Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 00:01:05 -0400
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Subject: Beer Judge Digest #16 (July 10, 1998)


Beer Judge Digest #16		             Fri 10 July 1998


	FORUM ON BEER JUDGING AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Custodian: custodian at hbd.org
		Many thanks to the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers of 
		Livonia, Michigan for sponsoring the Beer Judge Digest.
				URL: http://www.oeonline.com


Contents:
  Out of Style Beers Doing Well in Competition (DENNIS WALTMAN)
  Re: Doctoring beer (Jeremy Bergsman)
  Judge Style Certification/Judging a Style ("John R. Weerts")
  Re: Master Judges, Their responsibility? ("Houseman, David L")
  Style certification ("Houseman, David L")
  Style vs Category ("Houseman, David L")
  Re:  New Scoresheets ("Houseman, David L")
  Constructive feedback and what is obvious / chlorophenols (George_De_Piro)
  Re: Styles vs Categories; Belgian Specialties; High OGs ("Gregory A. Lorton")
  Re: Master Judges, Their responsibility? (Dion Hollenbeck)


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Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 10:31:35 -0400
From: DENNIS WALTMAN <PDWALTMAN at sablaw.com>
Subject: Out of Style Beers Doing Well in Competition

Bill Giffen wrote:

""At a resent competition with a master judge on the panel the beer
that was given the BOS was not to style.  The determination that the
beer was not to style was made after the competition by a couple of
senior judges who were not under the pressure of choosing the winning
beer.""

I guess I'm curious about what beer these other judges got.  Was it
the leavings in the bottle that the BOS panel judged? If so, how long
after the BOS competition?  Or was it a completely different bottle of
beer?  My experience doing BOS is only one episode, and the beer was
different from the first tasting, vs the last 4 beers to decide
between.  And I'm sure we all have seen different beers from the same
batch in different bottles.  Perhaps the differences were glaring, it
didn't seem clear from the discription.


""Where can we place some of the responsibility on the master judge to
prevent this from happening when they are in charge of many of the
panels?""

What does "in charge of the panels" mean?  Is it that the master judge
decides and the others are just advisors?  I've never seen that
before, and I think scores have always decided the winners of a flight
where I have been (and a mini-BOS the category when needed), with a
range of 7 points allowed in the scores given.

""It seems that no matter the rank of the judge when judging a flight
of beers which for the most part is mediocre; when we get a pleasant
drinkable beer that is somewhere in the color range and we give it the
first place, even though it might not be to style.  How do we prevent
this out of style beer from winning?""

I suppose it depends on how mediocre the flight is.  It could be that
a beer that is out of style has fewer flaws within the category than
the other beers, and drinkability is a factor that has nothing to do
with the style that a beer might get enough points to bypass the
others.  As long as beers are judged by a combinations of point
category scores, I think you would never get away from the chance of
this happenning.  Out-of-style covers a wide area.  Is it a little
out-of-style, or a lot.  A porter in the pilsner category?  Or a
special bitter entered as an ordinary?

""We have discussed style certification that would help improve the
judging by making the judges more aware of the styles and yes master
and national judges need this training as well as the rank apprentice.
""

I can see in theory that certification by style is a good thing, but
in an area where competitions are having trouble getting even BJCP
judges of any kind, I don't know how reasonable it is to believe that
an organizer could actually get style certified judges in categories
they are certified in.  It is a noteworthy goal though.

""This determines that the master judge can
evaluate up to 12 different styles in the same manner as the
proctor.""

I suspect beer examiners use some of the same styles each time.  At
least people I have talked to who have taken the exam seem to have two
of the same styles that I did when I took mine.


""The AHA NHC is the only competition where we can all get some idea
what the winning beer was like through the recipe. Yet if you evaluate
the winning recipes you will see that the majority of the winning
recipes were out of style.  Many of them exceeded the original gravity
for the style, while
many were over hopped, and finally a goodly number of the winning
beers used inappropriate ingredients.""

There is a lot that doesn't get revealed in a recipe, like all the
comedy of errors that may have resulted.  Not all include all the
sparge and boil information, or that information is not recorded at
the time of brew and thus "remembered."  If I only got 30% efficiency
on a recipe (common for a 2nd runnings beer) or 50% on a first
runnings beer, the grain on an all-grain recipe would look way out of
wack.  Also from the recipe you don't know the age of the hops.  and
there are other factors that can come into play.  As for inappropriate
ingrediants, I guess I can't imagine was is the meaning here.  If I
make a Pilsner which uses 50% Flaked oats (I have a brother who makes
a fine clear oatmeal pilsner) and it meets are the perceptions that it
is a pilsner, why are the ingrediants inappropriate?   If in using
grains of paradise in my Wit and I seem to get the right effect it
shouldn't matter.  The improper ingrediant mode seems like beer
snobbery to me.  If the resultant beer meets the style guidelines,
then that should be enough.

""To improve judging we need style certification and judge evaluation.
 The master judges who passed the exam the first time out are suspect
as they have only demonstrated that they could judge just 4 styles of
over 75.""

And they are supposed to have a lot of experience judging beers in
general.

Dennis Waltman
Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, LLP


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

Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 07:43:18 -0700
From: Jeremy Bergsman <jeremybb at leland.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Re: Doctoring beer

"Bryan L. Gros" <gros at bigfoot.com> wrote:

> Jeremy wrote, regarding doctoring Coors Light:
> >Skunking You'll just have to experiment as I don't have a calibrated  
> >light source
> >Lactic Acid .088% (i.e. 1/1000 of the 88% you normally buy)
> >Acetic Acid .07% (*Most* store-bought distilled white vinegar is 5%)
> >Yeasty 1.5% yeast slurry
> 
> I assume these percentages (and the others given) are percent
> by volume?

Yes, the pph (%), ppm, and ppb are by volume.  Actually I guess the
acids you quote are probably by weight since I believe that is what the
88% and the 5% mean.  In any case I dilute the lactic acid 1 to 1000 and
the acetic almost 1 to 100, both by volume.  The only ones that are
purely w/v are the ones indicated in g/L.  Hint: for these dilutions it
is handy to think of the bottle volume in metric, and I often pretend
they are 1/3 of a liter.

Note that you need to bone up on your homeopathy (i.e. lots of
dilutions) unless you have access to accurate microliter pippetting
devices.

> As for skunking, I once left Newcastle Brown on the kitchen window
> sill for three days to induce skunkiness.  I was more than successful.

Yes, I should have given some guidelines.  Full sun for one day is
usually good for megabrew in clear bottles (but don't use Miller!). 
Hoppier brews need less time even if they're in green bottles, but those
in brown bottles seem to need more, but I haven't tested this
thoroughly.

More general advice if you are going to do this: when you know what's in
the beer and you have smelled it in its pure (and strong!) form it is
much easier to taste it in its doctored form.  So if you are being smart
and testing your doses before giving them to others, keep this factor in
mind and make it more obvious than it seems to need to be.  On the other
hand make sure you are not habituating to the compound during successive
tastes in the dose-finding experiments.

Some of these compounds are a little dangerous but my biggest caution
would be DMS.  Don't try to use pure DMS without access to a laboratory
fume hood.  I use a fume hood with a face velocity of 260 feet/min and
opening the bottle of DMS still stinks up the room to the point where
people are annoyed by it.  If you do use it have the bottle and the
pipette cold to minimize evaporation.  You also must work fast as the
evaporation inside the pipette will drive the DMS out of the pipette.

I seem to have left a few off the list.  One is EtOH.  At 10% I cannot
taste it, nor can the few others on whom I have tried it.  (Note that
the control should have an equivalent amount of water added to account
for the large dilution.)  This is an indication that when a beer seems
"alcoholic" what one is really tasting is the higher alcohols that go
along with the EtOH.

One last suggestion: buy the 12 pack to be doctored well in advance and
taste one to make sure it is clean and in good condition.  Megabrew
usually is.
- -- 
Jeremy Bergsman
jeremybb at leland.stanford.edu
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~jeremybb


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

Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 11:50:18 -0500
From: "John R. Weerts" <jweerts at kcbiermeisters.org>
Subject: Judge Style Certification/Judging a Style

Bill Giffin writes:

	"To improve judging we need style certification and judge evaluation.  The
master judges who passed the exam the first time out are suspect as they
have only demonstrated that they could judge just 4 styles of over 75."

I agree more with the need for judge evaluation then the style
certification. Judge evaluation while being a pain would help to ensure the
judges stay focused on the process of judging. In recent competitions that I
have entered, I have received score sheets back that provided little to no
feedback. Perhaps start with some of the largest Regional HBC and request
that they send in a copy of score sheets for review. This would provide a
real life situation in the judges abilities. The names of the brewers would
remain unknown, this process is part of the judge evaluation only. We
basically perform this task here in KC after the two major competitions we
host. We take the knowledge we gain to help distribute the judging strength
for the next event. Style certification is a wonderful dream, but let's face
reality, there are too many competitions and not enough judges with the
drive to be certified in style groups. In the Bier Meisters RHBC we have the
possibility of judging every sub-category as a separate category, if enough
people enter in each. It would be impossible to get enough "Certified for
Style" to handle this, or even more if and when we have throw groups
together to make a new category.  We have a great judge pool to work with in
this area, but I doubt many would strive to be certified in a style.  Again,
judge evaluation seems a more effective way to determine the skills of
judges.

Bill also wrote:

"At a resent competition with a master judge on the panel the beer that was
given the BOS was not to style.  The determination that the beer was not to
style was made after the competition by a couple of senior judges who were
not under the pressure of choosing the winning beer."

Was the beer judge based on the guidelines provided? The biggest problem I
see is that the judges completely ignore the style guidelines provided to
them. This is a concern to me because competitions send out the style
definitions to the perspective entrants and tell them to enter based on the
guidelines given. The beers entered are said to meet these guidelines. What
I see is a lot of judges taking the attitude that "I know what this style is
to be like.", and throw out the guidelines provided. Once a competition
publishes the rules and styles the judges should follow them. I know this
kind of  philosophy is against the purist dream of utopia beer society, but
why punish the entrant for entering a Stout in the Am. Light Lager, if that
was the description provided in the competition mailer. Judges may know
best, but that doesn't mean their right.

In Brewing,

John R. Weerts


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

Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 13:01:06 -0400 
From: "Houseman, David L" <David.Houseman at unisys.com>
Subject: Re: Master Judges, Their responsibility?

Not knowing the circumstances of the BOS round, it's had to say that a
beer that is "not to style" should not be the BOS winner.  It all
depends on what the other beers were.  If it was the Best of the beers
presented, then it should win, somewhat independent of whether it has
some characteristic that takes it out of style.   And just what makes a
beer "not to style?"  Yes, there are some faults or characteristics that
very clearly take a beer out of style.  But some faults may exist and
the beer still be to style even though the commercial examples don't
exhibit the fault.  If all the other beers presented were also not to
style or worse examples than the BOS winner, that that's the luck of the
drawn on that given day.   It would be great if all the 1st place
winners were 45+ beers but often that's not the case.  Each competition
sets the rules for what goes to BOS or wins a first place.  

I also don't believe that one can look at a recipe and determine whether
a beer is in or out of style.  Too much hops? or too much malt to yield
too high OG in the recipe?  What if the brewers' system has a different
hop utilization or mash efficiency?  It's the results that are
important, not how the brewer got there.  Banana extract in a weizen
wouldn't be my idea of how to get that ester into a weizen but someone
pulls it off and I can't taste the difference, so be it.  

To be a master judge it's not just which beers we've judged on the exam
that counts.  Having judged in 50+ competitions represents tasting MANY
homebrews; I feel I've judged quite a bit more than 4-12.  And that's
not to mention that most people who stick to brewing and judging long
enough to make master have probably sampled many, many commercial
examples as well.  

There's no guarentee that any given judge, master or not, is really any
good, but my money is on those that have the experience and being a
master is at least one badge of experience.

Dave Houseman


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

Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 14:28:02 -0400 
From: "Houseman, David L" <David.Houseman at unisys.com>
Subject: Style certification

Bruce again suggests style certification.  There's not much argument
that it would be a good idea, but the issue is "how?"  The idea of style
certification was beat around for on JudgNet and a way to actually
certify a level of competence in a given style with the BJCP resources
available was never found.  Is there some form of "self-cerification"
that can be established by the judge having read specific books, tasted
a specific list of commercial examples and perhaps having judged in
specific style categories in some number of competitions?  It might
require that the competition organizer report indicate the style
categories judged by each judge but other than that, until a set of
style specific exams could be created, there would have to be an honor
system for the other criteria.  What the BJCP should really be
addressing is a program of continuing education for judges, in whatever
form.  

Dave Houseman  


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

Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 14:39:47 -0400 
From: "Houseman, David L" <David.Houseman at unisys.com>
Subject: Style vs Category

Competitions have always had the option of collapsing or creating their
own categories of styles but many (most?) tend to go along with the
basic list of style categories provided by either the AHA or BJCP style
guides.  It seems to me that we should try to cover with categories,
even if as stated, they aren't styles, the popular beers brewed and
entered into competitions.  As a member of the BJCP style guide
committee, I'm in favor of adding the Speciality and Experimental Beer
as a category.  Other changes worth considering is providing for
"classic style" under fruit, spice and herb as well.  Personally, I feel
that "raspberry beer" is really too open to judge other than the
presence and degree of fruit aroma and flavor, overall balance and
whether the fruit was compatible with the base beer.  Having "raspberry
american wheat" adds more specificity that helps to define the beer.  

Additionally, I'll go out on a limb and advocate that the categories
(name and numbering) for the BJCP and the AHA be one and the same.
Also, the specs (OG, FG, IBU, SRM, %alc/v/w) should be one and the same
for the BJCP and AHA style guides.  With these done, it leaves the
brewers and the judges with one set of specs to brew and judge to and it
will make competition organizers and entrants jobs much easier to ensure
that beers are entered into the correct category/subcategory.   It also
leaves open to each organization the ability to create our own style
guides in the prose that they use to describe the styles.

Dave Houseman


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

Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 14:47:00 -0400 
From: "Houseman, David L" <David.Houseman at unisys.com>
Subject: Re:  New Scoresheets

Whenever the range of scores for any judging (beer or other) isn't
sufficiently broad to cover the range of variables, then judges resort
to using half points or decimals.  I personally liked a suggestion made
recently by someone on BJD that we use the intuitive 100 point scale.
That could be as simple as multiplying the numbers for each category by
2.  That then gives a broader range available for each category, and it
would make the resulting score more intuitive to the entrants; most of
us grew up being graded on a 100 point scale.  90-100 would be
outstanding/world class beers.  80-89 would be very good beers, etc or
something similar.  

Dave Houseman 


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

Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 13:33:08 -0700
From: George_De_Piro at berlex.com
Subject: Constructive feedback and what is obvious / chlorophenols

     Hi all,
     
     I just received an E-mail from somebody about a matter unrelated to 
     complaining about poor feedback on scoresheets.  Within this letter he 
     wrote:
     
     "...after reading the beer judges' comments to my recent submissions 
     to the Buzz Off homebrew contest it is a little more than academic 
     (one of the comments was "obvious infection" but to my palate it 
     wasn't obvious; I apparently need training!)."
     
     I read this and got a bit miffed.  Writing something like, "obvious 
     infection" is pretty rude, and perhaps inaccurate, too.  This guy 
     entered his beer because he wanted useful feedback.  What he received 
     was a sheet telling him that he wasted his money because any schmo 
     should be able to see that the beer was infected.  If we are going to 
     promote homebrewing and beer competitions, we must all be sensitive to 
     what we write.
     
     As far as the accuracy of diagnosing a beer, how many of us would back 
     our scoresheet comments with money?  I try to be quite careful about 
     what I write on scoresheets; getting too specific in your diagnosis 
     will often make you look foolish.  If you are judging Classic American 
     Pilsners and come across one with some veggie notes, would you be so 
     sure of yourself as to write, "obviously infected?"
     
     I can think of several other reasons for veggie notes in a hoppy beer 
     that are unrelated to fermentation flaws.  A really knowledgeable 
     evaluator will know that, and be reluctant to write comments that 
     assign flavors to very specific causes.
     
     The example of the veggie CAP is a real one; a master judge wrote that 
     my CAP was infected at a contest back in February.  Being the brewer, 
     I know it wasn't (and the beer went on to be scored in the mid-high 
     30's in later contests - I love redemption!).   It was way over-hopped 
     and quite young, though.  Very high hop levels can impart vegetable 
     notes, and even confuse the senses.
     
     We should all strive to give constructive, useful feedback.  That 
     means being polite and not being so arrogant as to think you can give 
     pinpoint diagnosis of a problem without talking with the brewer.  Good 
     feedback = happy homebrewers.  That's always a good thing.
     -----------------------------------
     On a similar note, several of my friends and I were made to look 
     somewhat foolish at a homebrew club meeting last light.  A friend 
     brought in his beer for us to taste.  We all agreed it was phenolic, 
     and I and one other person (who has also been through Siebel's taste 
     training) both said, "It's chlorophenolic.  Just like the beer spiked 
     with ortho-chloro-phenol." (it smelled like a swimming pool, and 
     tasted quite astringent and bleach-like)
     
     He asked how that could get in his beer, and we agreed that 
     chlorinated water or not properly rinsing bleach off equipment could 
     be the culprit.  He then told us that he uses only distilled water 
     (that he adds salts to) and uses Star-San.  Oops.
     
     My question:  I know that the beer smelled like a medicinal swimming 
     pool.  Nobody else (including the brewer) disagreed.  Where did it 
     come from, though?  How else could a beer pick up such a strong 
     medicinal/chlorine scent?  Can non-chlorinated phenols smell like 
     chlorine?
     
     Have fun!
     
     George De Piro  (Nyack, NY)


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

Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 14:47:38 -0700
From: "Gregory A. Lorton" <glorton at cts.com>
Subject: Re: Styles vs Categories; Belgian Specialties; High OGs

Brad Reeg and Russ Wigglesworth have been discussing (from my perception)
the value of having a comprehensive set of BJCP style guidelines, a way of
compartmentalizing all potential entries in a contest.  Brad seems to be
looking for it, and Russ says that the organizers need the freedom and
flexibility to use whatever styles or categories they like.  They shouldn't
be locked into using BJCP (or AHA) style guidelines.

While I agree in concept with Russ' point that the BJCP guidelines
shouldn't be the "sole format for determining categories for competitions",
there are many cases where competition organizers would like that sole
format.  While creativity is appreciated and to be valued, coming up with a
special set of categories requires careful planning and consideration
months in advance of the competition.  If you're going to include some
unusual category, you need to give brewers enough time to brew it.  While
it may be easy for a competition focusing on unusual styles or categories
to develop a special set of categories, for the "general purpose"
competition, it's a lot easier to say, "We'll be using the 1998 BJCP (or
AHA) Style Guidelines."

Also, if you're coming up with a special set of categories or styles for
judging, the competition costs are bound to increase in order to print,
copy, and mail the special set of style guidelines.  Having a competition
web page alleviates this somewhat, but doesn't help the brewer without
access to the internet.  The nice thing about the AHA guidelines is that
they do show up in a widely available printed format (Zymurgy).

With those considerations in mind, and as a prospective organizer of a big
contest next March, I'm inclined to go with a standard set of guidelines. 
Coming up with special categories or styles can be fun, but with the myriad
of other things to plan for and worry about, relying on a single set of
widely accepted and accessible guidelines is very helpful.  (It would be
convenient of the BJCP guidelines included the Specialty category.)

*****
IMHO, the Belgian specialty (18F) category looks like a bit of a challenge
for many competition organizers and judge coordinators.  It won't be easy
to find judges who have first hand experiences with many of the beers
quoted (e.g., Kasteel Beer, DeDolle's Oerbier, Stille Nacht).  Although I
really like Belgian styles (and seek them out), I've only had a handful of
the more esoteric styles, and I'm not sure that the bottles I had were in
the best condition.  (I'm not counting readily available commercial beers
here in San Diego, such as many lambics, Chimay, Orval, Grimbergen,
Corsendock, Duvel, Bornem, Rodenbach, etc.)

It's seems to me that (1) prospective judges for category 18F must have an
indelible memory of all potential Belgian specialty beer styles, (2) a
summary table should be prepared (wading through Michael Jackson's book on
Belgian beers may not work if you're pressed for time in the heat of
judging), (3) the entrants must provide the description of the commercial
equivalent with the entries, or (4) call the judges in advance to let them
know what commercial equivalent to be ready for.  (I've judged at a couple
of contests where the judging assignments are made the day of the
competition!)

This doesn't seem insurmountable, but I think it needs forethought on the
part of competition organizers.

*****
Bill Giffin commented that many of the beers that win in the AHA NHC
exceeded the original gravity of the styles that they were supposed to
emulate.  I guess as a homebrewer that enters competitions I've been
conditioned to do this.  And it is certainly no secret among other
homebrewers that enter contests that I've talked to.  I haven't done a
rigorous statistical analysis to support this, but my observations are that
if I aim for the high end of the OG range, I'll do better in a contest than
if I hit in the middle or the low range.  Numerous times I've gotten
comments such as "could have won as a foreign stout" for an imperial stout
(even though with an OG of 1.080).  It's also been my observation that
strong beers win Best of Shows a disproportionately high percentage of the
contests.

*****
Finally, as a clarification, I once again looked at my wife's score sheet
for her tripel from a contest several months ago.  She got a 23 and the
comments were "phenolic" under both aroma (2 points out of 10) and flavor
(not "too phenolic" as I said earlier in BJD #11).  She had gotten a score
of 35 (and a blue ribbon) with the same beer at the Queen of Beer a few
months earlier.  (Admittedly, it's got to be the right kind of phenols (and
esters), but then I'm trying to find a way to dice up bananas and cloves to
make my tripels even more so. B-) )

Greg Lorton
Carlsbad, CA
(I guess I like to hear myself type!)


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

Date: 09 Jul 1998 15:46:19 -0700
From: Dion Hollenbeck <hollen at woodsprite.com>
Subject: Re: Master Judges, Their responsibility?

>> Bill Giffin writes:

BG> First, how do we prevent inappropriate entries in a category
BG> winning its category and second how do we prevent this same beer
BG> becoming the BOS winner?

[...snip...]

BG> It seems that no matter the rank of the judge when judging a
BG> flight of beers which for the most part is mediocre; when we get a
BG> pleasant drinkable beer that is somewhere in the color range and
BG> we give it the first place, even though it might not be to style.
BG> How do we prevent this out of style beer from winning?

At our competitions, we require 25pts for a third place, 30 for second
and 35 for first.  We do not reward mediocrity, even if it is the
highest scoring beer in a category.  This part is up to the organizers
to mandate.

As far as the judge's role, a judge judging a mediocre beer should not
give it a score that would place it, given that the organizers
mandated minimum scores.

Both parts need doing.

dion

- -- 
Dion Hollenbeck                  Email: hollen at woodsprite.com
Home Page:  http://woodsprite.com/hollen.html
Brewing Page:  http://hdb.org/hollen


------------------------------
End of Beer Judge Digest #16, 07/10/98
*************************************
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