Subject: Digest for the period 5/13/2005 - 5/14/2005 Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 01:00:22 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Re: Digest for the period 5/12/2005 - 5/13/2005 (Jon Tobey) 2. Brew the Judger (Stephen Neilsen) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Tobey Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 22:46:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Digest for the period 5/12/2005 - 5/13/2005 "Jon brings up his thought that judges should not brew. I disagree completely with that. It may make more since in a commercial competition, but for a homebrew competition, I find little value." Actually, if you follow this digest at all, I'm of exactly the opposite opinion, but when I actually suggested that judges should brew, I got such a flood of sob stories in my personal email why individual judges couldn't brew, and therefore why this was a bad idea in general, I had to come on line here and beg people to stop the flow. For therapy like that, I should get $125/hr. While I concede that it may be possible that a person who does not brew could be a good judge, I personally do not know a single judge I respect who also does not brew. Of course this is based on an assumption: Competitions are not just about picking the best beer; they also are about helping people make better beer. If the second part of this is incorrect, then of course, anybody can judge providing they can read the guidelines. Since the BJCP doesn't really address this, I provided my own take on it here: http://www.homebrewfair.com/text/philosophy.html The person I was originally responding to, I admit, I was satirizing (something entirely lost in these rarified discussions), because I believe all personal prejudices are evened out if instead of thinking you know anything about beer, you actually read the guidelines each and every time you judge. This is so rarely done, it really flabbergasts me - especially now that we have "new" guidelines. So really, it shouldn't make a difference if you like a style, hate a style, or even never had a style, if you actually take the time to read the guidelines, you should be able to evaluate that beer to the style. Really, that to me would be the basis of evaluating judging abilities - the ability to objectively rate any beer. I was at a competition last year where the newly indoctrinated judges were saying things like "I really like this beer" or "I really hate this beer. These are things we should never say. I gave a cream ale a 38: it was perfect, skunky, DMS, all the things I hate in a beer but are part of the style because some brewery bought a GABF medal. (Oh, was that my outside voice? I mean Hales makes a great cream ale, excuse me I mean a cream ale I really love, but since it doesn't have these characteristics, it wouldn't score very well.) Now, unless you brew, you won't be able to help that person make better beer, but, again, I'm not sure that has any part in BJCP competition. That may be my own personal windmill. I could just be confused. Because of this confusion, I proposed an event entirely outside sanctified BJCP competition. See above reference. PS, the idea of judging commercial beers to BJCP guidelines is so ludicrous that even in my pleasantly modified state, I couldn't imagine entertaining it. Absolute hubris. The guidelines are just a specific lens we use to help people (homebrewers) understand how the process affects the product. They have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with whether a beer is "good" or not. Thinking we can apply these styles to commercial beers after the fact (i.e. the beer were not brewed to style as we assume competition beers are) is, as my Japanese friend says "rudicrous" and shows a complete lack of understaning of the purpose and scope of styles. Go ahead, tell a commercial brewer his barley wine does not fit the BJCP style guideline. Or better yet a Belgian brewer! Go ahead, tell Mr. Hale that if only he added all little light-struck flavor to his beer it would be better. High humor indeed. We can still laugh at ourselves right? I mean, It's freaking beer. Take heart: Those who can't, teach. (This forum is much more entertaining after a few beers.) Jon Tobey Ideastream 360-793-8831 "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them." - Alfred Whitehead ********************************************************************** * 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 Neilsen Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 16:22:06 +1000 Subject: Brew the Judger I kinda think that Jon may have been having a bit of a joke with his comments re: judges not brewing !! Here in Australia the wine judging circuit (for commercial wines) is far more advanced than the beer judging trail. The vast majority of judges are=20 in fact wine makers, one of the few exceptions is a Canberra wine buyer (for a liquor chain) and wine writer. Chris also judges in the Australian International Beer Awards and he is not a brewer either. Having said that=20 the beers he judges are commercial and should have few if any faults that a=20 judge who is not a brewer could comment on and suggest fixes.He may for example note that a beer has too high a level of DMS or sulphur for style=20 but not be in a position to suggest possible remedies. Chris is certainly the exception though. So of course you guys are right, it very difficult (though not impossible)=20 to judge without brewing. Stephen Neilsen attempting to brew in Canberra. ********************************************************************** * 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 * **********************************************************************