Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 18:45:52 -0500
Message-Id: <199801142345.SAA04409 at synchro.com>
From: owner-judge-digest at synchro.com
To: judge-digest at synchro.com
Subject:   judge-digest V1 #1526
Reply-To: judge at synchro.com
Errors-To: owner-judge-digest at synchro.com
Precedence: bulk


judge-digest             Wednesday, 14 January 1998     Volume 01 : Number 1526

 ============================================================================
       J u d g e N e t   -   t h e   b e e r   j u d g e   d i g e s t
 ============================================================================

 Moderator:        Chuck Cox          <chuck at synchro.com>
 Archivist:        Spencer Thomas     <spencer at umich.edu>
 Publisher:        SynchroSystems     <info at synchro.com>

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

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

 Re: Club Only Competitions
 Re: Club-Only Competitions
 judging IPA
 Re: AHA Sanctioning
 AHA Club Onlys

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

From: "Houseman, David L" <David.Houseman at unisys.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 20:01:18 -0500
Subject: Re: Club Only Competitions

Kelly says:
"I entered a beer in the "Weiss is Nice" club-only comp back in
October...  I have yet to receive any score sheets from this
competition, nor have I seen the results posted here or anywhere."

Seems to me that this issue needs to be taken up with the club that held
the competition, not the AHA.  While the AHA sanctions and sponsors
competitions, other than the National Homebrew Competition, these
competitions are run and managed by a local club or organization that
gets the sanctioning and sponsorship.  While we've made every attempt to
set up processes to get score sheets in the mail within a week or less,
most competitions are run by volunteers who spend a lot of time getting
it set up and then take time for a personal life afterward.  Certainly
October to now is inexcuseable and very out of the ordinary for most
competitions.  Contact the people you sent your beer to and see if there
was a problem losing your address or something.  These things happen.

Dave Houseman


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

From: Malty Dog <MaltyDog at aol.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 08:56:41 EST
Subject: Re: Club-Only Competitions

Kelly Jones writes, in Judge Digest #1525

<< I entered a beer in the "Weiss is Nice" club-only comp back in
 October...  I have yet to receive any score sheets from this
 competition, nor have I seen the results posted here or anywhere. >>

I had the same experience in a Belgian club-only competition a year ago. Our
club went through the effort of choosing a entry, mine won, it was sent to the
competition, and here we are, a year later, and I haven't received my sheets
back
yet. I have not plans on wasting bottles on these things again.

Bill Coleman
Malted Barley Appreciation Society
MaltyDog at aol.com

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

From: "Bryan L. Gros" <gros at bigfoot.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 10:17:10 -0800
Subject: judging IPA

I'm the organizer of the National Bay Area Brew Off this year,
scheduled for Feb. 7.  I've received a couple of questions so far
about IPA entries.  I want to get some opinions from judgenet.

First of all, I split up the styles we're accepting into eight 
categories, and I called one category American Ales (includes
e.g. APA, AAA, Amer. Wheat) and one English Ales (includes
IPA, bitters) for lack of a better term.  

The question I'm getting from people is whether they should
enter their "American IPA" in the English Ale category.

The style guidelines are ambiguous with regard to hops in
an IPA.  The commercial examples listed on the BJCP
guidelines are almost all highly bitter American IPAs.

I'm not sure what kind of English IPAs are being produced
now, and contemporary English beers are often not
labeled by our definition of style.  

Is there any difference between an English IPA and an
American IPA?  or is it simply a matter of the hop type
used?  Should a judge be concerned about distinguishing
the two if the beer is labeled as such?  Since my 
competition is on the west coast, I assume the judges
will have Liberty and Celebration in mind when judging
but I want to be sure the judging is fair, especially since
I inadvertently labeled IPA as "English".

Thanks for your input.
  - Bryan

Bryan Gros	gros at bigfoot.com
Oakland, CA
Visit the Draught Board club website:
http://www.dnai.com/~thor/dboard/index.htm

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

From: Amahl Turczyn <amahl at aob.org>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 12:33:19 -0700
Subject: Re: AHA Sanctioning

In response to Kelly Jones' query about AHA sponsorship vs. sanctioning,
I'd like to clarify the latter term.  Sanctioning provides organizers of
beer competitions with all the information they need to hold a
competition.  We also advertize the contest on our website calendar, and
in Zymurgy magazine, as well as publish the results (best of show
winner, number of entries, etc.) in the magazine.  A kit is sent to them
containing pre-printed forms, handbooks, a list of registered clubs in
their state and all surrounding states, our current style guidelines,
and free membership and free National Homebrew Competition entry forms
for winners.  The AHA provides this to members for a $40 fee, which is
spilt evenly with the BJCP--for their $20, they send out a list of
certified judges for the competition, and record points for
participating judges after the competition is held.

We feel that though we make this information available to organizers,
the competitions are theirs--they can use or not use what we give them,
including style guidelines.  If participants in AHA sanctioned
competition have a complaint with the competition, such as not getting
prizes or score sheets in a reasonable time afterwards, we also try to
solve disputes as diplomatically as we can, but we don't feel it's our
role to police the events.

The term "sponsorship" is misleading--we don't really sponsor events,
even the club-only competitions, which we co-host with clubs. We do
sponsor prizes for competitions, however.

Hope this serves to clarify the semantics and not confuse them further!

Cheers,

Amahl Turczyn
AHA Sanctioned Competition Program Director

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

From: <egross at emory.edu>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 15:48:40 -0500 (EST)
Subject: AHA Club Onlys

 I won our club mead competition and the club paid for my entry into last
years Mead Magic club only competition. James Spence called to tell me I
came in Second out of 67 entries,then he quit/was fired/was abducted by
aliens.I received score sheets with a form letter listing the winners.
Over the last year I have contacted the AHA via email and phone asking for
a ribbon or certificate or whatever winners receive to hang with the other
trophies and ribbons that mead won. Initially I couldn't get a response,
then finally after chewing them out a bit I got "that was the old
AHAs/ex-employees responsibility" and finally promises to send something
out. That was months ago and I give up.It only takes a few minutes to
print up a certificate, but that's apparently beyond them.They did print
my name in a tiny box on some random page in Zymurgy maybe 6 months after
the competition, but who cares. As far as I know, that is the only time a 
club only entry from our club did so well.I got sick of fellow club
members asking what I won, I had to say just my scoresheets. What makes it
difficult for me is that I am the clubs competition director and we would
like to shape our club contests around the club only competitions to
encourage entries,but after my experience and that of others, how can I
reasonably promote such a lamely run competition and potentially waste
club funds? I don't care if the AHA is understaffed, and underpaid.
They took on the job and took our money. Enter at your own risk. Lee

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

End of judge-digest V1 #1526
****************************

 Send subscription cancellations & changes to judge-request at synchro.com.
 Messages sent to the wrong address will be ignored.