Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 00:01:03 -0400
Message-Id: <199807160401.AAA01048 at brew.oeonline.com>
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Subject: Beer Judge Digest #21 (July 16, 1998)


Beer Judge Digest #21		             Thu 16 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:
  Collapsing categories (Jeremy Bergsman)
  Winning recipes (Bill Giffin)


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


Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 08:59:35 -0700
From: Jeremy Bergsman <jeremybb at leland.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Collapsing categories

I have recently constructed a heiarchy for collapsing categories, but the

categories are only a subset of all the categories.  Here it is as an
excerpt from our entry information:

*********************************************************************
Subject to the number of entries, awards will be given to 1st, 2nd, and
3rd place in the following categories: European Lagers, American Ales,
Porters, Stouts, English Ales, English Brown Ales, Strong Ales, Bocks, 
and
Weizens. An additional award will be given for Best of Show. For the
purposes of awards, categories with over 20 entries may be divided and
categories with fewer than 5 entries may be combined with another
category. Division of categories will be done either by separating large
subcategories or according to the hierarchy below. No awards will be 
given
to beers that score below 21 (Fair or Problem beers). All first place
beers are eligible for Best of Show, which will be judged on Saturday,
August 8, at the Festival. 


BJCP subcategories that will be accepted in each of these categories are
listed hierarchically below the category names. Each entry must be in one

of the underlined subcategories (e.g. you would enter "Bohemian
Pilsener--2A", not just "pilsener" or "light European lager".). 


European Lagers
   Light
      Pilseners
         Bohemian Pilsener (2A)
         Northern German Pilsener (2B)
      Dortmunder Export (2D)
      Munich Helles (2E)
   Amber
      Oktoberfest/Mrzen (9A)
      Vienna (9B)
   Dark
      Munich Dunkel (12A)
      Continental Dark (12B)
      Schwarzbier (12C)
Bock
   Traditional Bock (13A)
   Helles/Maibock (13B)
   Doppelbock (13C)
   Eisbock (13D)
Weizen
   Weizen (16A)
   Dunkelweizen (16B)
   Weizenbock (16D)
American Ales
   Less Hoppy
      American Wheat (3B)
      Blonde Ale (3A)
   More Hoppy
      American Pale Ale (6B)
      American Brown (10D)
      American IPA (7*)
English Ales
   Ordinary Bitter (4A)
   Best/Special Bitter (4B)
   Strong/Extra Special Bitter (4C)
   English IPA (7*)
English Brown Ales
   Mild (10A)
   Southern Brown (10B)
   Northern Brown (10C)
Strong Ales
   Old Ale (11A)
   Strong Scotch Ale (11B)
   Russian Imperial Stout (11C)
   Barleywine (11D)
Porters
   Robust Porter (14A)
   Brown Porter (14B)
Stouts
   Dry
      Dry Stout (15A)
      Foreign Extra Stout (15D)
   Sweet
      Sweet Stout(15B)
      Oatmeal Stout(15C)
*********************************************************************

So depending on the number of entries, Bohemian Pilsener might be its own

category and have a ribbon awarded, or else if very few entries are
received, maybe all the "European lagers" might be grouped for award
purposes.  When I wrote this above:

> Division of categories will be done either by separating large > 
subcategories or according to the hierarchy below.

I mean that, for example, if the pilseners have a lot of entries but the
rest of the "European lagers" do not, the pilsener will be brought out on

its own but the rest of the heiarchy will remain.

This could easily be expanded to include the rest of the BJCP categories,

but there is a problem of philosophy.  You can see that I have reordered
some of the grouping done by the style committee, so obviously there is
some difference in how people see stylisitic similarity.
- -- 

Jeremy Bergsman
jeremybb at stanford.edu
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~jeremybb

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

Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 16:36:15 -0400
From: Bill Giffin <billg at ctel.net>
Subject: Winning recipes


Top of the morning to yea all,

Steve Stoud said:
"I am very doubtful that this is what Bill meant since there is nothing in the
Style _Guidelines_ that discusses the efficiency of brewing procedures.  It
would be impossible (and stupid) to try to police this anyhow."

I used a spreadsheet to evaluate the recipes of the past AHA NHC.  This
spreadsheet calculated efficiency, color, and ibu's.  If the expected
efficiency was very low then it was an indication that the recipe was not
in agreement with the OG.  One efficiency came out to be 110%, damn I wish
I could do that it would be a money machine, which is obvious that the
recipe isn't correct for the winning beer shown.  

I have sampled two of the winning beers in the NHC.  Both of these beers
were way over style the guidelines.  The first of these beers was a Scotch
ale that had been entered by mistake in the Scottish heavy category, with
an OG of 1.088.  It is obvious that the judges missed this beer, as it was
more then 50% out of style. The next was a dubbel that had an original
gravity of 1.080+ again way out of style.  If you really do a good job of
evaluating the winners of the AHA NHC you will see just how many of the
winning entries were out of style.

Dave Houseman said:
"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 thinks that experience in judging is very important.  Here's a
hypothetical question for Dave and the rest of you as well.  When should we
make a National judge that scored 87 on the exam and has  judged over 40
competitions a Master judge?  At 45 competition? At 60 competitions? Never?
 Must the National judge have to take the exam over for a few points or
have they demonstrated that they are in fact a Master judge that is only
given a National rating and should be raise in rank to a master?


Bill


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End of Beer Judge Digest #21, 07/16/98
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