Subject: Digest for the period 5/14/2006 - 5/15/2006 Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 01:00:04 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. lousy beers/judges (Dave Blumenthal) 2. Re: CEP at the NHC (Tumarkin) 3. Re: Appropriateness of AHA posts? (Nathaniel Lansing) 4. Appropriateness of posts, etc... (Annie Johnson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Blumenthal Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 08:03:10 -0400 Subject: lousy beers/judges Hi. Two judging questions: 1) If the beers in a particular flight are all duds, is there a rule/standard guiding whether any beer should be awarded 1st place (and advance to BOS), or other award? 2) If a particular judge is judging overly harshly or inconsistent with style, what recourse does an organizer have? Thanks Dave Blumenthal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tumarkin Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 08:20:39 -0400 Subject: Re: CEP at the NHC Paul Mahoney wrote: > Anyway, the point of my post: I was planning to >attend several CEP sessions at the AHA conference in >Orlando. I want to expand my knowledge in >anticipation of taking the exam. Plus I saw it as a >good way to rack up some points. So I sent an email >to Gordon Strong, and I understood his reply to be >that I could acquire points even tho I had not taken >the exam (and was not officially a BJCP member). But >then I read the email from Mark Tumarkin, which says >that one cannot acquire retroactive points by >attending these sessions. Gordon is one of my judging heroes, but in this case is unfortunately incorrect. The CEP progam is so new that a lot of us don't know or understand the details. That's part of why I'm so stoked to be able to bring the CEP to the conference. Not only so that you can get some points, but also to kickstart the program by bringing it to your attention. Hopefully, many of you will become interested in holding CEP events at your local level. Also, in the same JudgeNet as Paul's question was the following - > >I will add one minor point to Mark's post: New judges who have taken >the exam by the time of the conference, but not recieved their >number, need only to provide the date and city of their test in its >place. > >Kevin Pratt >CEP Assistant Director. Thanks for the clarification, Kevin. I certainly understand Paul's interest in retroactive points, and I'm sure it will be shared by others. However, you do need to be a current judge (or have taken the exam before the conf). I based my post on my conversations with Kris England, the BJCP Education Director & on the CEP pages on the BJCP website. I saw on the CEP site that there is one exception to the no retroactive points rule. Leaders of BJCP training session study groups designed to prepare exam takers can get retroactive points for a limited time. See the CEP site for details. As I understand it, the CEP program is for continuing education of existing judges only and thus the rule about no retroactive points. In order to insure that current judges attending CEP events at the NHC can get credit, I am arranging (with Gordon coincidentally) to have a printed report containing judge names & numbers at the conference registration table so you can look up your number. As you can imagine, that will be a large document; so save yourself time by bringing your judge number with you. Anyhow, Paul, I'm glad to see that you plan on attending the Conf regardless of points. I hope that you, and everyone, will enjoy yourself & I know that the information you'll take away from the presentations will help you to be a better judge & brewer even though you won't be getting points this time around. Mark Tumarkin ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Webmail provided by InfoToGo.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nathaniel Lansing Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 09:02:57 -0400 Subject: Re: Appropriateness of AHA posts? Straight from http://www dot beertown dot org/homebrewing/pdf/TechTalk.pdf "The American Homebrewers Association TechTalk forum is for association members only"... So they want to play in our sandbox for free, but play in their yard? you gotta PAY. "Please refrain from forwarding AHA TechTalk to non-members as this devalues everyone’s membership." So much for dissemination of brewing knowledge,and promoting the hobby of homebrewing. Is that in their mission statement? But really what that is saying is, "If too much information is out there, people won't buy it from us." Mark said, "I have to disagree, from several viewpoints. I have posted here recently as the Chairman of the AHA Governing Committee. I don't get paid for that. Also posted in my role as Speaker Coordinator for the AHA Conference. Again, no money." That hardly makes your point; they utilized your time and energy for free, like they want to utilize HBD and Judgenet for free. But the public can not use "TechTalk" for free. David, " They have a right to contact judges, whether through snail mail, email or through posting in all the usual places." An agreement between BJCP and AHA absolutely does not grant them any rights here on Judgenet or in Homebrew Digest. I did not bring this subject up, someone else had mentioned the AHA coffers, someone else questioned "Appropriateness of AHA posts?" If you want to expound on your (AHA) rights, do it in "TechTalk." Then there's the "Homebrew Gold" book, where they compiled gold-medal winning recipes from various competitions and now sell them without royalties to the original brewer. Yeah, they had that disclaimer on the entry form. It contains such gems as a Kolsch with 10 lbs dry malt 1/2 lb of chocolate and cascade hops or some-such nonsense. At least that brewer had the sense not to give them the real recipe. But they have at least thought about it before they printed it, instead of just copy/compile/sell. It is not the brewing community that must do the fence mending. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annie Johnson Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 08:26:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Appropriateness of posts, etc... We shouldn't be attempting or remotely suggesting the editing or moving stifling or posts, period. Of course this is a proper forum - it's about beer and judging. Some discussions are uncomfortable, yet the majority aren't. I, for one at the end of the day am glad there is a fair and open discussion arena for these and all subjects beer and judging related. Clarification: I wrote that a NHC ran in the style of MCAB would probably reduce profits earned by the AHA. I did not imply the AHA is "all about $$." That would be Major League Baseball, but I digress. Cheers Everyone! Annie ESB __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Important Subscriber Information ***** To post a message to JudgeNet, send it to judge`at`synchro.com. Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments. Make sure you use a meaningful subject. Quote only as much material as is needed for context. To manage your subscription, go to http://synchro.com/judge/subscriptions.html or send an email to judge-request`at`synchro.com with the subject: help judge. JudgeNet is also available as an NNTP newsgroup, go to news://news.synchro.com/synchro.judge