Subject: Digest for the period 5/7/2003 - 5/8/2003 Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 01:04:30 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Reactions on two topics... (Bev Blackwood II) 2. slow judging (Tom & Dana Karnowski) 3. mead exam? what about a mead question? (Tom & Dana Karnowski) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bev Blackwood II Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 13:31:33 -0500 Subject: Reactions on two topics... Bryan notes: > But I have noticed a lot of "snobby" attitudes by some judges who do > travel. Speaking as a "traveling" judge... I agree in principle that just because you've "been there, tasted that" you don't have any right to deviate from the guideline nor to look down upon those who haven't had the same experience. It IS a form of snobbery to toss up a brewery visit or other special event as evidence that you know a style better than someone else at the table. I think the real key is that while travel informs the mind and educates the palate when it comes to beer, the style guideline still has to be the arbiter of what's on the table, not what you remember drinking on a happy trip to St. Alban's. I think beer and food on a vacation often tends to get a "halo effect" just from the sheer joy of being out doing what you love to do. I know that McEwan's 80 shilling somehow always tastes better in Scotland even though it's macro beer pushed out of a stainless keg on CO2... > it is up to all of us to educate other judges as we can. Whether by > aging beers > like Bev says, or by bringing back beers when traveling, or by pooling > money > and purchasing hard to find beers. Agreed. Many homebrew clubs attempt to do this with a style of the month. Even so, if you don't have club members who travel, getting rarities is often expensive and beyond the means of all but the largest clubs. There's also the fact that if you supply commercial beers to a homebrew club without focusing on homebrewed examples as well, you get the reputation of being a "drinking" club. (and run the risk of BECOMING a "drinking" club.) It's a tough issue. > The other way to read the question, though, is whether Old Peculier > and Thomas > Hardy's are the same style. That question is open for debate My personal opinion is that it (Thomas Hardy) is an English Barleywine and the styles (Old Ale & English Barleywine) need to be revamped a bit. ----- Ben notes: > Slow Judging of styles at competitions has been a problem that > needs > to be discussed. If you are dependent on the good graces of a brewpub or brewery for a judging site, then this can be critical. I think that slow judging is highly dependent on the people writing the sheets and their personal style. I know more than a few local judges that will literally talk beers to death. God forbid you should have a disagreement with them, because then you're in for a REALLY long haul. I think it is up to the judging coordinator to monitor progress and keep judges moving. While you never want there to be less than complete score sheets, it is critical for judges to understand if there is going to be a time constraint so that they can alter their own efforts to complete the flights in a timely fashion. > Regarding the IPA category; there needs to be a revision of > this BJCP > category similar to what was done with barley wines. British versions > of the > style suffer at the expense of American versions and the > interpretation of > the style by the judges. I think this is a likely revision in the next edition of the guidelines. The Dixie Cup is talking about making the distinction for this year's competition. > Finally, I have been reading about judges not entering their > full > names, titles on scoresheets, or lack of experience. I think that's a primary role for the steward, to check that all parts of the scoresheet are filled out and pointing it out to the judge if they are not. I have had everything from hardly any information to the judge's e-mail address on sheets I have had back. > Also, the organizer should pair at least a certified judge to be the > lead in > a particular category with novices or experienced judges not in the > BJCP. Easy to say, but not always easy to do. Speaking as an organizer and participant in two very large (700+) competitions, I know that Certified judges are in limited supply, anything better than that is even more rare. It becomes a real challenge to seat panels and you often have to count on Non-BJCP judges whose experience you trust. I have had the pleasure of judging with many "Experienced but not in BJCP" judges whose palates were exceptional... I've also found a few who I wouldn't trust to taste Zima accurately. Whenever you enter a competition you take a bit of a chance that your beer will find the one panel that wasn't put together right. But sometimes you get back scoresheets from 2-3 Nationals and Masters who just wanted to judge together again! -BDB2 Bev D. Blackwood II http://www.bdb2.com ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom & Dana Karnowski Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 05:12:32 -0400 Subject: slow judging I agree that slow judging can be a problem. As a competition organizer in the past, we have always been able to get a brewpub to host us. We start early, but no matter how early we go, people always seem to take as much time as they possibly can. Then we end up intruding on dinnertime and it can be a bit of a hassle, as we definitely don't want to wear out our welcome. The number one thing to do is make the judges aware of time restrictions and what they are for. Then, I think the next best thing to do is to make sure you dont' have too many entries per category. We have ensured no more than 8 entries per category on judging day by doing some flights in advance of the "day of" the competition at club members' homes. THIS MEANS NO DAY-OF ENTRIES FROM JUDGES- you have to have ALL 3 bottles before the day of the event - but it works better this way. Any groupings with more than 8 entries undergo a quick "first round" where judges pick the best 8 by quick samplings and then the reject beers are scored in full. Another helpful thing to do is allot a time for each beer and periodically call out "you should be finishing your Nth entry" to keep people on track. Finally, I think one of the worse things we have done is have too many judges at a table. While we didn't want to leave anyone out, we should probably have turned some folks away the day of the competition, starting with local, non-BJCP judges. Fewer judges at a table means less feedback, but things go quicker, and besides most of the time multiple sheets don't really give you much more feedback anyway. Any other ideas? Tom Karnowski Knoxville TN ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom & Dana Karnowski Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 05:18:17 -0400 Subject: mead exam? what about a mead question? I think a better idea is to make sure there is one question about mead, cider AND "weird beers" BJCP categories 21-26 on the exams. Right now these styles are totally omitted from the exam and there is really no need to study them at all. The questions would best be style guideline type questions, like describe the BJCP category for fruit and vegetable beers, or compare and contrast traditional mead and melomel. Consider that every exam has a lambic question on it, which is an important beer style due to its historical significance, but frankly most competitions have way more "weird beers" and mead entred than lambics in my experience. Maybe the inclusion of the weird beers in the study guide would help clarify how you are supposed to judge these beers as well, which is something that I think we've discussed here much (pertaining to base beer styles) with no resolution that I can see. Tom Karnowski Knoxville TN ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** Subject: Digest for the period 5/7/2003 - 5/8/2003 Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 01:04:30 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Reactions on two topics... (Bev Blackwood II) 2. slow judging (Tom & Dana Karnowski) 3. mead exam? what about a mead question? (Tom & Dana Karnowski) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bev Blackwood II Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 13:31:33 -0500 Subject: Reactions on two topics... Bryan notes: > But I have noticed a lot of "snobby" attitudes by some judges who do > travel. Speaking as a "traveling" judge... I agree in principle that just because you've "been there, tasted that" you don't have any right to deviate from the guideline nor to look down upon those who haven't had the same experience. It IS a form of snobbery to toss up a brewery visit or other special event as evidence that you know a style better than someone else at the table. I think the real key is that while travel informs the mind and educates the palate when it comes to beer, the style guideline still has to be the arbiter of what's on the table, not what you remember drinking on a happy trip to St. Alban's. I think beer and food on a vacation often tends to get a "halo effect" just from the sheer joy of being out doing what you love to do. I know that McEwan's 80 shilling somehow always tastes better in Scotland even though it's macro beer pushed out of a stainless keg on CO2... > it is up to all of us to educate other judges as we can. Whether by > aging beers > like Bev says, or by bringing back beers when traveling, or by pooling > money > and purchasing hard to find beers. Agreed. Many homebrew clubs attempt to do this with a style of the month. Even so, if you don't have club members who travel, getting rarities is often expensive and beyond the means of all but the largest clubs. There's also the fact that if you supply commercial beers to a homebrew club without focusing on homebrewed examples as well, you get the reputation of being a "drinking" club. (and run the risk of BECOMING a "drinking" club.) It's a tough issue. > The other way to read the question, though, is whether Old Peculier > and Thomas > Hardy's are the same style. That question is open for debate My personal opinion is that it (Thomas Hardy) is an English Barleywine and the styles (Old Ale & English Barleywine) need to be revamped a bit. ----- Ben notes: > Slow Judging of styles at competitions has been a problem that > needs > to be discussed. If you are dependent on the good graces of a brewpub or brewery for a judging site, then this can be critical. I think that slow judging is highly dependent on the people writing the sheets and their personal style. I know more than a few local judges that will literally talk beers to death. God forbid you should have a disagreement with them, because then you're in for a REALLY long haul. I think it is up to the judging coordinator to monitor progress and keep judges moving. While you never want there to be less than complete score sheets, it is critical for judges to understand if there is going to be a time constraint so that they can alter their own efforts to complete the flights in a timely fashion. > Regarding the IPA category; there needs to be a revision of > this BJCP > category similar to what was done with barley wines. British versions > of the > style suffer at the expense of American versions and the > interpretation of > the style by the judges. I think this is a likely revision in the next edition of the guidelines. The Dixie Cup is talking about making the distinction for this year's competition. > Finally, I have been reading about judges not entering their > full > names, titles on scoresheets, or lack of experience. I think that's a primary role for the steward, to check that all parts of the scoresheet are filled out and pointing it out to the judge if they are not. I have had everything from hardly any information to the judge's e-mail address on sheets I have had back. > Also, the organizer should pair at least a certified judge to be the > lead in > a particular category with novices or experienced judges not in the > BJCP. Easy to say, but not always easy to do. Speaking as an organizer and participant in two very large (700+) competitions, I know that Certified judges are in limited supply, anything better than that is even more rare. It becomes a real challenge to seat panels and you often have to count on Non-BJCP judges whose experience you trust. I have had the pleasure of judging with many "Experienced but not in BJCP" judges whose palates were exceptional... I've also found a few who I wouldn't trust to taste Zima accurately. Whenever you enter a competition you take a bit of a chance that your beer will find the one panel that wasn't put together right. But sometimes you get back scoresheets from 2-3 Nationals and Masters who just wanted to judge together again! -BDB2 Bev D. Blackwood II http://www.bdb2.com ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom & Dana Karnowski Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 05:12:32 -0400 Subject: slow judging I agree that slow judging can be a problem. As a competition organizer in the past, we have always been able to get a brewpub to host us. We start early, but no matter how early we go, people always seem to take as much time as they possibly can. Then we end up intruding on dinnertime and it can be a bit of a hassle, as we definitely don't want to wear out our welcome. The number one thing to do is make the judges aware of time restrictions and what they are for. Then, I think the next best thing to do is to make sure you dont' have too many entries per category. We have ensured no more than 8 entries per category on judging day by doing some flights in advance of the "day of" the competition at club members' homes. THIS MEANS NO DAY-OF ENTRIES FROM JUDGES- you have to have ALL 3 bottles before the day of the event - but it works better this way. Any groupings with more than 8 entries undergo a quick "first round" where judges pick the best 8 by quick samplings and then the reject beers are scored in full. Another helpful thing to do is allot a time for each beer and periodically call out "you should be finishing your Nth entry" to keep people on track. Finally, I think one of the worse things we have done is have too many judges at a table. While we didn't want to leave anyone out, we should probably have turned some folks away the day of the competition, starting with local, non-BJCP judges. Fewer judges at a table means less feedback, but things go quicker, and besides most of the time multiple sheets don't really give you much more feedback anyway. Any other ideas? Tom Karnowski Knoxville TN ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom & Dana Karnowski Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 05:18:17 -0400 Subject: mead exam? what about a mead question? I think a better idea is to make sure there is one question about mead, cider AND "weird beers" BJCP categories 21-26 on the exams. Right now these styles are totally omitted from the exam and there is really no need to study them at all. The questions would best be style guideline type questions, like describe the BJCP category for fruit and vegetable beers, or compare and contrast traditional mead and melomel. Consider that every exam has a lambic question on it, which is an important beer style due to its historical significance, but frankly most competitions have way more "weird beers" and mead entred than lambics in my experience. Maybe the inclusion of the weird beers in the study guide would help clarify how you are supposed to judge these beers as well, which is something that I think we've discussed here much (pertaining to base beer styles) with no resolution that I can see. Tom Karnowski Knoxville TN ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * **********************************************************************