Return-Path: judge-owner at synchro.com Received: from srvr20.engin.umich.edu (root at srvr20.engin.umich.edu [141.212.2.26]) by srvr5.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA15946 for ; Sat, 8 Aug 1998 02:30:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: from synchro.com (cccox.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.144.90]) by srvr20.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id CAA05484 for ; Sat, 8 Aug 1998 02:30:22 -0400 (EDT) From: "JudgeNet - the beer judge digest" To: "Digest Recipients" Reply-To: "JudgeNet - the beer judge digest" Subject: Digest for the period 8/7/98 - 8/8/98 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 02:04:04 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Hops: 1 Table of contents ------------------------------------------------------ Calibration Beers (Steve) Star San (Gordon Strong) Re: Calibration (John DeCarlo) Re: Digest for the period 8/6/98 - 8/7/98 (STEVEBRAU at aol.com) Re: Digest for the period 8/5/98 - 8/6/98 (STEVEBRAU at aol.com) Bottles at Competitions (David Sherfey) Calibrating (Kit Anderson) Calibrating for a specific style (George_De_Piro at berlex.com) digest format (Chuck Cox) Calibration beers (Bob McCracken) Wit Clarification, Chlorophenols, Calibration Beers (Gregory A. Lorton) Calibration Beers at Comps (Steven Wells) -------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:32:01 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Calibration Beers The recent thread on calibration beers has me thinking about our upcoming competition in October. Here in the Southeast (Tennessee in particular), we seem to be making progress on increasing our potential judging pool, but it is slow progress nonetheless. From my limited experience over the past 2 years, I have ended up being seated with 1 other judge, who may or may not be more experienced than I am, or possibly on occasion a third non-BJCP certified novice and/or apprentice judge. I like the idea of having a warm-up beer to evaluate and use as an educational tool and calibration tool before we jump right in at 9:00 am scoring someone's competition entry. I think in cases such as these, the order effect could really play a role in how all of the beers score during a flight. Regardless of whether a given calibration beer is skunked, oxidized, mishandled, too cold, too warm or whatever shape it is in, it still gives those people at each judging table an opportunity to talk about the flavors and aromas they are tasting/smelling as well as begin to feel out how they can set the "ground-rules" for discussing after scoring and alleviating huge score discrepancies...those intangible give-and- take situations we are sometimes faced with when judges don't agree within the point spread. There is the factor of the added cost to the hosting club if one is going to buy commercial beers for calibration. We tend to average around 150 entries for our regional competitions, so our budget is not that great. And finding commercial examples for some of the styles becomes a problem when you live in a state that has a 5% limit on alcohol content of malt beverages! At a recent competition in Birmingham this past spring, the host club used an Anchor Steam beer as a calibration beer for the whole judging group. We were all asked to score the beer independently only with the knowledge that it was a beer from the California Common style. The scores were then tallied and an average score was anounced to the group. I had scored the beer several points below the average, which reinforced my awareness that I tend to score low. But I'm not sure if it really helped me calibrate my palate with the other 2 judges at our table...we were judging meads and ciders that day! But I can see maybe using 6 to 12 different beers to maybe help groups of judges at different tables have a commercial beer that might be relatively close to the style they were judging that session. I'm open to some suggestions... Steve Johnson, President Music City Brewers Nashville, TN -------------------------------------------------------- From: Gordon Strong Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:51:42 -0400 Subject: Star San Greg Lorton asks: > Out of abject ignorance and humiliation... What is Star-San? He's a Japanese Special Prosecutor. :-) Sorry, just a little OD'd on the media hyperventilating... Star San (tm) is a no rinse sanitizer product made by Five Star, and meant as an alternative to iodophor. See the ad in this month's (jul/aug) BT, page 77. Gordon Strong Beavercreek, OH strongg at earthlink.net -------------------------------------------------------- From: John DeCarlo Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:06:26 -0400 Subject: Re: Calibration I like the idea of a good calibration beer. However, it seems to be very tough to achieve in real life. Each style would have to have one or more different commercial beers in real life. Here are some random thoughts on the issue: 1) I was one of the judges at lambics at an AHA National (Baltimore?) and the AHA provided a Liefman's gueuze. All of us looked at each other and laughed. I don't remember if we simply politely declined to drink it or drank some and pointed out how bad it was, as an example of what we were *not* looking for. 2) I helped with a judge class by discussing lambics. I spent roughly $80 on good commercial examples so the class would have at least one gueuze, old lambic, frambozen, and kriek. I didn't even provide a faro. Plus, I had two examples of some, so we could contrast a harder gueuze by Cantillon with a softer one. Impossible to do in a competition, but a very good thing to do for judge education. 3) I once had the commercial beer (does it still exist?) Wit! for a calibration of Belgian Wits. One judge thought it a good example. I politely (I hope) disagreed. It did at least serve the purpose of discussing the style ahead of time. John DeCarlo, The MITRE Corporation, My Views Are My Own email: jdecarlo at mitre.org voice: 703-883-7116 fax: 703-883-3383 -------------------------------------------------------- From: STEVEBRAU at aol.com Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 05:59:21 EDT Subject: Re: Digest for the period 8/6/98 - 8/7/98 In a message dated 8/7/98 5:41:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time, judge at synchro.com writes: << After all: competing pits your abilities to duplicate a style against others, usually using a commercial example as a yardstick. Part of the commercial example's appeal is always the presentation. If this weren't true, all bottles would be the same shape and color, and we would not have the plethora of beer glass styles out there. You'd be given generic beer in a generic bottle or in a generic glass. >> That is exactly what separates a home-brewed beer from a commercial example -- the presentation is no where near as important as the contents, and anyone that becomes enamored with a beer because of the fact that it comes in a pretty bottle with no regard to its real quality has fallen victim to mass marketing and cannot, in my estimation, be relied upon to judge a beer fairly. Look past the marketing ploys, and examine the beer as a standalone item... Cheers... Steve -------------------------------------------------------- From: STEVEBRAU at aol.com Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 05:49:30 EDT Subject: Re: Digest for the period 8/5/98 - 8/6/98 In a message dated 8/6/98 3:11:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time, judge at synchro.com writes: << Scott Bridewell says "just give me a glass of beer with an entry number," >> I agree totally with Scott... The color or shape of the bottle should not be a factor in judging its contents. Several times I have seen a judge suggest to the entrant that his beer would be better off if the fill level or bottle color were more to his (the judges') liking with no further justification. I have seen judge responses that state "would be better in a brown bottle Vs green," yet he could find no fault with the beer anywhere else on the score sheet that could be attributed to the color of the bottle. I feel now, as I have always felt, that we are supposed to judge the contents, not the container that it came in. I have judged with people that have remarked that "He didn't get all of the labile off -- he mustn't care about what he brews too much" when a minuscule portion of one corner of a label has remained on the bottle. Give it a rest, and judge the damned beer. Judging in some competitions has dragged out for far too long due to people being too anal about their capacities as judges, and their conceptions that what they say and write will change the course of the universe as we know it. Unfortunately, in some cases, the point in beer judging has been lost. As I understand it, the entrant pays his money to have his beer judged fairly and objectively as compared to a predetermined set of guidelines established by the competition that he entered, and the judge should do exactly that. Comments that do not affect scoring should be left off of the sheet -- ergo, the bottle inspection has no place on the score sheet, IMHO. Homebrewing is supposed to be a fun hobby - let's keep it that way... Steve Vallancourt, President Central Florida Home Brewers -------------------------------------------------------- From: David Sherfey Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 05:32:25 -0400 Subject: Bottles at Competitions As a competition entrant (paying customer) I would prefer to have my bottle in the hands of the judges who are judging it. Most judges, even if they don't know how to judge every style perfectly at least know how to pour beer. The same cannot be said for stewards, who many times don't even know how to carry a bottled beer to the table, let alone pour well. As a judge, I like to keep the bottle with remaining beer at the table for later tasting and discussion if necessary, and if we used pitchers, this would be unweildy! The double pour using pitchers would reduce the aromatics (as Spencer mentioned). Bottle "characteristics" should be included as part of basic training for judges. Judge bias and how to avoid it are perhaps other topics that judges need training for. Cheers! David Sherfey Warwick, NY -------------------------------------------------------- From: Kit Anderson Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:39:57 -0700 Subject: Calibrating Pat Babcock wrote; > On calibrating... > > Wow! It would be EXCELLENT, I think, if the first round of every flight > was a commercial example or accepted calibrator. And that brew should be > kept at table for comparison purposes. I like that idea! Could help > quell some of the "that judge didn't have a clue..." comments prevalent > in recent competitions. Wow. At least all the judges at table would be on > the same page. Excellent idea. The problem is the logistics involved. Imagine the poor organizer trying to track down one of each category. Some styles would be completely unobtainable. And some do not travel well. -- Kit Anderson Bath, Maine -------------------------------------------------------- From: George_De_Piro at berlex.com Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 12:48:45 -0700 Subject: Calibrating for a specific style Hi all, The talk about calibrating yourself on a commercial example of the style you are about to evaluate distresses me. The point of a calibration beer isn't to give you an education in beer styles two minutes before a contest. The purpose is to let you know if you are scoring much higher or lower than your peers when evaluating the SAME beer. If somebody is completely unfamiliar with a certain style, and they are given a commercial example to calibrate with, then they are likely to judge the entire flight against that one example. How absurd! That's like saying that an APA has to be a Sierra Nevada clone in order to score well! I find it distressing that there are judges that haven't had commercial examples of most every style. Sure, Koelsch and Altbier are hard to find, but as a beer geek you owe it to yourself to drink as many examples of different styles as you can find. Taking notes about them is a good idea, too. How else can you expect to be a competent judge? Perhaps too many homebrewers drink too much homebrew, and ignore the commercial stuff? That would be a bad thing. So get out there and study! It's tough work, but nobody said life is easy. Have fun! George De Piro (Nyack, NY) -------------------------------------------------------- From: Chuck Cox Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 12:25:09 -0400 Subject: digest format At this time, the details of the digest format, like the table of contents and headers, are not configurable. As I become more familiar with the details of the list management software, and as the software matures, I expect to be able to make some formatting changes. For now however, what you see is what you get. - Chuck Cox - SynchroSystems - -------------------------------------------------------- From: Bob McCracken Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 14:21:07 -0400 Subject: Calibration beers >>From: Spencer W Thomas Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 Charley Burns wants to calibrate on the style for the flight. Not a bad idea, but... To take an extreme example, suppose you're judging "Belgian Ales." Should you calibrate with a triple, a double, a wit, or maybe a lambic (assuming lambics have been collapsed with the other Belgians for the competition)? = Even "simple" styles such as "stout" are problematic in this respect -- is the calibrator a dry stout, an imperial stout, or something in between?<< We (the Oregon Brew Crew) regularly have correct to style calibration bee= rs for the many styles being judged. Most of them are slam dunks, but it hel= ps to have a couple of very good beer stores in town. Some are difficult, and Belgian and French Ales is one of the toughest, a= t the NHC, we had a Chimay Red - What style is *that* supposed to be judged= under? I think the table was split between calling it a triple and a stro= ng Belgian, with the triple winning. I scored it fairly low as a tripel. Stouts are fairly easy, find one of the three Dry Irish stouts and judge that. Yes there are many other kinds, but the point is to get the Judges palates somewhat in alignment, not entertain them :>. If nothing else, having beers to style to judge at the beginning of a contest puts the judges in a good mood >. Bob McCracken Portland, Or. 07-Aug-98 -------------------------------------------------------- From: Gregory A. Lorton Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 10:46:59 -0700 Subject: Wit Clarification, Chlorophenols, Calibration Beers About Wits Joanne Shortell wrote... Gregory A. Lorton recently posted the following in the context of judging Belgian Wits, a style with which he was not familiar: "But as a precursor to judging, why not get us started with an excellent example of what the style is SUPPOSED to taste, smell, look, feel like?" It wasn't me! Honest! I wasn't anywhere near there! I hava an alibi! You can't make it stick. I want a lawyer! (If there is a Beer Judge Certification Program, can the Beer Lawyer Certification Program be far behind?) Actually I think it was Charley Burns talking about judging Belgian Wits, responding to my earlier comments about not having had the opportunity to taste a Classic American Pilsener. I actually had a good bottle of Celis White when I was in San Antonio a few years ago. And I had a draught Hoegaarden three days ago at San Diego Brewing. (I've never been to Belgium, but am soliciting donations so I can strengthen my Belgian judging skills!) I like Wits, and they are a popular style to brew in this area. (BTW, Spencer, at the America's Finest City comp last March, we had 22 Belgian and French ales, and we needed two panels for it. Belgian beers are really popular here.) Joanne's point was very valid about having a flawed commercial example as a basis for a particular style though. I know a number of people who've told me that they thought all European pilseners were supposed to be skunky, because that's what all of the Heinekens they had tasted like. I haven't tasted a CAP, and brewing one isn't any absolute guarantee that my creation will be representative of the style. But hopefully it's better than nothing. About chlorophenols In a spate of sado-masochism, I dug up some of my old water treating text books to look into chlorine for disinfection and chlorophenols, and also looked into "Evaluating Beer". Here are a couple of relevant points. When Jeremy Bergsman tried spiking a Bud with diluted bleach at 1.5 ppm, he couldn't find any chlorophenolic character. It turns out that this level is not very much higher than the preferred level of chlorine in tap water. Water treatment regulations (in California, at least) require that there be a chlorine residual of at least 0.2 ppm. According to some older references (which I can provide to anyone interested), 0.2 to 1.0 ppm residual chlorine is desired level in tap water (to make sure you kill any E. coli, polio virus, Coxsackie, etc.) Some districts dose it even higher. Many people have difficulty perceiving chlorine in water at 1 ppm. I would guess with all of the other competing flavors in beer that it might be hard to pick up the chlorine. (Because of recent concerns about the formation of trihalomethanes (e.g., chloroform) and the bad health effects, the lower end of the range is now preferred.) A lot of chlorine has to be added to water in order to leave a certain residual. There are low levels of compounds in water that react with chlorine (such as amine compounds) that effectively take the chlorine out of action. There has to be enough chlorine added to account for these losses, and still have some left over (i.e., the residual) to provide the desired disinfecting action. Beer obviously has lots of organic compounds. Chlorine will react with proteins, amino acids, and polysaccharides (as well as phenols). In Jeremy's case, the chlorine may have been consumed by the nitrogen-based organics before they got to the phenols. Chlorophenols can also be perceived as plastic-like, medicinal, hospital disinfectant, as well as bleach. (Only one reference in "Evaluating Beer" references a bleach taste for chlorophenols (Ilse Shelton from Siebel), the others say plastic-like, medicinal, or hospital disinfectant.) George DePiro mentions a bleach-like taste, while for me it's reminiscent of hospital disinfectant. The taste threshold of chlorophenols is 1 to 3 ppb. Phenols are objectionable around 80 ppm (80,000 ppb). (your perceptions may vary!!!) About Calibration Beers Charley Burns mentioned the idea of using individual calibration beers for each judging panel. Jay Ankeney did this last September in the Pacific Brewers Cup in Souther California, and it seemed to be beneficial for me as a judge. It was good to have a baseline to judge from (flaws and all). On the other hand, I think that one of the benefits of using a single cailbration beer for all of the judges is to make the judges aware of their scoring tendencies (high or low scorers). At the America's Finest City comp. in March, we did this and read off the scores (pretty much anonymously). Using the old scoresheets, they ranged from 25 to 43 (big range) for a commercial Oktoberfest. This let the judges know what their scoring tendencies were. Now whether they used this or not... Greg Lorton Carlsbad, CA glorton at cts.com P.S. I second Dave Houseman's request to include e-mail addresses. -------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Wells Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 13:26:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Calibration Beers at Comps Calibration beers are, in my opinion, a means by which the judges at a session can learn each others idiosyncracies and to inform one another of strengths and weaknesses. It is more of a social thing than a teaching mechanism. When assigned to a panel, the judges *should* have an idea of what they are judging. That said, I have found that pre-lim sessions are ideal for education novice judges on styles and flaws. They lend themselves to a wide variety of beers and comments. I applaud those organizers that can let judges know ahead of time what categories they may be judging or that honor the judge's preferences. This is particularly helpful as I tend to purchase a variety of the styles I know I will be judging and freshen my memory with a short read while sampling them the week before competitions. If only homework was this enjoyable back in school.... Finally, most comps are run on a shoestring budget. The added expense of buying singles of each beer sub-style would break any club. -- Steve Wells -- Gold Country Brewers Association Return-Path: judge-owner at synchro.com Received: from srvr20.engin.umich.edu (root at srvr20.engin.umich.edu [141.212.2.26]) by srvr5.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA15946 for ; Sat, 8 Aug 1998 02:30:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: from synchro.com (cccox.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.144.90]) by srvr20.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id CAA05484 for ; Sat, 8 Aug 1998 02:30:22 -0400 (EDT) From: "JudgeNet - the beer judge digest" To: "Digest Recipients" Reply-To: "JudgeNet - the beer judge digest" Subject: Digest for the period 8/7/98 - 8/8/98 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 02:04:04 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Hops: 1 Table of contents ------------------------------------------------------ Calibration Beers (Steve) Star San (Gordon Strong) Re: Calibration (John DeCarlo) Re: Digest for the period 8/6/98 - 8/7/98 (STEVEBRAU at aol.com) Re: Digest for the period 8/5/98 - 8/6/98 (STEVEBRAU at aol.com) Bottles at Competitions (David Sherfey) Calibrating (Kit Anderson) Calibrating for a specific style (George_De_Piro at berlex.com) digest format (Chuck Cox) Calibration beers (Bob McCracken) Wit Clarification, Chlorophenols, Calibration Beers (Gregory A. Lorton) Calibration Beers at Comps (Steven Wells) -------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:32:01 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Calibration Beers The recent thread on calibration beers has me thinking about our upcoming competition in October. Here in the Southeast (Tennessee in particular), we seem to be making progress on increasing our potential judging pool, but it is slow progress nonetheless. From my limited experience over the past 2 years, I have ended up being seated with 1 other judge, who may or may not be more experienced than I am, or possibly on occasion a third non-BJCP certified novice and/or apprentice judge. I like the idea of having a warm-up beer to evaluate and use as an educational tool and calibration tool before we jump right in at 9:00 am scoring someone's competition entry. I think in cases such as these, the order effect could really play a role in how all of the beers score during a flight. Regardless of whether a given calibration beer is skunked, oxidized, mishandled, too cold, too warm or whatever shape it is in, it still gives those people at each judging table an opportunity to talk about the flavors and aromas they are tasting/smelling as well as begin to feel out how they can set the "ground-rules" for discussing after scoring and alleviating huge score discrepancies...those intangible give-and- take situations we are sometimes faced with when judges don't agree within the point spread. There is the factor of the added cost to the hosting club if one is going to buy commercial beers for calibration. We tend to average around 150 entries for our regional competitions, so our budget is not that great. And finding commercial examples for some of the styles becomes a problem when you live in a state that has a 5% limit on alcohol content of malt beverages! At a recent competition in Birmingham this past spring, the host club used an Anchor Steam beer as a calibration beer for the whole judging group. We were all asked to score the beer independently only with the knowledge that it was a beer from the California Common style. The scores were then tallied and an average score was anounced to the group. I had scored the beer several points below the average, which reinforced my awareness that I tend to score low. But I'm not sure if it really helped me calibrate my palate with the other 2 judges at our table...we were judging meads and ciders that day! But I can see maybe using 6 to 12 different beers to maybe help groups of judges at different tables have a commercial beer that might be relatively close to the style they were judging that session. I'm open to some suggestions... Steve Johnson, President Music City Brewers Nashville, TN -------------------------------------------------------- From: Gordon Strong Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:51:42 -0400 Subject: Star San Greg Lorton asks: > Out of abject ignorance and humiliation... What is Star-San? He's a Japanese Special Prosecutor. :-) Sorry, just a little OD'd on the media hyperventilating... Star San (tm) is a no rinse sanitizer product made by Five Star, and meant as an alternative to iodophor. See the ad in this month's (jul/aug) BT, page 77. Gordon Strong Beavercreek, OH strongg at earthlink.net -------------------------------------------------------- From: John DeCarlo Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:06:26 -0400 Subject: Re: Calibration I like the idea of a good calibration beer. However, it seems to be very tough to achieve in real life. Each style would have to have one or more different commercial beers in real life. Here are some random thoughts on the issue: 1) I was one of the judges at lambics at an AHA National (Baltimore?) and the AHA provided a Liefman's gueuze. All of us looked at each other and laughed. I don't remember if we simply politely declined to drink it or drank some and pointed out how bad it was, as an example of what we were *not* looking for. 2) I helped with a judge class by discussing lambics. I spent roughly $80 on good commercial examples so the class would have at least one gueuze, old lambic, frambozen, and kriek. I didn't even provide a faro. Plus, I had two examples of some, so we could contrast a harder gueuze by Cantillon with a softer one. Impossible to do in a competition, but a very good thing to do for judge education. 3) I once had the commercial beer (does it still exist?) Wit! for a calibration of Belgian Wits. One judge thought it a good example. I politely (I hope) disagreed. It did at least serve the purpose of discussing the style ahead of time. John DeCarlo, The MITRE Corporation, My Views Are My Own email: jdecarlo at mitre.org voice: 703-883-7116 fax: 703-883-3383 -------------------------------------------------------- From: STEVEBRAU at aol.com Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 05:59:21 EDT Subject: Re: Digest for the period 8/6/98 - 8/7/98 In a message dated 8/7/98 5:41:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time, judge at synchro.com writes: << After all: competing pits your abilities to duplicate a style against others, usually using a commercial example as a yardstick. Part of the commercial example's appeal is always the presentation. If this weren't true, all bottles would be the same shape and color, and we would not have the plethora of beer glass styles out there. You'd be given generic beer in a generic bottle or in a generic glass. >> That is exactly what separates a home-brewed beer from a commercial example -- the presentation is no where near as important as the contents, and anyone that becomes enamored with a beer because of the fact that it comes in a pretty bottle with no regard to its real quality has fallen victim to mass marketing and cannot, in my estimation, be relied upon to judge a beer fairly. Look past the marketing ploys, and examine the beer as a standalone item... Cheers... Steve -------------------------------------------------------- From: STEVEBRAU at aol.com Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 05:49:30 EDT Subject: Re: Digest for the period 8/5/98 - 8/6/98 In a message dated 8/6/98 3:11:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time, judge at synchro.com writes: << Scott Bridewell says "just give me a glass of beer with an entry number," >> I agree totally with Scott... The color or shape of the bottle should not be a factor in judging its contents. Several times I have seen a judge suggest to the entrant that his beer would be better off if the fill level or bottle color were more to his (the judges') liking with no further justification. I have seen judge responses that state "would be better in a brown bottle Vs green," yet he could find no fault with the beer anywhere else on the score sheet that could be attributed to the color of the bottle. I feel now, as I have always felt, that we are supposed to judge the contents, not the container that it came in. I have judged with people that have remarked that "He didn't get all of the labile off -- he mustn't care about what he brews too much" when a minuscule portion of one corner of a label has remained on the bottle. Give it a rest, and judge the damned beer. Judging in some competitions has dragged out for far too long due to people being too anal about their capacities as judges, and their conceptions that what they say and write will change the course of the universe as we know it. Unfortunately, in some cases, the point in beer judging has been lost. As I understand it, the entrant pays his money to have his beer judged fairly and objectively as compared to a predetermined set of guidelines established by the competition that he entered, and the judge should do exactly that. Comments that do not affect scoring should be left off of the sheet -- ergo, the bottle inspection has no place on the score sheet, IMHO. Homebrewing is supposed to be a fun hobby - let's keep it that way... Steve Vallancourt, President Central Florida Home Brewers -------------------------------------------------------- From: David Sherfey Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 05:32:25 -0400 Subject: Bottles at Competitions As a competition entrant (paying customer) I would prefer to have my bottle in the hands of the judges who are judging it. Most judges, even if they don't know how to judge every style perfectly at least know how to pour beer. The same cannot be said for stewards, who many times don't even know how to carry a bottled beer to the table, let alone pour well. As a judge, I like to keep the bottle with remaining beer at the table for later tasting and discussion if necessary, and if we used pitchers, this would be unweildy! The double pour using pitchers would reduce the aromatics (as Spencer mentioned). Bottle "characteristics" should be included as part of basic training for judges. Judge bias and how to avoid it are perhaps other topics that judges need training for. Cheers! David Sherfey Warwick, NY -------------------------------------------------------- From: Kit Anderson Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 08:39:57 -0700 Subject: Calibrating Pat Babcock wrote; > On calibrating... > > Wow! It would be EXCELLENT, I think, if the first round of every flight > was a commercial example or accepted calibrator. And that brew should be > kept at table for comparison purposes. I like that idea! Could help > quell some of the "that judge didn't have a clue..." comments prevalent > in recent competitions. Wow. At least all the judges at table would be on > the same page. Excellent idea. The problem is the logistics involved. Imagine the poor organizer trying to track down one of each category. Some styles would be completely unobtainable. And some do not travel well. -- Kit Anderson Bath, Maine -------------------------------------------------------- From: George_De_Piro at berlex.com Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 12:48:45 -0700 Subject: Calibrating for a specific style Hi all, The talk about calibrating yourself on a commercial example of the style you are about to evaluate distresses me. The point of a calibration beer isn't to give you an education in beer styles two minutes before a contest. The purpose is to let you know if you are scoring much higher or lower than your peers when evaluating the SAME beer. If somebody is completely unfamiliar with a certain style, and they are given a commercial example to calibrate with, then they are likely to judge the entire flight against that one example. How absurd! That's like saying that an APA has to be a Sierra Nevada clone in order to score well! I find it distressing that there are judges that haven't had commercial examples of most every style. Sure, Koelsch and Altbier are hard to find, but as a beer geek you owe it to yourself to drink as many examples of different styles as you can find. Taking notes about them is a good idea, too. How else can you expect to be a competent judge? Perhaps too many homebrewers drink too much homebrew, and ignore the commercial stuff? That would be a bad thing. So get out there and study! It's tough work, but nobody said life is easy. Have fun! George De Piro (Nyack, NY) -------------------------------------------------------- From: Chuck Cox Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 12:25:09 -0400 Subject: digest format At this time, the details of the digest format, like the table of contents and headers, are not configurable. As I become more familiar with the details of the list management software, and as the software matures, I expect to be able to make some formatting changes. For now however, what you see is what you get. - Chuck Cox - SynchroSystems - -------------------------------------------------------- From: Bob McCracken Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 14:21:07 -0400 Subject: Calibration beers >>From: Spencer W Thomas Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 Charley Burns wants to calibrate on the style for the flight. Not a bad idea, but... To take an extreme example, suppose you're judging "Belgian Ales." Should you calibrate with a triple, a double, a wit, or maybe a lambic (assuming lambics have been collapsed with the other Belgians for the competition)? = Even "simple" styles such as "stout" are problematic in this respect -- is the calibrator a dry stout, an imperial stout, or something in between?<< We (the Oregon Brew Crew) regularly have correct to style calibration bee= rs for the many styles being judged. Most of them are slam dunks, but it hel= ps to have a couple of very good beer stores in town. Some are difficult, and Belgian and French Ales is one of the toughest, a= t the NHC, we had a Chimay Red - What style is *that* supposed to be judged= under? I think the table was split between calling it a triple and a stro= ng Belgian, with the triple winning. I scored it fairly low as a tripel. Stouts are fairly easy, find one of the three Dry Irish stouts and judge that. Yes there are many other kinds, but the point is to get the Judges palates somewhat in alignment, not entertain them :>. If nothing else, having beers to style to judge at the beginning of a contest puts the judges in a good mood >. Bob McCracken Portland, Or. 07-Aug-98 -------------------------------------------------------- From: Gregory A. Lorton Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 10:46:59 -0700 Subject: Wit Clarification, Chlorophenols, Calibration Beers About Wits Joanne Shortell wrote... Gregory A. Lorton recently posted the following in the context of judging Belgian Wits, a style with which he was not familiar: "But as a precursor to judging, why not get us started with an excellent example of what the style is SUPPOSED to taste, smell, look, feel like?" It wasn't me! Honest! I wasn't anywhere near there! I hava an alibi! You can't make it stick. I want a lawyer! (If there is a Beer Judge Certification Program, can the Beer Lawyer Certification Program be far behind?) Actually I think it was Charley Burns talking about judging Belgian Wits, responding to my earlier comments about not having had the opportunity to taste a Classic American Pilsener. I actually had a good bottle of Celis White when I was in San Antonio a few years ago. And I had a draught Hoegaarden three days ago at San Diego Brewing. (I've never been to Belgium, but am soliciting donations so I can strengthen my Belgian judging skills!) I like Wits, and they are a popular style to brew in this area. (BTW, Spencer, at the America's Finest City comp last March, we had 22 Belgian and French ales, and we needed two panels for it. Belgian beers are really popular here.) Joanne's point was very valid about having a flawed commercial example as a basis for a particular style though. I know a number of people who've told me that they thought all European pilseners were supposed to be skunky, because that's what all of the Heinekens they had tasted like. I haven't tasted a CAP, and brewing one isn't any absolute guarantee that my creation will be representative of the style. But hopefully it's better than nothing. About chlorophenols In a spate of sado-masochism, I dug up some of my old water treating text books to look into chlorine for disinfection and chlorophenols, and also looked into "Evaluating Beer". Here are a couple of relevant points. When Jeremy Bergsman tried spiking a Bud with diluted bleach at 1.5 ppm, he couldn't find any chlorophenolic character. It turns out that this level is not very much higher than the preferred level of chlorine in tap water. Water treatment regulations (in California, at least) require that there be a chlorine residual of at least 0.2 ppm. According to some older references (which I can provide to anyone interested), 0.2 to 1.0 ppm residual chlorine is desired level in tap water (to make sure you kill any E. coli, polio virus, Coxsackie, etc.) Some districts dose it even higher. Many people have difficulty perceiving chlorine in water at 1 ppm. I would guess with all of the other competing flavors in beer that it might be hard to pick up the chlorine. (Because of recent concerns about the formation of trihalomethanes (e.g., chloroform) and the bad health effects, the lower end of the range is now preferred.) A lot of chlorine has to be added to water in order to leave a certain residual. There are low levels of compounds in water that react with chlorine (such as amine compounds) that effectively take the chlorine out of action. There has to be enough chlorine added to account for these losses, and still have some left over (i.e., the residual) to provide the desired disinfecting action. Beer obviously has lots of organic compounds. Chlorine will react with proteins, amino acids, and polysaccharides (as well as phenols). In Jeremy's case, the chlorine may have been consumed by the nitrogen-based organics before they got to the phenols. Chlorophenols can also be perceived as plastic-like, medicinal, hospital disinfectant, as well as bleach. (Only one reference in "Evaluating Beer" references a bleach taste for chlorophenols (Ilse Shelton from Siebel), the others say plastic-like, medicinal, or hospital disinfectant.) George DePiro mentions a bleach-like taste, while for me it's reminiscent of hospital disinfectant. The taste threshold of chlorophenols is 1 to 3 ppb. Phenols are objectionable around 80 ppm (80,000 ppb). (your perceptions may vary!!!) About Calibration Beers Charley Burns mentioned the idea of using individual calibration beers for each judging panel. Jay Ankeney did this last September in the Pacific Brewers Cup in Souther California, and it seemed to be beneficial for me as a judge. It was good to have a baseline to judge from (flaws and all). On the other hand, I think that one of the benefits of using a single cailbration beer for all of the judges is to make the judges aware of their scoring tendencies (high or low scorers). At the America's Finest City comp. in March, we did this and read off the scores (pretty much anonymously). Using the old scoresheets, they ranged from 25 to 43 (big range) for a commercial Oktoberfest. This let the judges know what their scoring tendencies were. Now whether they used this or not... Greg Lorton Carlsbad, CA glorton at cts.com P.S. I second Dave Houseman's request to include e-mail addresses. -------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Wells Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 13:26:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Calibration Beers at Comps Calibration beers are, in my opinion, a means by which the judges at a session can learn each others idiosyncracies and to inform one another of strengths and weaknesses. It is more of a social thing than a teaching mechanism. When assigned to a panel, the judges *should* have an idea of what they are judging. That said, I have found that pre-lim sessions are ideal for education novice judges on styles and flaws. They lend themselves to a wide variety of beers and comments. I applaud those organizers that can let judges know ahead of time what categories they may be judging or that honor the judge's preferences. This is particularly helpful as I tend to purchase a variety of the styles I know I will be judging and freshen my memory with a short read while sampling them the week before competitions. If only homework was this enjoyable back in school.... Finally, most comps are run on a shoestring budget. The added expense of buying singles of each beer sub-style would break any club. -- Steve Wells -- Gold Country Brewers Association