Subject: Digest for the period 5/25/2006 - 5/26/2006 Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 01:02:16 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Objective Beer Scoring... Not Possible? (Bev D. Blackwood II) 2. Yet more ... (Peed, John) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bev D. Blackwood II Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 08:25:58 -0500 Subject: Objective Beer Scoring... Not Possible? > Jon Tobey objectively asserts: > They seem tweaked to produce a mean artificial score that is really > irrelevant to the stated purposes of making better beer - we don't > care how a beer scores compared to other beers, we care how well it > compares to an ideal. Spot on, my friend! Hence the whole range of style guidelines, various commercial examples and deliberate "fuzziness" in the system. Stepping back to the original example of SNPA being the definition of American Pale Ale. Well, it isn't.... Stone Pale Ale, Full Sail, Jackman's, Mirror Pond and several others are also defining examples. Beer judging is inherently subjective as a result. (Some days you feel like a hop, some days you don't...) What the scoresheet does, however, is give us a framework to convert subjective impressions into more objective scores and provide feedback on why or how a beer needs improvement. I will be bottling up an Imperial IPA this morning for the world's largest single style competition, the Big Batch Brew Bash. (http:// www.thekgb.org/BigBatchBrewBash/tabid/52/Default.aspx) I've tasted it and think it is one hoppy mo-fo... But I can say for a fact it's NOT like Dogfish Head 90-Minute... I tasted them side by side. So why should I bother entering? (Besides the fact the competition is free) Because my beer is SUPPOSED to taste like Russian River's Pliny the Elder, a different example of the style! While I don't have the chance to taste it side by side against that beer, I am hopeful it will do well because it fits the broader style guideline. Scores and scoresheets are designed to quantify what is in some ways unquantifiable. I've been on BOS panels where we're down to maybe 6 nearly perfect beers. At that point, it is PURELY subjective... which beer has that undefinable magic that makes it stand out? I have been fortunate enough to win Best of Show three times. I can promise you that every one of those beers scored well, but none was a 50 in the first round, although all were in the 40's. I've also seen the exact same beer (not mine this time and an American Pale Ale, no less) win Best of Show in a Chicago competition and get shut out in a Dallas competition on the SAME DAY! So it's VERY subjective. I think the idea of quantifying your scores within the comments is a good one and may help some folks justify the scores they give. I have sat on a panel with folks who do that and was pleased to see our scores matched up well and we gave similar advice and recommendations on the scoresheets. Same end result, different paths to get there, but I don't think it should be a requirement. -BDB2 Bev D. Blackwood II Brewsletter Editor The Foam Rangers http://www.foamrangers.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peed, John Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 10:22:43 -0700 Subject: Yet more ... My last post got cut off after about the first third, but I'll avoid rehashing it. Mike Dixon: I don't want to go on in great detail where a point went. I just want to know why it went. If a beer scores 44, I'd like to see those 6 points justified - I want those 6 points; I want to zero in on that big five oh. As for the 37 and someone's term "mediocre" - if I'm shooting for 50 (which I am), then I want to know why I'm 13 points short. When you're shooting for 50, 37 could almost be considered mediocre. But that's not really the point. Just assigning me a score of 37 and telling me it was a real nice beer, it was pale yellow, nice fruit, real clean, to style, yadda yadda - that just doesn't help me. And it doesn't say why or how the judge arrived at that score. When I took the BJCP exam in February, one of the beers I judged was pure, unadulterated bottled SNPA - I was 90% certain when I smelled it and 99% certain when I tasted it. I somewhat flippantly scored it something like a 49 (and said it was SNPA on the score sheet), because I consider it a benchmark for the style. I'm sure that will cost me, because most homebrewers consider it a moderate, if not downright mediocre, example of the style in today's outrageously hoppy brewing environment. Be that as it may, let me score SNPA here, more critically (from memory), accounting for point deductions. Appearance: 2.5 Right color; brilliant; low head (-0.5), moderate retention Aroma: 10 Really nice, delicately sweet malt with a nice balance of citrus hops; hops are pretty light for style, though (-2) Flavor: 16 Nice sweet malt, light caramel touch; good, firm bitterness; nice spicy/citrus hop flavor; superb balance, but hop presence is subdued by today's standards (-4) Mouthfeel: 4 Medium-light body, very crisp, a bit sharp in the finish (-1) Overall: 8.5 Great light malt presence; superb balance; a terrific example of the style, extremely drinkable, but lacks the hop punch that has become the hallmark of this style (-1.5) Total 41 I didn't give any suggestions for improvement because it's obvious that the brewer is perfectly capable, and to do so would be presumptuous, to say the least Here's the thing that most people won't be able to stand, at least at first: You write your comments and point deductions for a subsection first, THEN you total the deductions, subtract from the max and that gives you the numeric score. I still want to smell the beer and say, "10", then start writing to justify that arbitrary number. That number always pops into my head before I start writing, but I get better results when I write and deduct first and score later. You can do the number first and then justify it if you want - that works too, because if you cannot justify that number, then you have to change it. By the way, where is the BJCP leadership? Dave Houseman is not very enthusiastic about this approach, but I know you're listening, Dave, and I hope you're noting the positive response. But where is everybody else? What is the proper way to approach the BJCP leadership with proposals like this? John Peed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** 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. 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