Subject: Digest for the period 5/3/2005 - 5/4/2005 Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 01:04:05 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Re: Guinness here vs there (David Houseman) 2. Appreciation of beer (Pete) 3. Scoresheetus Horribilis (Bev Blackwood II) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Houseman Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 07:50:19 -0400 Subject: Re: Guinness here vs there Dick, You compared bottled Guinness (not Guiness) with draught Guinness. These are two entirely different beers, whether bought here or the UK. Draught Guinness is an Irish Dry Stout; it is also available in widget cans. Bottled Guinness is their Extra Stout, a Foreign Stout; this is stronger and somewhat sweeter with a fuller body. It's not where it's bought; it's what is bought. While with all the fine beers now available, I'm unlikely to choose Coors either, but Coors and the other American Lagers are valid styles and have a well deserved place in the beer world. They have very fine brewers. The art and science that these mega-breweries exhibit in creating the same beer, year-in, year-out from malt and hops that vary crop to crop, from water available in different cities and yeast that can mutate on them. Frankly when mowing the lawn on 90+ oF days, American Standard Lagers, and Coors specifically is pretty damn refreshing. I believe developing "an appreciation of real beer" means we learn to appreciate all beer, different beer for different occasions, but beer non-the-less. You also say "It seems to me that considering the high level of pay and compensation for expenses, anyone who judges an AHA competition should receive a free membership in the AHA for the following calendar year. Does that seem like excessive compensation to anyone?" I'm not sure if you are serious with this statement or if this is said tongue and cheek; can you explain the sentiment? David 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: Pete Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 11:08:05 -0400 Subject: Appreciation of beer A FINE suggestion, Francisco! ((-'pb Pete Bussa Detroit ********************************************************************** * 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: Bev Blackwood II Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 10:49:30 -0500 Subject: Scoresheetus Horribilis Having perused the scoresheets in question on the website, I have to agree that they are totally unacceptable. However, I've noted a few other comments that stir some concerns. >These are from a very large competition. Only having 2 judges on a beer is a clue that they may have been short on judges. Actually, having run a very large competition, where the flight count gets into the 100's just for first round, I can say that even with copious amounts of judges, two per panel becomes the norm. You count upon the quality of your BJCP judges to ensure a good evaluation and to help police the non-BJCP judges. Remember that we're talking competitions the scale of the AHA's second round of Nationals or larger, but with a significantly smaller judging pool to pull from, since they don't have the same level of outside attendance as the NHC. (Especially if first round judging takes place before the "main event") Add to that the loss of some of the hosting club's judges to organizational and often unrelated (I.E. pub crawls, food preparation, registration desk, etc.) tasks and you're faced with a real challenge. If you're faced with a shortage of judges (which thankfully we never have been) then you start to experience the "nailed to a table" phenomenon, where the BJCP judges are essentially presented with flight after flight of beers (and less qualified judging partners) until they surrender to either inebriation or palate exhaustion. >The legibility and spelling of the few words on the sheets indicate these guys may have spent too long in the hospitality suite through the day. Speaking for our own event, the Dixie Cup, roughly one-third to one- half of our first round judging is done before the actual day of the event. Often there's not a "hospitality room" for people to get that wasted at during early rounds and in my experience at other large events there's often not even ANY beer outside of what's being judged. Granted, once we get going at the main event, there's lots of free beer, but that's usually at a point where you've got enough judges to be a bit more choosy. >The organizer has to scramble and do some flights after work during the week. I have heard of cases (again, not at our event) where beers were judged at home, away from the organized event when things got tight. To me that's completely unacceptable. We do our utmost to schedule sufficient time for all judging to take place within structured sessions at a venue with adequate judging facilities. What I find unacceptable on the part of the BJCP is that these largest competitions are essentially treated identically point-wise as competitions half their size. While I will grant that the economies of scale start to come into play, the fact that points available for staff, etc. don't vary if you have 500 entries or 1000 is ridiculous. It takes a lot more logistics to execute these events than the points reflect. Judging at these events accurately reflects the effort involved, as multiple sessions will accumulate points for the judges. But Organizer and Staff points are fixed and make no allowance for the extra effort involved due to the scale of the event. My .02. -BDB2 Bev D. Blackwood II Brewsletter Editor The Foam Rangers http://www.foamrangers.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 * **********************************************************************