Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 18:19:58 -0400
Message-Id: <199706112219.SAA25112 at synchro.com>
From: owner-judge-digest at synchro.com
To: judge-digest at synchro.com
Subject:   judge-digest V1 #1454
Reply-To: judge at synchro.com
Errors-To: owner-judge-digest at synchro.com
Precedence: bulk


judge-digest              Wednesday, 11 June 1997      Volume 01 : Number 1454

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       J u d g e N e t   -   t h e   b e e r   j u d g e   d i g e s t
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 Moderator:        Chuck Cox          <chuck at synchro.com>
 Archivist:        Spencer Thomas     <spencer at umich.edu>
 Publisher:        SynchroSystems     <info at synchro.com>

 Submissions:      judge at synchro.com
 Subscriptions:    judge-request at synchro.com
 Archive:          http://realbeer.com/spencer/judge
 BJCP info:        geninfo at bjcp.synchro.com

 ============================================================================
 contents:

 Re:  gaining experience
 Re: judge-digest V1 #1453
 Re: BJCP PR
 Re:BJCP PR
 Vancouver International Amateur Brewers Competition
 Fathers Day in Stockton CA

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

From: jdecarlo at juno.com (John A DeCarlo)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 12:42:20 -0400
Subject: Re:  gaining experience

Well, I appreciate the replies, but I think I made my point poorly.  Yes,
study sessions are helpful, and the course I took from Rick Garvin (with
lots of help from many other experts) made the difference.  (I think
everyone or all but one or two passed and several did well over 80.)

OTOH, I don't think there is a substitute for really judging.  Especially
considering the time constraints we normally operate under.

So, there is still the general question I tried to pose earlier:

Which approach should I take to being a good judge?

1) Judge enough competitions to really learn how to do it well (and, of
course, this means evaluating your judging some other way than through
the competition, although you can often get some help from experienced
judges on your flight if you ask).  Then take the exam and do well in the
judging part.

2) Simply study as best you can, having practice judging sessions with
more experienced judges to evaluate how well you do, or whatever you can
come up with to learn to judge without actually judging.  Then take the
exam.

I think that the BJCP could take a stand on this, either encouraging or
discouraging the use of novice judges by competitions and the
consequential actions (such as pairing novices with experienced judges
willing to help them learn, recommending not taking the exam until some
judging experience has been accumulated, etc.)

John DeCarlo, jdecarlo at juno.com, Arlington, VA
http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/1113

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

From: Robert Paolino <rpaolino at execpc.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 22:20:33 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: judge-digest V1 #1453

On Fri, 6 Jun 1997 RAMBLIN' JOEL <joel at bolt.atmos.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> Subject: BJCP PR
(Joel quotes previous contributor)
> 
> > the BJCP style guide.  Unless some PR is done for the BJCP, I'd contend that 
> > it's general usefulness in competitions is worthless because most 
> > competitions use the AHA style guide.
> ...
> > If the BJCP wants its style guide to be recognized widely...
> > some action is necessary.  
> 
And Joel spoke:
>    Our local club members discussed this at length while in the
> preliminary planning stages for our competition this year.  The
> general feeling seemed to be that the BJCP style guidelines were
> nice and that supporting the BJCP is important, but the guidelines
> just weren't well enough known to potential entrants-- at the time
> (and even now?) the only place to get the BJCP guidelines was on a
> web site in an obscure (sorry, Tom & Dennis ;-) format.  By contrast,

.pdf, obscure????  Sorry, Joel, .pdf is fairly common.  Even my employer
provides its documents on the web in that format, which has the advantage
of allowing the user to get the document just as it appears in print.  We
(my employer, that is) do it because (among other things) the line numbers
are important and you don't have to worry about its appearance varying
depending on the setup of the user's browser.  And when you have
publications, you can cite it properly because page 27 is the same in the
printed copy as the one Joel downloads and the same as the one Denise
downloads.  It made it real easy to pick up the style descriptions for
printing for our competition.

That said, it WOULD be convenient for some users to have the descriptions
downloadable in WordPerfect or even for display in .txt format for the
purpose of a faster download for those who didn't care about having one
that looks just like the original. 

>    Our decision to once again go with the AHA guidelines came
> down to the bottom line-- we didn't want to have to effectively
> double our mailing costs by sending every potential entrant a full
> copy of the BJCP guidelines just to make sure they knew how their
> entries would be judged.  (Entry fees alone don't cover the costs

We sent out only the tabular form of the guidelines as part of our
competition packet--just one side of a two-sided page. It's not as good as
the full written description, but someone who had the ZYMURGY descriptions
(and not everyone subscribes to ZYMURGY--some of us even let their
subscriptions lapse, especially after the infamous "Lifestyles of the Rich
and Famous" Why We Brew issue (for others, the bottle opener issue did
it)) would probably find them close enough.  Others without access to the
Web site could request a copy from the competition organisers.

For us, the bottom line was supporting the BJCP, and we'd have sent that
table page whether it was the BJCP or the AHA guidelines, so it really
didn't cost more to use BJCP styles.  The way to get our guidelines known
is for competitions to use them.  (I will admit, though, that as a judge,
I'm still getting used to the "new" style numbers.  The new numbers don't
just fly off the tongue like 1A Barley Wine or whatever, but give them
time.

>    The solution?  Maybe a good start would be to try to get the
> BJCP guidelines published somewhere in addition to the web site
> (and make the current web guidelines a little more web-friendly,
> i.e., available in straight HTML).  Maybe _Brewing Techniques_?

Again, plain ol' .txt would be even simpler.  BT is also a good idea.

>    I'd personally like to use the BJCP guidelines-- they've got a
> nice organization plus a style or two that doesn't fit well into
> the AHA guidelines, and they don't have the AHA bias against

Then use them!  Help make them more widely known
(and I'll see you in the Twin Cornfields of Urbana and Champaign next
weekend...and I urge other judges in the Midwest to make the trek.  The
BUZZards run a good event.)


Now go have a beer,
Bob Paolino                                  rpaolino at earth.execpc.com
Madison


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

From: oliver at triton.cms.udel.edu (Oliver Weatherbee)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 09:55:15 -0400
Subject: Re: BJCP PR

From: "Joel Plutchak" <joel at bolt.atmos.uiuc.edu>
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 08:41:05 -0500
Subject: BJCP PR
Joel wrote in part concerning BJCP guidelines:

>   The solution?  Maybe a good start would be to try to get the
>BJCP guidelines published somewhere in addition to the web site
>(and make the current web guidelines a little more web-friendly,
>i.e., available in straight HTML).  Maybe _Brewing Techniques_?

As I have mentioned before, I have converted the BJCP guidelines and
style chart to straight html on our club's website. I had done it in 
anticipation of using them for our upcoming competition. Unfortunately, 
for some of the same reasons Joel mentioned, the club majority voted 
to use the AHA guidelines. 

I have no problem with the BJCP (Dennis et al.) grabbing the html 
guidelines page off our site and adding it to the official website. 
However, I haven't updated the most recent changes in the Mead portion 
of the guidelines. 

________________________________________________________
Oliver Weatherbee			oliver at triton.cms.udel.edu
			First State Brewers
	http://triton.cms.udel.edu/~oliver/firststate/
________________________________________________________

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

From: Tom Fitzpatrick <fitz at FNAL.GOV>
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 1997 16:48:23 -0500
Subject: Re:BJCP PR

> On Jun 4, "Houseman, David L" <David.Houseman at unisys.com> sayeth:
> > Jay's observation about a lack of public awareness of the BJCP and the
need 
> > for PR is very much an issue if the BJCP wants to go much beyond a
simple 
> > certification capability.  For example, the style committee is working
on 
> > the BJCP style guide.  Unless some PR is done for the BJCP, I'd contend
that 
> > it's general usefulness in competitions is worthless because most 
> > competitions use the AHA style guide.

The BJCP Guidelines have officially been out for only 4 or 5 months. It
will take
some time ... and publicity ... for them to catch on, especially versus an
established set that has the benefit of >10 years circulation.
It's rather curious that a guy (David) would call something worthless in
one
breath and in the next volunteer to participate in such a "worthless"
activity. It is true that most comps currently use the AHA Guidelines. Most
organizers cite ease of distribution and circulation (lower costs) as the 
main reason, not the superior quality of the AHA guidelines. In fact it is
dissatisfaction with the AHA guidelines that has led many organizers to
create custom guidelines for their competitions, especially on the east and
west coasts. 

Joel writes:
>    Our local club members discussed this at length while in the
> preliminary planning stages for our competition this year.  The
> general feeling seemed to be that the BJCP style guidelines were
> nice and that supporting the BJCP is important, but the guidelines
> just weren't well enough known to potential entrants-- at the time
> (and even now?) the only place to get the BJCP guidelines was on a
> web site in an obscure (sorry, Tom & Dennis ;-) format.

Please don't label something obscure just because you're not
familiar with it. Ever try downloading IRS forms? Need technical data
from Texas Instruments, IBM, Microsoft, etc.? Guess what, they all
use acrobat. The advantages are plenty ... free viewer software, 
great document integrity, good compression (important when you 
are paying by the megabyte for your website; also reduces
download time for the user). 
We originally had  the guidelines in html format, but it was 14 pages 
of ugliness to print it out and people complained. Now it's in acrobat 
and people still complain. We could offer the document in 
10 different formats, but it takes time and costs the BJCP money.

>    Our decision to once again go with the AHA guidelines came
> down to the bottom line-- we didn't want to have to effectively
> double our mailing costs by sending every potential entrant a full
> copy of the BJCP guidelines just to make sure they knew how their
> entries would be judged.  (Entry fees alone don't cover the costs
> of running our competition and we're a small club, so we're very
> sensitive to any additional costs.)

I've received many competition packets that included the AHA 
Guidelines. It just makes sense to give the entrants the most
current information. There have been MANY occasions where 
entrants will refer to an old set of AHA guidelines (because the
comp organizer didn't send out the current ones) and enter 
the beer incorrectly. 

>    I'd personally like to use the BJCP guidelines-- they've got a
> nice organization plus a style or two that doesn't fit well into
> the AHA guidelines.

Personally I would want to use the guidelines that I felt were
best, even at additional cost. In my experience the competition
mailing is not even close to the most significant cost. I also 
believe that some organizers send out WAY too many packets
to "potential" entrants. In one case, the organizer sent out
500 packets for a competition that had about 200 entries. 
This was not efficient marketing. 

While we'd like to have our Guidelines published in a magazine
such as BT, this will not happen until the end of 1997 at the
earliest (1998 BJCP Guidelines). I'm not convinced this will
dramatically increase awareness, as Zymurgy still has the
largest circulation. Awareness of the Guidelines will come as
organizers use them and send them out to potential entrants.
It's just going to take time and the willingness of organizers
to make the extra effort.
I'd like to hear others' opinions on the competition section of
the BJCP web page. If you feel it needs improvement, let us 
know.
- -Tom

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

From: Jim Cave <cave at psc.org>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 14:53:40 -0700
Subject: Vancouver International Amateur Brewers Competition

Second notification  

    The Royal Canadian Malted Patrol will be hosting Vancouver
International Amateur Brewer's Competition on Saturday June 21st
1997.  The Competition will be held in conjunction with the
Vancouver International Micro Brewer's Festival.  Naturally, we
will be looking for qualified beer judges to sample and rate what
we hope will be a quality showing of beers!  This year we hope for
125-150 entries.  I would like to take this opportunity to invite
you to judge with us this year.  Judges will receive a compliment-
ary admission to the beer fesitival.  Please RSVP if you can
attend.  Ideally we would like 30 qualified judges to attend.
During the evening of June 21st, we will have a banquet at Sailor
Hagars Brew Pub, which the judges are most welcome to attend. 
Sailor Hagars has put on a couple of banquets for homebrewers in
Vancouver and the food and especially the beer has been most
excellent.  There is some limitation as to the number of Banquet
tickets so please RSVP as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. 
 

      Please arrive between 08:30-09:15.  Judging will begin at
09:30 Saturday June 21st at the beer festival site, the Plaza of
Nations, on Pacific Avenue, S.E. of B.C. Place Stadium, Vancouver
B.C.  Parking will be expensive, so Carpool-it if possible.

      We will have 10 categories: 1) American Ales 2) English Ales
3) Wheat and German Ales 4) Dark Beers (Porters, Stouts and Browns)
5) Light Lagers 6) Dark Lagers 7) Belgians 8) Strong Beers 9)
Specialty (Fruit, Smoked and cider) 10) Specialty (Spiced, Sake and
Meads).  Categories may be resorted if necessary.  If you would
like to enter beers, the closing for entries is June 14th and cost
is $5 and 2 bottles of beer!  Please mark entry with style/sub-
style (BJCP or AHA) as well as VIABC category.  Entries can be
delivered to Spagnols (1325 Derwent Way, New Westminster, B.C. V3M
5V9) and at other selected locations (we have a U.S. mailing site
this year).  Please call Russ Morris for details (604-526-2573,
SLIDES at UNIXG.UBC.CA) about entries and drop-off locations, or
myself Jim Cave, (days 604-684-8081, eves 987-8262, CAVE at PSC.ORG)
for judging arrangements.

                              Thank you!
                              
                              Jim Cave


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

From: David Brattstrom <davidb at cdepot.net>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 22:07:07 -0800
Subject: Fathers Day in Stockton CA

Call for a few more Judges to the San Joaquin County Fair in Stockton
California. This Sunday, June 15 at 10:30 the Brew Angles are hosting
the third San Joaquin County Home Brew Comp. If you would like to come
and judge contact Rick Stanton at 1-800 333-Brew.

Thanks David Brattstrom

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

End of judge-digest V1 #1454
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