41 replies to this topic

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

You've got all different levels of skill in folks entering competitions....from brand new brewer to decades of experience, from extract to all grain, and from technical to "relax and have a homebrew." Some folks certainly fit your mold - those that enter for the ribbons, but there's a significant portion of folks that enter their beers for feedback, or even those that know something is off or not quite right and want an experienced judge to try to help them. A number of folks mentioned that they brew what they want, and this is really the joy of homebrewing for me. Not everything fits in a BJCP category, but I know a lot of folks that go ahead and try to force fit stuff to support the competition/club more than really thinking they are going to win something. Regarding judges, well, I think you have to take it with a grain of salt. There are a lot of times I do not agree with other judges, even those on a National level. Heck, I still bitch about our proctor judges (national level) when we took the BJCP exam because they gave Salvator an average of 34 (I gave it a 42).

Winning ribbons would be nice I guess. I'd be more interested in feedback that I could tie directly back to my process though. Do BJCP judges do this?

[ChefLamont]

We were just having this conversation at a local homebrew gathering. I have swapped beers with a number of other brewers from across the country and I have tasted things you can't imagine. I'm serious... some of these people will say, "Dude... you gotta taste my blonde ale!". Okay... it arrives and it's dark brown and smells & tastes like hairspray. I think that a lot of homebrewers think their beer is the bomb because they made it and it looks like beer. Not good.

But the important point is what did you tell him. I have been in too many groups of people (like one of the LHBS) that people would have tasted that beer and just started raving "This beer is awesome, and you're awesome, and everything here is awesome, and I think I am just going to pass out from awesomeness!!" Slight exaggeration, but not a lot. I think a lot of people don't get the polite and constructive yet critical feedback they need. In our club, I think we have tried to be honest. Give praise and try to always say something nice, but also be honest and critical in what we taste. We understand that we are friends and that we are trying to improve each other's brewing.

[Mudd]

So my LHBC had their annual comp this last month and the judges had quite a bit of beer left over from those who didn't make it past the first round. One of the organizers had a great idea to get us at the meeting to try and guess what styles they were entered as and each table got a 6er to try. My table got second. That aside, some of the beers that were entered were really not very good. I assume all comps are different as far as the level of entries, but it has become clear to me that a lot of homebrewers mix together a few cans or a kit and think that they are going to win awards? I have made some beer in the past that didn't turn out as I had thought it would, so by no means am I perfect and I don't want to come off arrogant. But I would also assume that most people who would be attempting said kits would have some experience drinking commercially available examples of the style they are trying to brew. Are they as good as that? If not then why enter it. And here's another can of worms, but extract twang... People seem to be amazed that I knew their beer was made from extract...

In answer to the question, when you are good, know your stuff and are honest, it can sound smug - especially to yourself when you replay the event.

I'm pretty critical of my own stuff. Seemingly more than other people are.

This is the way it should be!

Those less than ideal beers are how you learn - very few have the innate talent to brew well from the get go. Enter them and get some feedback. I've had some of those leftovers too, some weren't very good. But that same brewer has a chance to become a lot better.... or not choose take advantage of it. Anyway, I've had a few entries that ended up in that same pile. Hopefully they were enjoyed post competition. Extract... we have a brewer in our club that can match the best with extract recipes. I've had many of his brews, not knowing whose it was - that's the way we do tastings. Only once did I tag it as extract. Lots of ways to make very good stuff.

Agree wholeheartedly!!

Edited by Mudd, 12 April 2009 - 07:09 AM.

[Sidney Porter]

Regarding judges, well, I think you have to take it with a grain of salt. There are a lot of times I do not agree with other judges, even those on a National level. Heck, I still bitch about our proctor judges (national level) when we took the BJCP exam because they gave Salvator an average of 34 (I gave it a 42).

I woonder how much that cost you. I don't grade exams so I don't have the chart they reference. But it looks like if all the class score it in the 40's they would have thrown out the proctors score.

Grading Scoresheets: Scoring Accuracy on the ExamThe tasting section of the BJCP exam is worth 30% of the total score. The scoring accuracy component is worth 20% of the tasting score. Thus scoring accuracy contributes a total of six points towards the overall exam score. Note, however, that BJCP exam scoring guidelines award a minimum of nine out of 20 points for scoring accuracy, so even the least accurate examinees will only lose three points from the final exam score.Grading the scoring component of the tasting section is very algorithmic. The total score for each test beer is compared to the corresponding consensus score assigned by the proctors and the absolute value of the difference is calculated. For example, if the proctors assigned a score of 32 to a beer and the examinee assigns a score of 24, then the difference is eight. Using the same proctor score, if another examinee assigned a score of 40, the difference would still be eight. The sum of the variances of the four test beers is then compared to a table in the Exam Scoring Guide which gives the examinee a higher scoring score for the smaller total variance. In this way, the examinees who more closely match the scoring of the proctors receive the most credit while those who are furthest from the proctors receive the lower scores. The only potential twist to this process happens when a proctor consensus score is overridden by the graders. This has been covered in the Interpreting Proctor Scoresheets section. This determination should be made before grading the scoring accuracy portion of the exams.An interesting sanity check on the scores is to calculate the average score given to each beer by all examinees. This “class average” can also be used to assess whether some adjustments should be considered in points awarded for scoring accuracy (e.g., if the entire class detects something but the proctors don’t, then perhaps there was something in the way the beers were presented that skewed the results). This averaging method can also be useful in deciding which proctors are more likely to be correct when presented with conflicting proctor scoresheet descriptions.

[Stout_fan]

If you get fresh extract, and you do full boils, you'll have very good beer that's hard to impossible tell from All Grain, IMHO. OldFart did some AG vs Extract stuff over at the other board. I know that StoutFan was part of some of those....

The agreement OF and I had was he'd provide the spot for the comp if I'd run it. The results proved most folks couldn't tell a good extract from an AG brew. So OF challenged me to match his RyePA in AG. I came up with a beer that was so close to his neither of us could tell a difference. I think his average score of 7 or so judges present was one point of 50 higher than mine.THEN I challenged him to clone my SAE50 RIS. He declined. We agreed you can do very good beers with extract. But for some, there is no substitute for AG.

Winning ribbons would be nice I guess. I'd be more interested in feedback that I could tie directly back to my process though. Do BJCP judges do this?

One of the primary goals in the BJCP process of evaluation is to provide feedback to the brewer on how to improve their beer. I always try to be helpful. But in the rush of a long flight sometimes we forget or just have no idea what to say. We're human after all.But you will have the folks like the one that posted on places unmentioned "That farkin judge was so stupid he said I should mash at a higher temp. The idiot, this was an extract brew!" Still like any collection of mere mortals we have our percentage of jackasses. And that's why you can complain to the BJCP if you think you have run into one.

[DubbelEntendre]

But the important point is what did you tell him. I have been in too many groups of people (like one of the LHBS) that people would have tasted that beer and just started raving "This beer is awesome, and you're awesome, and everything here is awesome, and I think I am just going to pass out from awesomeness!!" Slight exaggeration, but not a lot. I think a lot of people don't get the polite and constructive yet critical feedback they need. In our club, I think we have tried to be honest. Give praise and try to always say something nice, but also be honest and critical in what we taste. We understand that we are friends and that we are trying to improve each other's brewing.

This is the reason I want to enter more competitions. I'm skeptical of my brewing prowess because I compare my beer to the best I've ever drank of the style. And while it might be fine, I'm not convinced its anything spectacular, but I run into a lot of folks who have the "everything home brew is so awesome response".

[DaBearSox]

I also need to enter more competitions, or even 1 for that matter. I always said that when I took the step to all grain I would start entering. I always seem to look at the comps out here in CO one day after the deadline for entries, and spending 30 bucks to ship my beer to some other state isn't something I am too keen on.

[Stout_fan]

... spending 30 bucks to ship my beer to some other state isn't something I am too keen on.

Your beer won't like it either.

[Jimvy]

Winning ribbons would be nice I guess. I'd be more interested in feedback that I could tie directly back to my process though. Do BJCP judges do this?

I would say the better ones do....I know I really try to. Nothing is cooler than having someone come up to you and thanking you for your suggestions, and telling you how it helped them make better beer.

I woonder how much that cost you. I don't grade exams so I don't have the chart they reference. But it looks like if all the class score it in the 40's they would have thrown out the proctors score.

Not much, if anything really. They adjusted the proctor score up to 38 for grading based on the scores in the class. But the point I was trying to make was that these three guys are all highly experienced guys, and together, they came up with a 34 for a beer that was just an outstanding example (IMO...well, in the opinion of most of the class really)....so you just never know.

[pods8]

The comps around me usually have gift certificates to the local LHBS's for top 3 in each flight and top three best in show. On average I've earned more money from the comps that I've spent to enter them so I tend to throw some beers in so I can get a free bag of grain...

[DaBearSox]

The comps around me usually have gift certificates to the local LHBS's for top 3 in each flight and top three best in show. On average I've earned more money from the comps that I've spent to enter them so I tend to throw some beers in so I can get a free bag of grain...

brag much?

[pods8]

brag much?

Lol, not really. These aren't huge comps or anything, the large flights probably have 30 entries max or such. With a $6 entry and 3-2-1 in flights getting something like $10-20-30 its not hard to come out ahead if you got a good recipe or two up your sleeve.Also depends on what you enter in. I don't kid myself thinking I'll take the APA bracket or anything, too many entries in a tight field. I have some good RIS and barleywine recipes that usually hit well and less folks are entering there. Knock out the basic ABC cyser recipe and I bank that you'll place in whatever flight that is in during a competition because is just such a big and different flavor that it impresses judges. However that same ABC cyser would likely never win a best is show because most judges are looking for a beer there rather than a mead base drink.

[Genesee Ted]

$30 to ship beer? Seems very steep.

[Sidney Porter]

I don't enter many (if any comps) were I need to ship. We have 7 larger (250-400+ entries) comps in FL. The clubs all work together to have multiple dropoff across the state and they are normally delivered from one location to the next. It takes a little bit of extra planning but it seems to encourage people to enter comps other than their own clubs (which gets you judges from other clubs), it also increases the total entries

[DaBearSox]

$30 to ship beer? Seems very steep.

Well...I was just estimating...I once shipped 3 bottles of Oberon back from my parents house in IL out here to Denver and it was probably about 25 USPS...

[Genesee Ted]

Well, I haven't shipped "yeast samples" in a while, but I remember it being more like 9 bucks for 2 dueces. Anyway, this really isn't on topic, sorry to hijack my own thread

[dmtaylor]

Well...I was just estimating...I once shipped 3 bottles of Oberon back from my parents house in IL out here to Denver and it was probably about 25 USPS...

Well there's the problem -- you're including the bribe you paid since it's illegal to ship beer via USPS. :)Seriously, it costs anywhere from $10 to $20 to ship via UPS or FedEx, depending how far you ship, the state of the world economy, etc. Usually somewhere around $12 if memory serves (it's been a few months).

[dmtaylor]

Well what the hell, I was in the middle of an edit but it got dumped. I was going to add this:And getting back to the original topic, there are a number of reasons for entering competitions, besides thinking "this is the best beer I've ever made, let's see if the judges agree". Other reasons:1) Never entered a competition before, or hardly ever. So you just enter for the heck of it because your friends talked you into it, or you felt like maybe you should after all these years, or you want to see if there are any big flaws. Lots of folks do this. You've got to start somewhere. Some guys just don't have any idea if their beer is any good. Their friends all tell them it's great, but are they really just being polite?? This is a way to know for sure.2) You know the beer sucks and you want to find out why and how to fix it. I don't think I've ever done this, but I know people who have.3) You always enter most of your beers into a few competitions to find out if there are things to improve for next time you make the same recipe. This is my big reason for entering most of my beers into at least 3 competitions. I intend to brew a lot of recipes again in the future, and I want to make tweaks every time to make them even better.For me, if a batch turns out like crap, I dump the beer out so of course it doesn't get entered into competition. I figure it got contaminated and/or it's just a bad recipe formulation, so I'll either ditch the recipe altogether, or try to tweak it on my own before brewing again and submitting to competition. Other people might enter it to find out why it's so far off.The bottom line is that people tend to enter competitions for independent feedback, whether it is good, bad, or indifferent, constructive or not. You never know what you'll get, and the feedback will OFTEN conflict with your personal impressions of your beer. You can take the feedback with grains of salt, or, if everyone is telling you the same issues, then perhaps it is indeed a flaw that you might want to fix in future batches. It's a useful tool. Not what I would consider cheap, but helpful if you are interested in any way/shape/form of becoming a better brewer. Brewers I know who never enter any competitions ever might either be: 1) naturally good brewers, and/or 2) they could care less what other people think because it's good enough for them.

[DaBearSox]

Well there's the problem -- you're including the bribe you paid since it's illegal to ship beer via USPS. :)Seriously, it costs anywhere from $10 to $20 to ship via UPS or FedEx, depending how far you ship, the state of the world economy, etc. Usually somewhere around $12 if memory serves (it's been a few months).

How many bottles is that?and...I was shipping "yeast samples" not beer....

[Stout_fan]

... 2) You know the beer sucks and you want to find out why and how to fix it. I don't think I've ever done this, but I know people who have. ...

And this Saturday I judged 9 of your so minded associates who submitted stouts like this.And you can guess how I feel about stouts in general.Ya know, when every beer in a flight sux, you start asking yourself why you decided to spend a day doing judging. The other judging teams had some winners. Guess we just drew the short straw....NINE FREAKIN' TIMES!