[klickitat jim]

I'm just getting started. Zero experience at official beer judging. I have evaluated people though. Its not easy but having objective standardized guidelines helps. If an observable element is required and it's not there, opinion is not needed. I think where the problem lies is as already mentioned, but also when the evaluator puts him or herself into the mix. What I mean is when it goes from "check out this beer" to "check me out, judging this beer".

Sometimes I think you just have to risk being the dummy and say "they seem the same to me."

[phunhog]

I still enter contests but I wonder why....If I do well I second guess the judges and if I do poorly I second guess the judges.  Judging beer can be so subjective and as others have pointed out influenced by a myriad of factors.  Just remember the most important judge is YOU and whether you are happy with your beer!

[morticaixavier]

I still enter contests but I wonder why....If I do well I second guess the judges and if I do poorly I second guess the judges.  Judging beer can be so subjective and as others have pointed out influenced by a myriad of factors.  Just remember the most important judge is YOU and whether you are happy with your beer!

nuh uh, the most important judge is my wife. 

[dkfick]

There isn't really a BJCP low score.  Competitions can choose to set a courtesy score if they wish and many choose 13 as this score.  Basically they don't want people getting butt hurt with scores of like 5... Not that in the grand scheme of things there is really a difference between 5 and 13...

[SecondRow_Sean]

I'm currently enrolled in the CraftBrewers Apprenticeship through the American Brewers Guild, and just went through a whole lecture on sensory evaluation. It was some pretty interesting stuff, about the difference between sensory analysts (trained evaluators) versus organoleptic tasters (untrained, emotional tasters) and how they attempted to quantify the evaluations as much as possible. They also talked about sensory biases and how they affected the evaluations.

In short, there's a WHOLE LOT of factors that can influence beer judging- many of which are outside the control of the brewer.

[el_capitan]

I still enter contests but I wonder why....If I do well I second guess the judges and if I do poorly I second guess the judges.  Judging beer can be so subjective and as others have pointed out influenced by a myriad of factors.  Just remember the most important judge is YOU and whether you are happy with your beer!

This is exactly why I don't enter competitions.  I took the BJCP classes but haven't bothered with the test.  I wanted to learn how to objectively evaluate beer, and I learned a lot in the process.  Now I trust my palate enough to judge my own beer and make tweaks to my process and recipes as needed.  I rarely pull out a score sheet and put my thoughts down on paper, but when I do it's helpful.  Much easier to get a picture of the whole beer when you're really examining each aspect. 

I just don't see the benefit in paying somebody else $7 to drink my beer and tell me what's wrong with it.  That said, I highly value feedback from other who are knowledgeable about beer.  And I do have friends who are also BJCP trained and give honest feedback. 

In the last two years I feel like I've really grown as a brewer, mainly when I started building my brewing water from RO.  It would be interesting to enter a couple beers just to see how they measure up. 

[dkfick]

I don't enter competitions for feedback on my beers.  That's what a homebrew club and your other judge/brewer/beer friends are for.  I enter competitions because I'm a competitive mother****** lol.