Subject: Digest for the period 4/22/2005 - 4/23/2005 Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 01:00:37 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Re: Belgian Christmas Beer (David Houseman) 2. Belgian Christmas Beer (Gordon Strong) 3. Re: Digest for the period 4/21/2005 - 4/22/2005 (Mark Wilson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Houseman Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 08:03:06 -0400 Subject: Re: Belgian Christmas Beer Jeff, First the rationale for having the Christmas or Holiday Beer as a subcategory: This was in recognition that in many competitions people enter a beer with a long list of spices and other ingredients. These were brewed as holiday ales of some sort with an assortment of spices. When these ingredients are listed individually judges tend to want to identify each spice separately. This is often very difficult. So although the overall beer may be very good, presenting a balance of flavors, the beer would be marked down since individual elements could not be identified. Since Christmas or Holiday beers are very popular with homebrewers a separate sub-style was added for that beer. In this way, individual special ingredients do not have to be listed or identified. It's the overall beer that's to be judged. How well does the beer come together? How balanced is it? In this category judges should not be trying to identify whether each individual spice is exhibited or not. In fact, in this sub-category there shouldn't be a list of special ingredients. IMHO then, Belgian Christmas Beer is just another form of Christmas beer, with some unique yeast, perhaps candi sugar and perhaps with various spices. But they wouldn't be listed and the overall beer would be judged as a whole rather than the sum of its parts. There was no intention of breaking Christmas beers out by country of origin. So entering the beer here would be acceptable. But I question the assumption about the beer needing to be entered in this category when it was entered in Belgian Specialty Ale. This is an equally broad catch-all category. Judges don't usually get the title of the beers they judge so how did they know it was intended to be a Belgian Christmas Beer? Without that as a category and only entered in 16E, what made them think it was a Belgian Christmas Beer? Dave Houseman ********************************************************************** * 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: Gordon Strong Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 08:08:16 -0400 Subject: Belgian Christmas Beer In the April 22 Digest, Jeff Gladish asked very good questions about Belgian Christmas Beer and how it should be entered and judged. > I was recently the organizer of a competition in Florida which used the > new > BJCP style guidelines and was contacted by one of the entrants about a > beer > he'd entered in category 16E Belgian Specialty Ale. He had listed spices > and called it a Belgian Christmas Ale and my judges (one a National) > scored > it as if they needed a sub-style. In other words they were looking for a > specific sub-style and noted that it would have scored better if this had > been specified. This brewer subsequently entered the same beer as a > Belgian > Christmas Beer with spices in another Florida competition and received a > much better score with no notes about the absence of a sub-style. By "sub-style", do you mean that he needed to call it a "Belgian dark strong ale" or something (plus spices)? If so, the first judge is wrong and the entrant is right. The style guidelines explicitly state the category can be used to enter a "beer fitting a broader style that doesn't have its own category (e.g. [...] Belgian spiced Christmas-type beers)". A change in the 2004 guidelines is generally to NOT require a "classic sub-style" whenever a "special" type beer is produced. I would suspect the National judge was thinking of the older guidelines and didn't actually read the new ones (or that he used the abbreviated versions without the comments). Jeff, as senior judge in your area, please follow-up with those judges and help them understand the new categories. Or ask your BJCP regional rep to chime in (he was on the style committee too). This points out one of my pet peeves about judging specialty-type beers; judges who too often look for reasons to NOT judge the beer. The nature of these beers is to do something different and artisanal; you can't really tell the brewer they should have done something else. Judge the beer they gave you. If you don't like the result, then say so but don't hide behind the guidelines. Entrants are looking for a good evaluation of their beer not a lecture about filling out an entry form. > My question is whether Christmas Beer is a sub-style. I can understand > that > Belgian Christmas Beer would be quite a bit different from an English > Christmas Beer, which in my opinion would differ again from an American > Christmas Beer, but are they specific enough in character to be entered as > such in a competition without additional sub-style information? Most of > the > time you'll find that American Christmas Beers may be based on a specific > style such as Porter with spices added or an English Christmas Ale as an > Old > Ale with spices. Or an English Christmas Beer could just be a bigger, > maltier interpretation of the brewer's regular beer. Belgian Christmas Beer should be entered as a Belgian Specialty. It says so explicitly in both the Belgian Specialty category and the Christmas Beer category. Your entrant did nothing wrong; he listed it as a "Belgian Christmas beer" with specific ingredients. That should have been sufficient, unless he was cloning a specific beer. I would NOT specify a sub-style (or "classic style" as called in the previous guidelines) unless the beer exhibited a strong characteristic of that style. If you say it's a particular style, then you're inviting the judges to say "well, this is a good Christmas beer but it isn't a very good Belgian dark strong". The new guidelines say that you should only specify styles/ingredients if they are noticeable. For example, if the entrant said it was a "Christmas ale with nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon", I'd expect to be able to detect those individual spices. If he said it was a "spiced Christmas ale" then I'd expect an impression of spicing without any of the individual spices being too forward. > Would you recognize a Belgian Christmas Beer on its own merits? If so, > why? > Is it the color, the use of sugar or the yeast complexity? These things > would make it Belgian, but what would make it Belgian Christmas? If there > is so much difference that you would recognize it as its own style, then > maybe there should be a category for it by itself. By "recognize" do you mean, should it be it's own sub-style? We considered it and rejected it because the existing Belgian specialty category is good enough to describe a Belgian Christmas beer. It's a broad category, so you shouldn't just ding people on stylistic reasons. I'd say it should be Belgian and have Christmas-type attributes (either be darker, spiced, heavier or otherwise more "special" than a normal version of a beer; or be something unique of your choosing). That's what commercial Belgian Christmas beers are. > Here's what the style guidelines have to say: > The judges must understand the brewer's intent in order to properly judge > an > entry in this category. THE BREWER MUST SPECIFY EITHER THE BEER BEING > CLONED, THE NEW STYLE BEING PRODUCED OR THE SPECIAL INGREDIENTS OR > PROCESSES > USED Right. But read the sentences that come before this in the "comments" section. http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/Category16.html#style16E Those are the ones that are important for this discussion. > In this case, the brewer specified Christmas Beer and listed the special > ingredients. Was that enough? IMHO, yes. I can't see anything the entrant did wrong, but I didn't taste the beer. Contact the judges who gave the poor evaluation and point out the correct usage of the guidelines. The guidelines are new; not everyone is familiar with them. It's the responsibility of all judges to help educate our peers (see other discussion in the same digest about "purpose of the BJCP"); just do it in a professional, friendly, helpful way. And encourage the entrant to keep brewing and entering. Gordon ********************************************************************** * 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: Mark Wilson Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:20:39 -0700 Subject: Re: Digest for the period 4/21/2005 - 4/22/2005 > > Would you recognize a Belgian Christmas Beer on its own merits? If so, why? > Is it the color, the use of sugar or the yeast complexity? These things > would make it Belgian, but what would make it Belgian Christmas? If there > is so much difference that you would recognize it as its own style, then > maybe there should be a category for it by itself. > > > > In this case, the brewer specified Christmas Beer and listed the special > ingredients. Was that enough? If I was judging this beer, I would consider something like Scaldis(Bush) Noel to be a commercial example and judge it roughly to that standard. However, why leave it at that? For historical/specialty/experimental, I have gone as far in the past as to write up a paragraph or two of my own style guidelines, with specs and commercial examples. Print this out on a piece of paper with no other identification and include it with your entry. I would think most organizers would allow this for the Beligan Other category, which is almost as wide open. It may have been a while since the judges have had a beer in the style in question, so mini-guidelines would help. So would, say, including internet or a reference from MJ's Beer Companion. -Mark ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mark W. Wilson mwilson`at`agora.rdrop.com Portland, OR http://www.rdrop.com/users/mwilson ********************************************************************** * 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 * **********************************************************************