intended.  I was only trying to illustrate some
of the difficulties in evaluating the tasting part of the BJCP exam.  
In practice, the scores for the tastion part of the exam range from 55
to 95, though there have been a few exceptions.  That 40 point spread
translates into 12 points on the actual exam, which is not enough to
prevent someone with a solid background from passing the exam.  Giving
the tasting portion more weight, say 50%, would increase this spread
to 20 points, so someone who had a decent background but little judging
experience could easily score below 60 and be discouraged from becoming
a judge.

> ..., and, as Mr. Bickham suggests, ...

Er, it's actually Dr. Bickham, but I assume that no sarcasm was intended.

>         As an aside, don't the proctors themselves participate in the
> grading process? Since now the BJCP assigns proctors to the exams (As
> opposed to talking a hometown judge into running it locally.) it should be
> possible to at least do a preliminary grading at the test site by the person
> who actually brought, poured, and evaluated the beer being served.

...and perhaps is biased about the flavors that should be perceived
in the test beer, since they often know more about the test beers than
the participants.

That was done in the past, but at the expense of complete anonymity since
the proctors may be familiar with the exam numbers, handwriting, etc. 
I guess you could say that the BJCP does assign proctors to exams, but
these are usually drawn from the local judging talent.  I generally try to
have one proctor who is National or better and another who is at least
certified, since their comments on the beer score sheets should be accurate
and informative.  There have also been incidents where the proctor has
sat on the exam for as long as ten weeks before sending them out, so
reliability is also a factor.

Cheers,
	Scott

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End of JudgeNet Digest
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