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406

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: A question about the BJCP Judging philosophy?

« on: July 19, 2010, 12:28:50 am »

I am not in complete agreement. As a person who samples a vast amount of beer (home and craft), I think Thomas has a really high valuation of craft beer. While much of it is really good, there is a vast majority which could stand improvement. I also don't give out 37's to beers just because they have "no noticeable flaws".

I don't have a uniformly high an opinion of craft beer, I've paid money for some real crap. I've even sent some back.

You will, however, notice my useful weasel word "most" when describing craft beer in the 34-38 range. Every craft brewery has at least one beer which hits this level, even if it isn't "to style" in any BJCP category. If they don't, they won't be in business for long.

Beer which has suffered at the hands of distributors and retailers, came from a bad batch, or was made from a crummy - soon to be defunct - brewery, might fall considerably below what I consider to be an acceptable standard for commercial beer: in BJCP terms, 13-29. Commercial brew which isn't that great I score at 28-33.

407

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: A question about the BJCP Judging philosophy?

« on: July 15, 2010, 11:22:56 pm »

The "glass ceiling" or upper limit of 43-45 with BJCP scoring needs to be re-evaluated by the BJCP Board and consideration given towards issuing a position statement to all BJCP judges regarding the upper limit for scores in the BJCP guidelines.

I believe that a perfect score of 50 is difficult to achieve for the following reasons: 1) The score sheet is broken into six sections, so there are six places where you can lose points, rather than just one. 2) The judges have no way of knowing roughly how good the next beer in the flight will be, so they naturally hold back a bit to give the next beer in the flight a chance to be slightly better. 3) The need for consensus judging makes it pretty gutsy for one judge to max out his/her score and stick to it.

Practically, most homebrew (and most commercial beer) isn't "world class" and even "world class" beer might be conceivably be improved. The example you gave suggests that a "perfect 50" for homebrew is comparable to a "perfect 10" in figure skating or gymnastic. Consider, however, that a 10.0 is extremely unusual, even in Olympic-level competition. It's not going to happen in, say, collegiate or high school level competitions. Practically, most homebrewers are at the equivalent of high-school or college athletes in terms of skill.

I HAVE judged world-class beer (several beers made by a homebrew club members which went on to medal in the NHC 2nd round, a professionally made beer which went on to win 1st place in the Brewing News National IPA Challenge). I've also run training sessions where we judge commercial examples of great beers as if they were entries in competition. I'm not ashamed to say that I gave them well-deserved scores in the high 30s to low 40s. They were great beers, but there's always some way that they could be better.

Informally, I've described the upper scoring ranges for beer as follows:

34-36 Tasty, but trivial flaws. Equivalent to most craft-brews.
37-40 Superior. No obvious flaws. Better than most craft-brews.
41-45 Outstanding. World class. Angels sing when you drink this beer.
46-49 World Champion. National Best of Show winner. Angels sing and a beam of heavenly light shines down when you drink this beer.
50      Unique. When you open this beer, the heavenly choir sings, the skies are illuminated in holy light, the finger of God points down at the beer, and a booming celestial voice proclaims, "That one."

408

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: A question about the BJCP Judging philosophy?

« on: July 15, 2010, 10:27:27 pm »

Add judges, throw out the top and bottom scores, average the rest - that's your score. Olympic style.

The problem with this idea is that there usually aren't enough judges available. Competition and judge directors have to scramble to find enough people willing to judge. This means that you're lucky if you get two judges per flight. Throw out the top and bottom scores and there are no scores left.

409

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: A question about the BJCP Judging philosophy?

« on: July 15, 2010, 10:19:33 pm »

Does anyone else think one of the Judge caricatures looks a lot like Robin Williams?

The drawings are just really bad. They look like pointillist mug shots.

410

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: A question about the BJCP Judging philosophy?

« on: July 15, 2010, 10:14:02 pm »

I don't understand why a judge would change the original score to make it fit within the other judges’ scores, within 7 points?

Call it "group-think" or consensus, as you like, but the idea is for the judges to all be within the same or adjacent scoring "bands."  If you look at a score sheet, you'll see a Scoring Guide in the lower left-hand corner. Each band is roughly a 7 point spread.

If you're consistently giving beers scores in the low teens or high 40s and the other judges are giving the same beer scores in the 20s to 30s, then there's something wrong with your calibration. You need to discuss the beer with the other judges to determine if there's something that you missed - or that they missed.

411

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: How does too much wood taste?

« on: July 15, 2010, 09:54:25 pm »

How does too much wood taste?

You've tasted it: intense tannin astringency and bitterness, like sucking on a cheap tea bag.   

I aged a beer in a French oak barrel for 3 months, today I popped open a bottle and my teeth feel like the enamel wants to come off.  So not cool.  I don’t get it, I tasted this same beer 2 weeks after bottling and I thought wow one of the best beers I’ve ever tasted (it was so smooth and velvet like almost like cream), and today 4 weeks after bottling and the enamel wants to come off my teeth. There is a bitterness that is like no other bitterness I have ever tasted, and it is so subdued almost like the oak is contributing its own IBU's.

Let the beer age in a cool, dark place for at least 6 more months. If you're lucky, the intense tannins (responsible for the astringent, resinous, tooth-coating sensation) will settle down, giving you vanilla, coconut and mildly oaky/woody notes. You did brew a beer which could stand up to extended aging, right?

If this isn't an option, your only choice is to rebrew the beer, age it in a glass/stainless container and then blend it with your current batch of beer to control the degree of oak character.

I'm not sure why you experienced the sudden flavor change, though.  As a guess, there might be something in your beer that ate up some of the residual sugars and starches, making previously hidden tannins really stand out. Be on the lookout for possible wild yeast/bacterial infection. Sample a bottle of your beer every couple of weeks, if you're getting gushing bottles, thin body and off flavors, your beer is headed towards Lambic-ville.