Return-Path: judge-request at brew.oeonline.com Received: from srvr22.engin.umich.edu (root at srvr22.engin.umich.edu [141.212.2.35]) by srvr5.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA23141 for ; Sat, 18 Jul 1998 01:48:22 -0400 (EDT) Received: from stayhungry.rs.itd.umich.edu (stayhungry.rs.itd.umich.edu [141.211.83.42]) by srvr22.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA02510 for ; Sat, 18 Jul 1998 01:48:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from root at localhost) by stayhungry.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.8.5/2.5) with X.500 id BAA28200; Sat, 18 Jul 1998 01:48:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: from brew.oeonline.com (brew.oeonline.com [206.31.224.50]) by stayhungry.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.8.5/2.5) with ESMTP id BAA28195; Sat, 18 Jul 1998 01:48:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from root at localhost) by brew.oeonline.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id AAA04449 for realjudge; Sat, 18 Jul 1998 00:01:08 -0400 Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 00:01:08 -0400 Message-Id: <199807180401.AAA04449 at brew.oeonline.com> To: judge at hbd.org From: judge-request at hbd.org (Request Address Only - No Articles) Reply-to: judge at hbd.org (Posting Address Only - No Requests) Errors-to: judge-request at hbd.org Precedence: bulk Subject: Beer Judge Digest #23 (July 18, 1998) Beer Judge Digest #23 Sat 18 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: HBDPAE and IBU's (Louis Bonham) BJD v. JN? (Robert Paolino) advancing ranks, again.... (Robert Paolino) Re: Beer Judge Digest #22 (July 17, 1998) ("Michael L. Hall") Re: Beer Judge Digest #21 (July 16, 1998) (Al Korzonas) collapsing categories (Al Korzonas) Collapsing Styles (Lyle C. Brown) FW: New Judge Form ("Houseman, David L") Have you organized a competition lately? Send articles for __publication_only__ to judge at hbd.org (Articles are published in the order they are received.) If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!! To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE send an e-mail message with the word "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" to judge-request at hbd.org. **SUBSCRIBE AND UNSUBSCRIBE REQUESTS MUST BE SENT FROM THE E-MAIL **ACCOUNT YOU WISH TO HAVE SUBSCRIBED OR UNSUBSCRIBED!!! IF YOU HAVE SPAM-PROOFED your e-mail address, the autoresponder and the SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE commands will fail! YOU MUST BE A BEER JUDGE OR BE REFERRED BY ONE TO SUBSCRIBE!!! You MUST be a subscriber in order to post articles!!! Requests for back issues will be ignored. CUSTODIANS on duty: Pat Babcock and Karl Lutzen (custodian at hbd.org) "Not a publication of the BJCP" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 05:06:20 -0500 From: Louis Bonham Subject: HBDPAE and IBU's Hiya: George De Piro notes: > The answer is simple. IBU calculations are total BS. Whenever I have > used even the "generous" Rager formula to estimate hop IBU's, my beers > end up WAY over hopped. The results of the recent HBD pale ale > experiment have confirmed my suspicions. All of the participants > brewed the same recipe (with the same ingredients from the same > source), which calculated out to about 35-39 IBU's. The reality was > an average around 65 IBU's, with enough variation to make one scratch > their head in wonder. George has pretty much summarized the results (which will be appearing in great detail in a future issue of BT) of the lab testing we did a couple of weeks ago, but here is a little more of the data: Recipe data: 23 g 10.5% AA 75 min. 23 g 4.8% AA 30 min. 23 g 4.8% AA 15 min 23 g 4.8% AA 0 min. Batch size is 5 gallons, pellet hops, OG 1.054. Hops were taken from the same bags, weighed to the nearest 0.1 g, and sent to the brewers so that everyone was working with the same materials. Glen Tinseth's "online" calculator and TINIBU gives an estimated IBU level of 48. Mark Garetz reports that the "official" number from using his forumla is 41 (others using his formula report various figures in the mid 30's), but quickly adds that given that because the brewers in this experiment were typically more advanced, he would have increased the % utilization figures, yielding a figure of about 65 (I did not reveal the results of the experiment to him until after he gave me these numbers). Rager's formula (which Tinseth uses, albeit with different assumptions about utilization) cooks out at about 61. 34 beers were tested tested in duplicate on the same day, using the same equipment (standard ASBC isooctane extraction and A275 spectrophotometer reading), and retested if the duplicate tests varied by more than 10% from each other or the measured IBU's exceeded 72. (Yes, that was a ton of work! Try hand shaking 150 tubes for 15 minutes each sometime . . . .) Here's what we got: <50 IBU's 1 (low = 49.6) 50-56 5 56-60 3 60-64 11 64-68 6 68-72 3 72-76 3 76-92 0 >92 2 (high = 93.8) The median is score was 64, more or less. The two "off the chart" beers (which did taste overhopped, BTW) resulted, I suspect, from the brewers mistakenly adding some or all of their late hops at the beginning of the boil. Ergo, our results confirm what most of you already know . . . IBU "calculations" provide ballpark estimates at best. Once you have your personal utilization numbers (based on measurement of your actual IBU's *and* measurement of the actual AA% levels in the hops used), you can probably tweak one of the formulas to get pretty close. However, there are just too many variables in play for anyone to simply look a recipe specs and claim to have any realistic idea of what actual IBU levels are. Louis K. Bonham ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 06:57:03 -0500 (CDT) From: Robert Paolino Subject: BJD v. JN? > From: "Lutzen, Karl F." > Subject: FW: JudgeNet > > I just received this note from Chuck Cox. JudgeNet is now > back online. This brings us to a point that I knew would > occur someday: do we continue to run the BJD in parallel > to JudgeNet (with the inevitable cross-posting, and possible > confusion)? > > Anyway, I leave it to the subscribers to vote on their own > as to which way we go. Thanks are in order both to Chuck for having hosted the previous Judge Net and to Karl and Pat for stepping in when JN went out of service. And at some point something may go wrong that neither will be able to continue, and some other volunteer with the time and equipment will step forward. Free speech is a good thing, and the more the better, but in this case I have to wonder whether all we'll have is the _same_ speech "republished" in two lists. I personally don't want to subscribe to two lists simply to have to read through Bill Giffin's ;-) (or anyone else's) posts twice. If both lists are active, there will be _some_ people subscribed to or posting to only one list or the other, but do readers want to read 90+% duplication simply to find the few posts that are on one but not the other? Chuck is understandably concerned about not "wasting" his effort, but what about the wasted effort of hundreds of readers sifting through mostly duplicate posts so as not to miss the item posted only to one list during the long "evolutionary" process about which Chuck speculates?? Provided that there is no heavy-handed censorship on either list, I don't care whose computer delivers the judge posts. One thing I did notice about the later versions of the (then) Judge Net is that the summary listing of posts failed to show the authors as it had before. If the two parties agree that only one will distribute, and Chuck is the one who continues, I hope he will (has?) restored that feature. Now go have a beer, Bob Paolino rpaolino at earth.execpc.com Madison I can taste my beer. Can you? Bland Beer is the Worst Sort of Tyranny! Don't drink bland industrial swill; it only encourages them to make more. Great Taste of the Midwest tickets now on sale! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 07:15:58 -0500 (CDT) From: Robert Paolino Subject: advancing ranks, again.... The topic of what to do about experienced judges who are limited by their exam scores reemerges, with a remark about the judge with an 87 wanting to advance to "Master." In many employment situations, candidates are allowed to substitute experience for education. Why not do the same for judge ranks? No, people shouldn't be able to routinely advance to Master simply by a process of aging, but what if the trade between experience and exam score were progressively higher with the rank involved? It might require comparatively fewer additional experience points to graduate from recognised to certified than from national to master such that it is clear that the Master title is indeed earned. Maybe an "exam-limited" judge could go R-->C with 15 or 20 points instead of 5, but would require many times more additional points to go N-->M, and you might require more points to advance _two_ steps above exam score than you would require (for the same target rank) of someone jumping only one step DISCLAIMER: If it weren't for the fact that it's no big deal for me, I might be considered a self-interested party, as a "recognised forever" judge with well more than 50-60 experience points. I have no illusions about "master" status. And no one has ever told me I wasn't needed/welcome to judge or shouldn't be a lead judge or BOS judge because of my lowly rank. Rekax! It's not that important! Just judge beer and do it well, Now go have a beer, Bob Paolino rpaolino at earth.execpc.com Madison I can taste my beer. Can you? Bland Beer is the Worst Sort of Tyranny! Don't drink bland industrial swill; it only encourages them to make more. Great Taste of the Midwest tickets now on sale! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 09:07:39 -0600 From: "Michael L. Hall" Subject: Re: Beer Judge Digest #22 (July 17, 1998) Chuck Cox writes: > Please note that it is not my intention to be contentious with the new judge > digest. I had already made a significant investment in reviving JudgeNet > when the new digest was announced, and hate to see that effort wasted. > Perhaps the two digests can evolve to serve different needs. I am willing > to be quite flexible about the future of JudgeNet and welcome your > suggestions. Question for Chuck: Do we need to resubscribe to JudgeNet if we were on it before? Comment: I'm glad to see that Spencer Thomas is continuing to archive the new Beer Judge Digest along with the JudgeNet Digest, and that it's hooked into his tremendously useful search engine (you can find it from his page at http://realbeer.com/spencer/). Suggestion: I can think of two possible splits for the BJD/JudgeNet: 1. One would be "Officially BJCP", and one would be all- enclusive. 2. One would be high-traffic, unmoderated, and the other would be low-traffic and moderated. I prefer #2 myself. I don't care which digest evolves to serve which need. -Mike +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Michael L. Hall, Ph.D. | | President, Los Alamos Atom Mashers | | Member, AHA Board of Advisors | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 13:47:43 -0500 (CDT) From: Al Korzonas Subject: Re: Beer Judge Digest #21 (July 16, 1998) Bill writes: >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. No, it could mean that the brewer used the no-spage method of brewing or made this beer from the second runnings of a mash. I believe that Scott pointed that out, but you seemed to have ignored it. >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. Here you are right. I've also seen a recipe for a fruit beer that I awarded 1st place in the AHA nationals. It was a great fruit beer. The recipe called for something like 4 ounces of hops and I calculated that it would have a bitterness of approximately 50 IBUs. I pointed this out to Dena Nishek when she was still the editor of Zymurgy (this was pre-publication... I was a technical editor at the time) and she said that she asked the brewer if there was a mistake and they said no. So, were the brewers using 10-year-old hops? Did they forget to take them out of the plastic bag? Did they flat out lie? Frankly, we can't tell. The moral of the story should be: USE YOUR HEAD WHEN READING ANY PUBLISHED RECIPE AND DON'T EXPECT IT TO NECESSARILY MAKE THE SAME BEER FOR YOU! >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. There's little way to justify judges giving an award for a 1.088 Heavy (OG 1.040-1.050). They goofed. Perhaps it was the last beer, perhaps they were burned out, perhaps they had mustard and peppers for lunch... They goofed. However, I don't think many of us could taste a 1.080 or 1.082 Dubbel and confidently say that it was too big for the style (OG 1.060-1.070). Remember that a well-made 1.080 beer, fermented cool, can have low to moderate levels of higher alcohols (which are not out-of-style for Dubbels, incidentally) and therefore appear to be weaker than a 1.070 Dubbel fermented at 80F. Higher alcohols taste more "alcoholic" than ethanol. If you really want to, Bill, perhaps you should publicly ridicule the entrants who enter beers too big for style. Then again, all that will do is cause *more* people to fudge their recipes and make published recipes (which are sometimes made into books!) even more deceptive. Yes, Bill is right (in a way)... we *should* be vigilant of beers that are too big for style, but we cannot disqualify beers unless we are *absolutely* confident that they are too big or we will run the risk of taking a medal from a deserving entrant. Isn't that even worse than giving a ribbon to a too-big beer? Al. Al Korzonas, Palos Hills, IL korz at xnet.com http://www.brewinfo.com/brewinfo/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 16:13:44 -0500 (CDT) From: Al Korzonas Subject: collapsing categories Bill writes: >I have never understood why categories are collapsed except for judging >purposes. > >In New England we finally did away with collapsing categories for prize >purposes. If there is only one beer in a category and it scores 25 or more >it wins first place. Because if your competition only draws 75 entries and you want to give a first, second and third place ribbon in each category AND you have 25 categories, you'll have to charge $10 per entry to break even (don't forget that these fees also have to pay for scoresheets, cups, lunch for the judges, postage for sending scoresheets back, etc.). Al. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 20:14:40 -0400 From: beerking1 at juno.com (Lyle C. Brown) Subject: Collapsing Styles In BJD #22, Mike Kidulich writes about collapsing styles and BOS: "Mead and cider do not compete in our BOS round, and hence have a minimal impact on judging." I understand the competition wanting to exclude Mead and Cider from a beer BOS, and that is certainly the perogative of the organizers. My concern is when Meads and Ciders ARE included in BOS. I recently BOS judged in a large competition, which included Meads and Ciders. I myself like meads and ciders, although meads much more. I have no problems with them being in BOS. The problem I encountered was with comments made by another BOS judge. There was a FANTASTIC Cyser entered in the BOS, and this other judge commented he did not like the idea of giving a cider BOS in a homebrew competition. My concern is with the attitude of this judge. It is up to the organizers to decide to allow meads and ciders in BOS, therefore the possibility of one of them earning BOS, not the individual judges! I certainly agree with the Foriegn Stout that won BOS, but was concerned that a judge would just discount an entry solely due to its style. All entrants should be judged by and within style, regardless of an individuals preferences for style. If not, how can a Cream Ale or American Light Lager ever hope to do well? In the Southeastern Homebrewer of the Year BOS this year, the judges were virtually deadlocked between a Belgian Stong and a Cream Ale. (Lesson Learned: NEVER have an even number of BOS judges.) The Belgian Strong won, and Cream Ale may be one of my least favorite styles, but it was a near perfect Cream Ale. I submit that ALL entrants MUST be judged by style guidelines, as best determined by the judges, in ALL rounds! Lyle C. Brown _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 21:57:12 -0400 From: "Houseman, David L" Subject: FW: New Judge Form I received this note from Chuck and he asks that it be passed on. This forum seemed to be the best way to do that. Dave > ---------- > From: Chuck Cox[SMTP:chuck at synchro.com] > Sent: Thursday, July 16, 1998 9:10 AM > To: Houseman, David L > Subject: Re: New Judge Form > > After a prolonged absence due to a server failure and transition to a > new > operating system, the original JudgeNet is back online. > > JudgeNet is a public digest for the discussion of topics of interest > to > beer competition judges and organizers. JudgeNet is moderated by BJCP > master beer judge Chuck Cox and is sponsored by > SynchroSystems. > > To subscribe to JudgeNet, send a message to mailserver at synchro.com > containing: > > subscribe judge > > Please note that it is not my intention to be contentious with the new > judge digest. I had already made a significant investment in reviving > JudgeNet when the new digest was announced, and hate to see that > effort > wasted. Perhaps the two digests can evolve to serve different needs. > I am > willing to be quite flexible about the future of JudgeNet and welcome > your > suggestions. > > Please distribute this message to others who may be interested in > JudgeNet. > > > - Chuck Cox > - SynchroSystems > - > ------------------------------ End of Beer Judge Digest #23, 07/18/98 ************************************* -------