Subject: Digest for the period 5/23/2004 - 5/23/2004 Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 01:20:21 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. BOS/Combining (Bill Wible) 2. 17D (Lee and Ant Hayes) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Wible Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 17:45:01 -0400 Subject: BOS/Combining The bottom line of all this is that I agree with whoever started this thread that YES, some rules or strict guidelines do seem to be needed as to what should and should not be combined into the same medal/ribbon categories. Best of show is a different animal. I'm only talking about medal/ribbon categories. There's nothing you can do about BOS. Yes, it includes both lagers and ales, and also meads and ciders, too, which I won't even get into and start another 'fight'. Been there, done that, before. And as I've said plenty of times before, BOS round is normally judged by the best and most experienced judges, too, out of courtesy to them and their experience, and because it makes sense. We all know that's not the case in every medal/ribbon category. Sometimes you have 2 certified judges doing a regular category, and I've even seen one certified and one novice. Been part of one of those panels myself, actually. I've heard that line a few times before about the "good judges" being able to do the job and differentiate. And I still disagree. The only thing I can say to that is that we must not have many "good judges" around here, then. I think it is unfair any time you put lagers and ales against each other. The same ribbon category should never have mixed lager and ale styles. And as I said, there is no reason to have to. If you only get one or two light European lagers, for example, then I'd rather see them combined with American lagers, ("Light Lagers") or even VMO styles, ("Light/Amber lagers) than in any ale category. There are plenty of more logical groupings that would make better sense than mixing lagers with ales. That's a last resort for a real tiny, tiny, competition that only has about a dozen entries. We had a recent competition here which (I thought) did some real lousy category combining. 'Bitters' were somehow spread over two different categories - and a bock somehow got in with those in one of the two categories and won. Now, don't ask me - I have no idea what those guys were thinking, I was hoping someone would tell me. There is NO logical reasoning for combining bocks and bitters, ever - I don't care how many or how few entries you got. The bocks could have gone, as I said, with VMO, (That was a separate ribbon category) if nothing else. And since bitters spanned two categories, gee, then I guess its safe to say there were more than enough of those that they could have been combined into one category. I had 12 entries in that competition, quite a few in categories that didn't draw entries, and I was very unhappy with how they ended up being combined. And this will definitely affect how many I enter into that particular competition next year, BET ON IT. But I digress... As to how it's unfair - let's face it - lagers win over ales every time in combined categories (obviously NOT BOS, which as I said, is different.) If you have a mixed category containing for example, American Cream Ale, Blonde Ale, and lagers (American, European, whatever) in the same category - you can't tell me the lagers don't win every time. Yes, they do. Now that's my feeling, I'm sure others may disagree. But I agree rules and guidelines for combining appear to be needed in 'BJCP' competitions. It should mean something when you say a competition is BJCP sanctioned. There shouldn't be such a wide variance as to what each competition does on their own. Bill ********************************************************************** * 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: Lee and Ant Hayes Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 14:28:57 +0200 Subject: 17D I tasted my first Weizenbock today, Erdinger Pikantus. Although it is listed as a commercial example of style 17D, it tastes very little like the flavour descriptors given. There is no fruity character or concentrated wheat or malt complexity, MILO. Is this a commercialised, i.e. dumbed down, version of the style, as Erdinger's other beers are, or are the style guidelines off. The beer is certainly pleasant enough, but I was expecting a flavour explosion. Ant Hayes Johannesburg ********************************************************************** * 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 5/23/2004 - 5/23/2004 Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 01:20:21 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. BOS/Combining (Bill Wible) 2. 17D (Lee and Ant Hayes) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Wible Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 17:45:01 -0400 Subject: BOS/Combining The bottom line of all this is that I agree with whoever started this thread that YES, some rules or strict guidelines do seem to be needed as to what should and should not be combined into the same medal/ribbon categories. Best of show is a different animal. I'm only talking about medal/ribbon categories. There's nothing you can do about BOS. Yes, it includes both lagers and ales, and also meads and ciders, too, which I won't even get into and start another 'fight'. Been there, done that, before. And as I've said plenty of times before, BOS round is normally judged by the best and most experienced judges, too, out of courtesy to them and their experience, and because it makes sense. We all know that's not the case in every medal/ribbon category. Sometimes you have 2 certified judges doing a regular category, and I've even seen one certified and one novice. Been part of one of those panels myself, actually. I've heard that line a few times before about the "good judges" being able to do the job and differentiate. And I still disagree. The only thing I can say to that is that we must not have many "good judges" around here, then. I think it is unfair any time you put lagers and ales against each other. The same ribbon category should never have mixed lager and ale styles. And as I said, there is no reason to have to. If you only get one or two light European lagers, for example, then I'd rather see them combined with American lagers, ("Light Lagers") or even VMO styles, ("Light/Amber lagers) than in any ale category. There are plenty of more logical groupings that would make better sense than mixing lagers with ales. That's a last resort for a real tiny, tiny, competition that only has about a dozen entries. We had a recent competition here which (I thought) did some real lousy category combining. 'Bitters' were somehow spread over two different categories - and a bock somehow got in with those in one of the two categories and won. Now, don't ask me - I have no idea what those guys were thinking, I was hoping someone would tell me. There is NO logical reasoning for combining bocks and bitters, ever - I don't care how many or how few entries you got. The bocks could have gone, as I said, with VMO, (That was a separate ribbon category) if nothing else. And since bitters spanned two categories, gee, then I guess its safe to say there were more than enough of those that they could have been combined into one category. I had 12 entries in that competition, quite a few in categories that didn't draw entries, and I was very unhappy with how they ended up being combined. And this will definitely affect how many I enter into that particular competition next year, BET ON IT. But I digress... As to how it's unfair - let's face it - lagers win over ales every time in combined categories (obviously NOT BOS, which as I said, is different.) If you have a mixed category containing for example, American Cream Ale, Blonde Ale, and lagers (American, European, whatever) in the same category - you can't tell me the lagers don't win every time. Yes, they do. Now that's my feeling, I'm sure others may disagree. But I agree rules and guidelines for combining appear to be needed in 'BJCP' competitions. It should mean something when you say a competition is BJCP sanctioned. There shouldn't be such a wide variance as to what each competition does on their own. Bill ********************************************************************** * 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: Lee and Ant Hayes Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 14:28:57 +0200 Subject: 17D I tasted my first Weizenbock today, Erdinger Pikantus. Although it is listed as a commercial example of style 17D, it tastes very little like the flavour descriptors given. There is no fruity character or concentrated wheat or malt complexity, MILO. Is this a commercialised, i.e. dumbed down, version of the style, as Erdinger's other beers are, or are the style guidelines off. The beer is certainly pleasant enough, but I was expecting a flavour explosion. Ant Hayes Johannesburg ********************************************************************** * 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 * **********************************************************************