Subject: Digest for the period 3/14/2007 - 3/15/2007
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:04:22 -0400

Table of contents
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  1. Style heresy: hear, hear! 


----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Peed, John  Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:59:21 -0700
Subject: Style heresy: hear, hear! 



I agree with Dion, and it applies to many other categories as well.
Broad, vague guidelines make for difficult judging.  Another 
consequence
of broad descriptions is that the guidelines will say one thing but
judges will judge to a much narrower subset of the guidelines.  Where
characteristics are broadly defined, such as Russian Imperial Stout's
"hop aroma can be very low to quite aggressive", judges will state on
score sheets that a beer didn't meet hop aroma expectations.  The same
is true of British Best Bitter, which states that "hop aroma can be
moderate to none" - if you enter a British beer with no hop aroma, it
will get dinged.  Doppelbock: Enter a nice one that has less than 8 or
even 9% alcohol and see how well it does.  If the descriptions are 
going
to be so broad, then at the very least they should state that for
competition purposes, certain things will be expected.

I have to disagree with Dion's statement that, "That [it comes down to
which beer is more 'likeable'] seems to go against all we stand for on
judging by objective criteria, not personal preference."  Like it or
not, beer is judged on personal preference.  I floated the idea of
specifically accounting for all point deductions last year.  
Competitors
seemed to like the idea but the upper echelon judges did not, saying
that judging is and should be subjective.  That may be true, but it
often seems to be inconsistent and arbitrary.  

John Peed
Oak Ridge, TN



----------------------------------------------------------------------
***** 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