[klickitat jim]

Hey, an old friend once told me that if two people always agree, one of them is lying. So its all good.

Just as a heads up, I'm planning my NHC brews and you can count on them pushing the envelope statistically. So if you plan on winning you better go big, cuz mine will be huuuuuuge.

[ynotbrusum]

Hey, an old friend once told me that if two people always agree, one of them is lying. So its all good.

Just as a heads up, I'm planning my NHC brews and you can count on them pushing the envelope statistically. So if you plan on winning you better go big, cuz mine will be huuuuuuge.

I once entered an Imperial Kolsch (one of my first all grain batches that missed low on the volumes and I didn't think to just cold sparge with some more water).  It finished at 1.006 and one of the judges liked it but said it was underattenuated for a Kolsch...so watch for that!

[dsmitch19]

I think the new introduction to the 2014 BJCP Style Guidelines tries to dispel the rigidity that some choose to use in their interpretation and application of the style guidelines. This is especially true for the notion that the vital statistics are absolutes.

I would highly recommend reading it in the current draft of the 2014 guidelines. Here are some key points:

The BJCP Style Guidelines are guidelines not specifications. Take those words at face value, or their plain meaning. Guidelines are meant to describe general characteristics of the most common examples, and serve as an aid for judging; they are not meant to be rigorously-applied specifications that are used to punish slightly unusual examples. They are suggestions, not hard limits. Allow for some flexibility in judging so that well-crafted examples can be rewarded. The guidelines are written in detail to facilitate the process of the structured evaluation of beer as practiced in homebrewing competitions; don’t take each individual statement in a style description as a reason to disqualify a beer.

This next one made me

The Style Guidelines are not the Ten Commandments. The words in this document are not due to divine inspiration; they were written by people making a good faith effort to describe beer as it is perceived. Don’t treat them as some kind of Holy Scripture. Don’t get so lost in parsing the individual words that you lose sight of the overall intent. The most important part of any style is the overall balance and impression; that is, that the beer reminds you of the style, and is a nicely drinkable product. To get lost in the individual descriptions loses the essence of the style. The mere fact that style descriptions can change from one edition of the guidelines to the next should be the clearest illustration that the words themselves are not sacred.

...and about Vital Stats:

Keep in mind that these Vital Stats are still guidelines, not absolutes. They are where most examples fall, not every possible commercial example of a style. They help judges determine judging order, not whether an example should be disqualified.

[tommymorris]

I think the new introduction to the 2014 BJCP Style Guidelines tries to dispel the rigidity that some choose to use in their interpretation and application of the style guidelines. This is especially true for the notion that the vital statistics are absolutes.

I would highly recommend reading it in the current draft of the 2014 guidelines. Here are some key points:

The BJCP Style Guidelines are guidelines not specifications. Take those words at face value, or their plain meaning. Guidelines are meant to describe general characteristics of the most common examples, and serve as an aid for judging; they are not meant to be rigorously-applied specifications that are used to punish slightly unusual examples. They are suggestions, not hard limits. Allow for some flexibility in judging so that well-crafted examples can be rewarded. The guidelines are written in detail to facilitate the process of the structured evaluation of beer as practiced in homebrewing competitions; don’t take each individual statement in a style description as a reason to disqualify a beer.

This next one made me

The Style Guidelines are not the Ten Commandments. The words in this document are not due to divine inspiration; they were written by people making a good faith effort to describe beer as it is perceived. Don’t treat them as some kind of Holy Scripture. Don’t get so lost in parsing the individual words that you lose sight of the overall intent. The most important part of any style is the overall balance and impression; that is, that the beer reminds you of the style, and is a nicely drinkable product. To get lost in the individual descriptions loses the essence of the style. The mere fact that style descriptions can change from one edition of the guidelines to the next should be the clearest illustration that the words themselves are not sacred.

...and about Vital Stats:

Keep in mind that these Vital Stats are still guidelines, not absolutes. They are where most examples fall, not every possible commercial example of a style. They help judges determine judging order, not whether an example should be disqualified.

Thanks! Those are all very relevant to this topic.

[klickitat jim]

Its a beautiful thing!

[chinaski]

The answer, for the OP, is to try again at the tasting exam and become a judge.

Amen brother!  I'm a judge but relatively new at it.  I cannot tell you how much I learned about competitions by actually being put in the judge's role, where you have to do your best with the tools you have.  It's not easy, even after the first few beers and you feel like you are doing it well.

Fatigue is real, biases are real, the personalities of your fellow judges are at play too.  It's a human endeavor that isn't perfect and cannot be.  It's fun and it's work and it's a volunteer effort.  I do my best to give honest feedback that is helpful; the score is my best estimate of where the entry stands in relationship to the standard.  Entrants should be respectful of that.

[S. cerevisiae]

No way to find out OG in finished beer.

Determining the OG is trivial given the ABV and FG.  Without the ABV, well ...

OG = ABV / 1.25 / 105 + FG

[S. cerevisiae]

The answer, for the OP, is to try again at the tasting exam and become a judge. If you believe that you would have accurately judged that beer as out of style in 8B you could have explained this to the other judges sitting your flight and maybe, just maybe improve the skills and knowledge of the BJCP judging corp a little bit to help avoid these situations in the future. If there is a bias in judging towards the biggest the only way to fix that is to call it out. just like any bias, until people start standing up and calling it out every time they see it nothing will change.

so kudos to you S. Cerv for calling this out but it's even better to do it at the moment than after the fact. I get fed up all the time with notes on comp beers that clearly indicate the judge does not know what they are talking about and that's why I am trying to become a judge myself. So that, at least when I am judging a beer I will be able to do my best to pick the best beer TO STYLE on the table and to help the other judges do the same.

you're smart, perceptive, and driven. Don't let fear of failure stop you from actually doing something to make this process better.

I am a judge, just a time limited one.  I have two years to retake and pass the judging exam before my status is changed to "Affiliated."

I do not fear failing the exam again. I attempted to pull off something that is very difficult to accomplish when I went from not knowing how the BJCP was organized to sitting for the online and judging exams within the period of a week.  I passed the on-line exam and came very close to passing the beer judging exam without judging a single contest, taking a BJCP prep course, or spending months in the woodshed with a stack of beer scoring sheets (I filled out a total of two score sheets before sitting for the exam).  I scored at the master level on the scoring section of the exam on five out of six beers.  Where I fell down on the job was on the "fill out the white space" portions of the exam. Quick frankly, that part of the beer judging exam requires practice.  Knowing what's right or wrong with a beer does not automatically translate to being able to clearly describe one's perceptions within a short period of time using standard BJCP terminology.   Being able to describe a beer using BJCP terminology under time constraints only comes from doing.

With that said, the reason why I will more than likely not re-sit for the exam is because I have little interest in booking a road trip to make it happen.  The last exam in my state until early 2016 is later this month.  I am number 20 on the wait list. The exams in surrounding states are either already booked beyond capacity or are reserving their seats for candidates who are taking a locally taught BJCP prep course (which I cannot fault).   There's a high probability that I will lose interest in re-sitting for the beer judging exam by 2016.  I only sat for it the first time because the opportunity fell into my lap.


 

[morticaixavier]

The answer, for the OP, is to try again at the tasting exam and become a judge. If you believe that you would have accurately judged that beer as out of style in 8B you could have explained this to the other judges sitting your flight and maybe, just maybe improve the skills and knowledge of the BJCP judging corp a little bit to help avoid these situations in the future. If there is a bias in judging towards the biggest the only way to fix that is to call it out. just like any bias, until people start standing up and calling it out every time they see it nothing will change.

so kudos to you S. Cerv for calling this out but it's even better to do it at the moment than after the fact. I get fed up all the time with notes on comp beers that clearly indicate the judge does not know what they are talking about and that's why I am trying to become a judge myself. So that, at least when I am judging a beer I will be able to do my best to pick the best beer TO STYLE on the table and to help the other judges do the same.

you're smart, perceptive, and driven. Don't let fear of failure stop you from actually doing something to make this process better.

I am a judge, just a time limited one.  I have two years to retake and pass the judging exam before my status is changed to "Affiliated."

I do not fear failing the exam again. I attempted to pull off something that is very difficult to accomplish when I went from not knowing how the BJCP was organized to sitting for the online and judging exams within the period of a week.  I passed the on-line exam and came very close to passing the beer judging exam without judging a single contest, taking a BJCP prep course, or spending months in the woodshed with a stack of beer scoring sheets (I filled out a total of two score sheets before sitting for the exam).  I scored at the master level on the scoring section of the exam on five out of six beers.  Where I fell down on the job was on the "fill out the white space" portions of the exam. Quick frankly, that part of the beer judging exam requires practice.  Knowing what's right or wrong with a beer does not automatically translate to being able to clearly describe one's perceptions within a short period of time using standard BJCP terminology.   Being able to describe a beer using BJCP terminology under time constraints only comes from doing.

With that said, the reason why I will more than likely not re-sit for the exam is because I have little interest in booking a road trip to make it happen.  The last exam in my state until early 2016 is later this month.  I am number 20 on the wait list. The exams in surrounding states are either already booked beyond capacity or are reserving their seats for candidates who are taking a locally taught BJCP prep course (which I cannot fault).   There's a high probability that I will lose interest in re-sitting for the beer judging exam by 2016.  I only sat for it the first time because the opportunity fell into my lap.

I was not questioning your abilities. in fact I was implying that the program would be better for your inclusion. as you say, the only way to learn is to do, which means right now, even without re-sitting the exam you can start to improve the quality of BJCP judging. I don't know about where you live but here there is always a seat at a judging table for a provisional, novice, or even non-bjcp judge at just about every competition.

I'm simply encouraging you to take action instead of quibbling over numbers that you as a hobby scientist must realize are more or less meaningless coming from many homebrewers, me included. My numbers are helpful for me to adjust recipes and duplicate brews but I have no illusions that if I sent my wort and beer in for analysis those numbers would bear little resemblance to the ones I have in my software.

[denny]

I have no illusions that if I sent my wort and beer in for analysis those numbers would bear little resemblance to the ones I have in my software.

You might be surprised.  Every time I've had a beer analyzed it was remarkably close to what Promash told me.

[morticaixavier]

I have no illusions that if I sent my wort and beer in for analysis those numbers would bear little resemblance to the ones I have in my software.

You might be surprised.  Every time I've had a beer analyzed it was remarkably close to what Promash told me.

it's highly probably that you are somewhat less slapdash than I. But I have been wrong before and will likely be so again.

[HoosierBrew]

it's highly probably that you are somewhat less slapdash than I. But I have been wrong before and will likely be so again.

   Great word - maybe word of the day !  I aim not to be slapdash, but it doesn't always work though.

[ynotbrusum]

it's highly probably that you are somewhat less slapdash than I. But I have been wrong before and will likely be so again.

   Great word - maybe word of the day !  I aim not to be slapdash, but it doesn't always work though.

+1.  I try to be slightly less slipshod than full on slapdash, but often my brewing process just makes me slap happy by the end of my brew day!

[tommymorris]

it's highly probably that you are somewhat less slapdash than I. But I have been wrong before and will likely be so again.

   Great word - maybe word of the day !  I aim not to be slapdash, but it doesn't always work though.

+1.  I try to be slightly less slipshod than full on slapdash, but often my brewing process just makes me slap happy by the end of my brew day!

I think I will try to work all these words into my class today.

[HoosierBrew]

it's highly probably that you are somewhat less slapdash than I. But I have been wrong before and will likely be so again.

   Great word - maybe word of the day !  I aim not to be slapdash, but it doesn't always work though.

+1.  I try to be slightly less slipshod than full on slapdash, but often my brewing process just makes me slap happy by the end of my brew day!

Well done.