Subject: Digest for the period 3/17/2004 - 3/18/2004 Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 01:05:01 -0500 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Re: Digest for the period 3/16/2004 - 3/17/2004 (Thom Cannell) 2. National & Master ranks; "unevaluatable" (Jay Spies) 3. judging points towards bjcp ratings (BigWayne19) 4. Re: Unevaluateable beer (McNally Geoffrey A NPRI) 5. Alternate path--response to Al Boyce (Jeremy Bergsman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thom Cannell Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:17:05 -0500 Subject: Re: Digest for the period 3/16/2004 - 3/17/2004 > From: Scott Bickham Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 07:12:39 -0500 > Subject: Re: Unevaluateable beer I have to agree with Scott about making every possible concession to evaluating the beer, insofar as we are able. I'm very new to judging beer, (Certified last year) and my first two judge experiences were of commercial beers. So nothing wildly off. Then I judged in a real homebrew comp. Some of the very first beers were so very off, from my perspective, that I wondered aloud about severe grading. A more experienced judge admonished me, "these are not truly wretched beers." So I tried my best to peer beneath the infections, chlorine, iodophor to see the intent and brewing skills, the processes and recipes. I'm sure I learned more about judging that day than all the evenings in practice, consuming world class beers. 'Guess this is directed more to us new judges; part of the "oath of office" is to give valuable feedback to brewers about styles and practices. Even when it is difficult to find the needles in that haystack. Or the malt beneath the acetobactyr. Thom Cannell Cannell & Associates 1650 Lindbergh Dr. Lansing MI 48910-1820 517-371-2058 FAX 413-431-9601 MOBILE 517-896-3098 T_Cannell`at`compuserve.com CannellAndAssociates`at`comcast.net ********************************************************************** * 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: Jay Spies Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 12:25:27 -0500 Subject: National & Master ranks; "unevaluatable" I'd like to add my .02...... I'm the guy who had taken the exam for the first time in November but not gotten my scores yet.... I personally think that the path to Master judge should be more based on experience and judging than by the written exam score. That being said, I got my scores last week.....82 on both the written and tasting portions. Once I (hopefully) get enough points to qualify for National, I'd still rather have my beer evaluated by a Certified judge with 10 years of judging under their belt. Raising the bar in terms of tasing points to get to national & master is in my book the way to go should we decide to re-evaluate. Judging, after all, is about judging, not writing essays. The essay gets you in the door but I think judging points should be the ticket to upper level advancement. I think every beer deserves a taste and a comment. The brewer paid for our time and attention. If you think you're getting a beer that's completely foul (and you can tell by the smell), then take only a small sip to confirm your suspicions. Most of the flaws that render a beer undrinkable are sanitation-based, and you can tell them from the moment you pour and sniff (or if the beer decides to vertically pour itself). A one word "unevaluatable" in my book is cheaping out. If it's bottle contamination the brewer may not have known it (maybe missed a bit of stuck crud in the bottle) and our evaluation lets him know that. What can you learn from "unevaluatable"? Jay Spies Head Mashtun Scraper Asinine Aleworks Baltimore, MD ********************************************************************** * 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: BigWayne19 Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:22:10 -0800 Subject: judging points towards bjcp ratings ---------- if bjcp scores were broken into two parts (tasting and essay), then i could see that points could/should/might be accrued to the tasting score, i.e., judging-experience points could only be used to improve one's tasting score. so. if one scored 30/30 on the tasting (unlikely) but only 40 on the written, no amount of judging is going to gain one brewing chemistry, mycology, bacteriology, flora, raw material manipulation/variation/processing, historical development, or style characterization. and, a lot of the feedback pertains to these variables . i would like to have experience points added to my bjcp exam score, but experience tasting can't replace a modicum of book-learnin' . . . Big ps: i could also be talked into not only having judging points additive to the tasting part of the score, but fractional parts of experience points additive to the essay score (under the assumption that experience in grading [say] adds directly to style/history/etc. ) . . . ...deserves a fair evaluation of their beer, I don't think a judge should be obligated to be poisoned or made sick by an intentionally entered bad beverage, either. Does it go on? Maybe. What do you guys think? ---------- total paranoia . . . ********************************************************************** * 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: McNally Geoffrey A NPRI Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 14:37:02 -0500 Subject: Re: Unevaluateable beer Hi All, When Scott Bickham first posted about the "Unevaluateable beer", I thought I knew the beer/judge/competition that he was talking about. After he posted more details in the March 16/17 digest, my hunch was confirmed. I was one of the three judges on the panel when this occurred. I am not going to identify the judge in question or defend his actions, but some things that have been posted need to be clarified and/or corrected. Scott wrote: "At the time of *my* evaluation, I was not aware of the actions of the judge, but the brewer did thank me for giving him more feedback in 10 seconds than he received in the competition." This, and other comments posted in this digest, strongly suggests that this particular beer was not judged properly or that the score sheets listed only "Unevaluateable" in the comments. This is definitely NOT what happened. We went through the usual pour/evaluate/write/discuss process and spent a fair amount of time on this entry. And yes, we actually tasted it. We pulled a second bottle of this beer to make sure it wasn't just a problem with the first bottle we opened. Both bottles were the same. I know for a fact that I filled out all of the sections of the score sheet, and tried to evaluate/describe this beer to the best of my ability. I am almost positive that the other two judges also did so (since I did not read their score sheets I can not be positive how they filled them out). As far as I know, the "Unevaluateable" comment by one of the other judges only applied to the score(s) for this beer. He originally refused to score this beer, but was coerced into it by the competition organizer. I also briefly discussed this beer with the brewer after the competition (he approached me about it because he knew I was on the panel), so I know who he is and the history of this beer. If I recall correctly, it had been quite a while since the beer won in the qualifying competition. Geoffrey McNally BJCP Certified (forever?) Tiverton, RI South Shore Brew Club ********************************************************************** * 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: Jeremy Bergsman Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 23:50:46 -0500 Subject: Alternate path--response to Al Boyce Al made a careful and detailed post so I would like to respond to his points similarly. > A. PROS: > 1. Reward past participation Are ranks a reward? IMO the experience point portion recognizes the educational value of experience, but doesn't reward it. > 2. Encourage ongoing participation and new participation There are other ways to do this besides doling out promotions in rank. > 3. Give hope to those with poor test-taking skills Yes, although I do wonder how many really have that big a problem. > 4. Create a larger corps of Master level judges available for contests and > test proctors Giving people a higher rank doesn't help this at all. People are no more qualified because they have a different title. If the people are already qualified, use them. This already happens. Besides, these jobs do not require master judges as it is. > 5. Speed up BJCP Test Results by having a larger corps of graders Same as 4 above. > B. CONS, if we DON'T adopt it... > 1. Upset/Lose those sub-90 National judges who have been very active if we > don't change Really? How many? > 2. Upset/Lose new BJCP judges if their test scores/points are even more > delayed because of more volunteers who quit over this. Again, this is really hard to predict. > 3. Upset/Lose new and old BJCP judges because they think this issue is > beside-the-point of the BJCP. ("To promote beer literacy and the > appreciation of real beer, and to recognize beer tasting and evaluation > skills.") Does this belong below? Again, there is a lot of reference in various posts to other judges who will get mad, but I'm having a hard time imagining the judges I know quitting one way or the other. > C. CONS, if we DO adopt it... > 1. Upset/Lose those who got to Master via "90" score if we change > requirements ("cheapening" the status) Upset yes, lose, ??? But if it cheapens the rank how can it be a good idea? > 2. Create a two-tier system ("90 pt." vs. "Experience points" Master Judge) Are people really this hung up on the the ranks?!? > 3. Less incentive to re-take BJCP class or test to improve "book learning" > of brewing Excellent point. > I think the Pro's outweigh the Con's. You left out the Pro's if we don't adopt it. Al, I hope this post doesn't come off as too harsh, but I really think these are pretty speculative points you are weighing. Most of your argument is who gets mad over what. If this is really a concern, let's figure out a way to evaluate which members are going to get mad and what they're going to do about it, but mostly let's make the right decision for the right reason--what makes sense for the purposes of the meaning of judge rank. >I would be curious to hear from > Master judges who would leave the organization if the requirements were > changed. Me too, and vice versa. Jeffrey Pinhey is the only poster I could find who indicated that his participation would affected (positively with the change). -- Jeremy Bergsman jeremy`at`bergsman.org http://www.bergsman.org/jeremy ********************************************************************** * 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 3/17/2004 - 3/18/2004 Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 01:05:01 -0500 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Re: Digest for the period 3/16/2004 - 3/17/2004 (Thom Cannell) 2. National & Master ranks; "unevaluatable" (Jay Spies) 3. judging points towards bjcp ratings (BigWayne19) 4. Re: Unevaluateable beer (McNally Geoffrey A NPRI) 5. Alternate path--response to Al Boyce (Jeremy Bergsman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thom Cannell Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:17:05 -0500 Subject: Re: Digest for the period 3/16/2004 - 3/17/2004 > From: Scott Bickham Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 07:12:39 -0500 > Subject: Re: Unevaluateable beer I have to agree with Scott about making every possible concession to evaluating the beer, insofar as we are able. I'm very new to judging beer, (Certified last year) and my first two judge experiences were of commercial beers. So nothing wildly off. Then I judged in a real homebrew comp. Some of the very first beers were so very off, from my perspective, that I wondered aloud about severe grading. A more experienced judge admonished me, "these are not truly wretched beers." So I tried my best to peer beneath the infections, chlorine, iodophor to see the intent and brewing skills, the processes and recipes. I'm sure I learned more about judging that day than all the evenings in practice, consuming world class beers. 'Guess this is directed more to us new judges; part of the "oath of office" is to give valuable feedback to brewers about styles and practices. Even when it is difficult to find the needles in that haystack. Or the malt beneath the acetobactyr. Thom Cannell Cannell & Associates 1650 Lindbergh Dr. Lansing MI 48910-1820 517-371-2058 FAX 413-431-9601 MOBILE 517-896-3098 T_Cannell`at`compuserve.com CannellAndAssociates`at`comcast.net ********************************************************************** * 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: Jay Spies Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 12:25:27 -0500 Subject: National & Master ranks; "unevaluatable" I'd like to add my .02...... I'm the guy who had taken the exam for the first time in November but not gotten my scores yet.... I personally think that the path to Master judge should be more based on experience and judging than by the written exam score. That being said, I got my scores last week.....82 on both the written and tasting portions. Once I (hopefully) get enough points to qualify for National, I'd still rather have my beer evaluated by a Certified judge with 10 years of judging under their belt. Raising the bar in terms of tasing points to get to national & master is in my book the way to go should we decide to re-evaluate. Judging, after all, is about judging, not writing essays. The essay gets you in the door but I think judging points should be the ticket to upper level advancement. I think every beer deserves a taste and a comment. The brewer paid for our time and attention. If you think you're getting a beer that's completely foul (and you can tell by the smell), then take only a small sip to confirm your suspicions. Most of the flaws that render a beer undrinkable are sanitation-based, and you can tell them from the moment you pour and sniff (or if the beer decides to vertically pour itself). A one word "unevaluatable" in my book is cheaping out. If it's bottle contamination the brewer may not have known it (maybe missed a bit of stuck crud in the bottle) and our evaluation lets him know that. What can you learn from "unevaluatable"? Jay Spies Head Mashtun Scraper Asinine Aleworks Baltimore, MD ********************************************************************** * 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: BigWayne19 Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:22:10 -0800 Subject: judging points towards bjcp ratings ---------- if bjcp scores were broken into two parts (tasting and essay), then i could see that points could/should/might be accrued to the tasting score, i.e., judging-experience points could only be used to improve one's tasting score. so. if one scored 30/30 on the tasting (unlikely) but only 40 on the written, no amount of judging is going to gain one brewing chemistry, mycology, bacteriology, flora, raw material manipulation/variation/processing, historical development, or style characterization. and, a lot of the feedback pertains to these variables . i would like to have experience points added to my bjcp exam score, but experience tasting can't replace a modicum of book-learnin' . . . Big ps: i could also be talked into not only having judging points additive to the tasting part of the score, but fractional parts of experience points additive to the essay score (under the assumption that experience in grading [say] adds directly to style/history/etc. ) . . . ...deserves a fair evaluation of their beer, I don't think a judge should be obligated to be poisoned or made sick by an intentionally entered bad beverage, either. Does it go on? Maybe. What do you guys think? ---------- total paranoia . . . ********************************************************************** * 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: McNally Geoffrey A NPRI Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 14:37:02 -0500 Subject: Re: Unevaluateable beer Hi All, When Scott Bickham first posted about the "Unevaluateable beer", I thought I knew the beer/judge/competition that he was talking about. After he posted more details in the March 16/17 digest, my hunch was confirmed. I was one of the three judges on the panel when this occurred. I am not going to identify the judge in question or defend his actions, but some things that have been posted need to be clarified and/or corrected. Scott wrote: "At the time of *my* evaluation, I was not aware of the actions of the judge, but the brewer did thank me for giving him more feedback in 10 seconds than he received in the competition." This, and other comments posted in this digest, strongly suggests that this particular beer was not judged properly or that the score sheets listed only "Unevaluateable" in the comments. This is definitely NOT what happened. We went through the usual pour/evaluate/write/discuss process and spent a fair amount of time on this entry. And yes, we actually tasted it. We pulled a second bottle of this beer to make sure it wasn't just a problem with the first bottle we opened. Both bottles were the same. I know for a fact that I filled out all of the sections of the score sheet, and tried to evaluate/describe this beer to the best of my ability. I am almost positive that the other two judges also did so (since I did not read their score sheets I can not be positive how they filled them out). As far as I know, the "Unevaluateable" comment by one of the other judges only applied to the score(s) for this beer. He originally refused to score this beer, but was coerced into it by the competition organizer. I also briefly discussed this beer with the brewer after the competition (he approached me about it because he knew I was on the panel), so I know who he is and the history of this beer. If I recall correctly, it had been quite a while since the beer won in the qualifying competition. Geoffrey McNally BJCP Certified (forever?) Tiverton, RI South Shore Brew Club ********************************************************************** * 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: Jeremy Bergsman Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 23:50:46 -0500 Subject: Alternate path--response to Al Boyce Al made a careful and detailed post so I would like to respond to his points similarly. > A. PROS: > 1. Reward past participation Are ranks a reward? IMO the experience point portion recognizes the educational value of experience, but doesn't reward it. > 2. Encourage ongoing participation and new participation There are other ways to do this besides doling out promotions in rank. > 3. Give hope to those with poor test-taking skills Yes, although I do wonder how many really have that big a problem. > 4. Create a larger corps of Master level judges available for contests and > test proctors Giving people a higher rank doesn't help this at all. People are no more qualified because they have a different title. If the people are already qualified, use them. This already happens. Besides, these jobs do not require master judges as it is. > 5. Speed up BJCP Test Results by having a larger corps of graders Same as 4 above. > B. CONS, if we DON'T adopt it... > 1. Upset/Lose those sub-90 National judges who have been very active if we > don't change Really? How many? > 2. Upset/Lose new BJCP judges if their test scores/points are even more > delayed because of more volunteers who quit over this. Again, this is really hard to predict. > 3. Upset/Lose new and old BJCP judges because they think this issue is > beside-the-point of the BJCP. ("To promote beer literacy and the > appreciation of real beer, and to recognize beer tasting and evaluation > skills.") Does this belong below? Again, there is a lot of reference in various posts to other judges who will get mad, but I'm having a hard time imagining the judges I know quitting one way or the other. > C. CONS, if we DO adopt it... > 1. Upset/Lose those who got to Master via "90" score if we change > requirements ("cheapening" the status) Upset yes, lose, ??? But if it cheapens the rank how can it be a good idea? > 2. Create a two-tier system ("90 pt." vs. "Experience points" Master Judge) Are people really this hung up on the the ranks?!? > 3. Less incentive to re-take BJCP class or test to improve "book learning" > of brewing Excellent point. > I think the Pro's outweigh the Con's. You left out the Pro's if we don't adopt it. Al, I hope this post doesn't come off as too harsh, but I really think these are pretty speculative points you are weighing. Most of your argument is who gets mad over what. If this is really a concern, let's figure out a way to evaluate which members are going to get mad and what they're going to do about it, but mostly let's make the right decision for the right reason--what makes sense for the purposes of the meaning of judge rank. >I would be curious to hear from > Master judges who would leave the organization if the requirements were > changed. Me too, and vice versa. Jeffrey Pinhey is the only poster I could find who indicated that his participation would affected (positively with the change). -- Jeremy Bergsman jeremy`at`bergsman.org http://www.bergsman.org/jeremy ********************************************************************** * 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 * **********************************************************************