Subject: Digest for the period 2/20/2005 - 2/21/2005 Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 01:02:24 -0500 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Gravity Scope Creep (gornicwm`at`earthlink.net) 2. Re: Digest for the period 2/17/2005 - 2/18/2005 (lazyeye) 3. 7th Annual Drunk Monk Challenge - Entry Period Starts Monday, February 21 (RJKChicago`at`aol.com) 4. Sensory Evaluation Kits (Stephen Johnson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: gornicwm`at`earthlink.net Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:28:43 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: Gravity Scope Creep I am in TOTAL agreement with Jeff's statements about the scope creep in home brewing competitions, regarding the gravity of beers. I had a Imp. Stout submitted to the AHA Regional that had a SG: 1.100 and FG: 1.030 and the comment was, "Not Big Enough". WHOA!!! I purchased a bottle of Old Rasputin and it was a brown porter compared to my brew. It is easy to become skewed as a judge, but it is pretty safe to assume that the beer you're judging should be in the category that it was submitted (UNLESS it is GROSSLY out of place). There's really not much need to split hairs concerning gravity and slapping a beer down because you don't "Think" the gravity is correct. Even an ESB can be a 1.050 beer and that's important to keep in mind while judging these styles ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Manage your subscription online: http://synchro.com/judge * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lazyeye Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:33:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Digest for the period 2/17/2005 - 2/18/2005 That's a great idea....a scholarship and similar in concept with a policy implemented a year or two ago which provided for BJCP donations to worthy causes. Of course, that was when the treasury was thought to be flush. On that note, has anyone in the Massachusets/New Hampshire area had a chance to ask the former President/Treasurer whats up? If yes, perhaps his reply (or summary of it) could be posted here for the benefit of the many BJCP members who are shaking their heads in disbelief. Norman Dickenson Sonoma Beerocrats --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annie Johnson Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:53:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Digest for the period 2/16/2005 - 2/17/2005 I would love to see the BJCP offer a yearly scholarship(s) to the Siebel Institute like the California Fermentation Society does. Plain and simple, it sucks about the missing monies and hopefully, lesson learned. On the positive, there is only one way but up! Just my .02 Cheers! Annie Johnson E.S.B. - East Sacramento Brewers __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Manage your subscription online: http://synchro.com/judge * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: RJKChicago`at`aol.com Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 22:56:10 EST Subject: 7th Annual Drunk Monk Challenge - Entry Period Starts Monday, February 21 FYI...7th Annual Drunk Monk Challenge - Entry Period Starts this Monday, February 21 and Ends Saturday, March 5, 2005. So, Hurry up and get those entries registered and sent in, you don't want to wait another whole year to enter. The DMC is an AHA sanctioned competition, a qualifying event for the MCAB (Master Championship of Amateur Brewing), and a leg of Midwest Homebrewer of the Year. Best of Show prize is a $100 gift certificate from NorthernBrewer.Com, along with many other Great Prizes and Raffle Prizes too. Judges, Stewards and Volunteers will receive a 2005 DMC/UKG Pint Glass for their effort. We still need more Judges, see judge information below. In addition to the 2004 BJCP categories of beer, mead, and cider, we'll once again feature our own special category, the Menace of the Monastery, for beer styles with roots in the monastic brewing traditions of Belgium and Germany: Belgian blonde, dubbel, tripel, pale, strong golden, and strong dark ales, plus German doppelbock. This year, the winner of Best of Show Beer will have the opportunity to brew their beer at Walter Payton's Roundhouse, the Menace of the Monastery champion will have the same opportunity at Govnor's Pub in Lake of the Hills, IL and the Best of Show Mead will be made at Bev Art Brewer & Winemaker Supply in Chicago, IL. The competition will be held on Saturday, March 12th, at Walter Payton's Roundhouse - America's Brewery, in Aurora IL. Entries will be accepted between February 21st thru March 5th. Please visit the competition website for additional information, forms, and on-line registration: http://www.knaves.org/dmc/ If you are interested in judging at the DMC, please contact Joe Formanek by e-mail at jformanek`at`griffithlaboratories.com, or by phone at (630) 378-4694. We will need to know your current BJCP experience level; what styles you are entering in the competition (if any); and any styles you would prefer to judge (or not judge). Thanks. Cheers! Rodney Kibzey (Organizer) -Urban Knaves of Grain www.knaves.org -Drunk Monk Challenge www.knaves.org/dmc ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Manage your subscription online: http://synchro.com/judge * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Johnson Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 23:03:50 -0600 Subject: Sensory Evaluation Kits Kristen England, Education Director of the BJCP commented in a recent Judge Digest about Sensory tasting kits. I am assuming that she is referring to the kit that is being made available to the AHA from the FlavorActiV company in England. She states: "Its completely asinine to me that someone would shell out $150 for a few measly samples of some chemical that costs about $1 to make. I do doctored beer sessions all the time for my club and the cost is extremely minimal. Our plan is to devise a set of flavors/aromas that are most importantly cheap and easy to use." As one of those club leaders who has been "duped" into buying one of those kits and making an "asinine" decision to further the educational opportunities for members of my club, I must take exception to her tone and lack of respect for the technical expertise and precision that these kits can provide for the average homebrewer. One of the problems that I have had with the BJCP over my 8 years of experience with the organization has been its reliance on an internal culture to help train the novice judge trainee. As a novice judge, we have been left to calibrate our palates with a list of recommended stylistically "correct" beers that within our own region, may or may not be at their best. We are left to our own devices to decide what levels of DMS are too much for a given style or how much diacetyl is too much, while we may not have the slightest notion that we are overly sensitive to DMS or undersensitive to diacetyl. The best training I have had in becoming a BJCP judge came about as a result of our club having access to a set of flavor compounds that were acquired by one of our members who attended the Siebel Institute short course. He returned to Nashville with some remaining samples of compounds to be used to spike beers. We conducted a series of tastings with a small number of our club judges that involved spiking samples of Bud Lite with high, medium, and low threshold levels of the various compounds. From this experience, I came to realize that I am overly sensitive to DMS, undersenstive to diacetyl, and that none of us particulary enjoyed the aroma or taste of isovaleric acid. I am sure that those kits did not come about "for a few measly samples of some chemical that costs about $1 to make." The second best training that I had was attending the Association of Brewers Convention and Trade Show in Atlanta a number of years ago. Anheuser-Busch had a tasting session set up where they had spiked their beers with a variety of compounds so that conference goers could calibrate their palates to better understand their own knowledge of those compounds typically found in beer. What I see these sensory evaluation kits bringing to potential judges is a standard by which to compare themselves in terms of their tasting and evaluation experiences. The FlavorActiV company is a leader in the field of flavor standards, and has researched and calibrated its flavor compounds with the expressed purpose of training employees at all levels of the food and beverage industry to recognize various flavor components that fall outside the recommended range of acceptable standards. Without such standards, we are merely comparing ourselves to some vague notion of what we should be understanding and experiencing. Until the BJCP can come up with a set of standards for such educational experiences that all can benefit from, I think that claiming such efforts to be "asinine" is clinging to the past perceptions that some may have of the BJCP being an insiders organization that is not willing to help its members be better judges of beers. I have seen the suggestions of how to add various things to beers to doctor them to come to an understanding of flavor flaws in beer. The list on the BJCP website included in the Study Guide is helpful, but those flavors are limited in terms of the problems they address in the brewing process. There is nothing listed there to address iron, DMS, isovaleric acid, indole, butyric acid, or styrene. Kris, I am skeptical of your claims of coming up with the same level of calibration for just a few pennies per sample. Please prove me wrong. I am more than willing to send you or the BJCP a couple of dollars for the same precise amounts of ferrous ions, acetic acid, butyric acid/acetic acid, 4-vinly guaiacol/styrene, indole/DMS, isobutyraldehyde/DMS/dimethyl trisulfide, ethyl hexanoate/H2S/ethanethiol, and isovaleric acid that these kits provide so that I know that someone in California who orders the same kit has the same exact amounts of these compounds to spike their 24 ounces of Bud Lite as I do. Or, if you are recommending that we prepare these from our own ingredients, or that we have a triple beam balance scale or other calibration device and that I can go to our local pharmacy or chemistry department and measure these things out, I'm all ears. Until the BJCP can step up to the plate and deliver with some on-the-road sensory evaluation training sessions, I'm left to the best that the industry has to offer, and am willing to pay the price. Kristen, I am not just trying to rationalize the expense that we have put forward to begin some training for future judges in our club. As I said earlier, prove me wrong. I look forward to your detailed response. Steve Johnson President, Music City Brewers BJCP Certified Judge Nashville, TN ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Manage your subscription online: http://synchro.com/judge * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * **********************************************************************