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Author Topic: You Don’t Have to Be a Supertaster to Be a Good Judge of Beer  (Read 2158 times)

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: You Don’t Have to Be a Supertaster to Be a Good Judge of Beer
« Reply #15 on: August 02, 2015, 06:54:06 am »
Bummer. The sad part is that breweries like that end up out of business and do more damage than good to the industry.

Hopefully no one misunderstands my comments. I'm not saying that great tasting skills is a bad thing. In fact I've learned a lot from great judges and plan to continue that. I'm merely saying that no matter what a beer judge god thinks, I still have to like it myself. I'm never going to be someone who just takes one guy's word for it.

Offline denny

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Re: You Don’t Have to Be a Supertaster to Be a Good Judge of Beer
« Reply #16 on: August 02, 2015, 10:14:43 am »
Now drinkers will show a preference for local no matter how crappy it is. I was at a brewery recently and could choke down two out of six, one of the four awful ones was acceptable enough I drank it out of pity. The other three I passed back to the bartender. There is no way that place should stay in business longer than a week, but they will because someone will like it because it is local. Now they may eventually figure out their oxidation issues, but even if they don't bad breweries typically make it a year or two before everyone figures out just being local ain't enough. I suppose the fans could be part of the 25% who cannot taste anything.


Ay least 1/3 of the MANY breweries around here are like this.
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Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: You Don’t Have to Be a Supertaster to Be a Good Judge of Beer
« Reply #17 on: August 02, 2015, 10:59:16 am »
Now drinkers will show a preference for local no matter how crappy it is. I was at a brewery recently and could choke down two out of six, one of the four awful ones was acceptable enough I drank it out of pity. The other three I passed back to the bartender. There is no way that place should stay in business longer than a week, but they will because someone will like it because it is local. Now they may eventually figure out their oxidation issues, but even if they don't bad breweries typically make it a year or two before everyone figures out just being local ain't enough. I suppose the fans could be part of the 25% who cannot taste anything.


Ay least 1/3 of the MANY breweries around here are like this.

+2.  When the newer craft beer drinkers get a little more savvy they'll realize that local doesn't always = good.
Jon H.

Offline theDarkSide

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Re: You Don’t Have to Be a Supertaster to Be a Good Judge of Beer
« Reply #18 on: August 03, 2015, 06:19:44 am »
Now drinkers will show a preference for local no matter how crappy it is. I was at a brewery recently and could choke down two out of six, one of the four awful ones was acceptable enough I drank it out of pity. The other three I passed back to the bartender. There is no way that place should stay in business longer than a week, but they will because someone will like it because it is local. Now they may eventually figure out their oxidation issues, but even if they don't bad breweries typically make it a year or two before everyone figures out just being local ain't enough. I suppose the fans could be part of the 25% who cannot taste anything.


Ay least 1/3 of the MANY breweries around here are like this.
Went to a local brewery here in NH and got a flight of samples.  Most were meh and a couple had serious issues (recipe design I believe, not flaws).  I did get a growler to give one a second chance at home, but it still wasn't good.  Have not been back since.
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Offline morticaixavier

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Re: You Don’t Have to Be a Supertaster to Be a Good Judge of Beer
« Reply #19 on: August 03, 2015, 06:35:14 am »
Bummer. The sad part is that breweries like that end up out of business and do more damage than good to the industry.

Hopefully no one misunderstands my comments. I'm not saying that great tasting skills is a bad thing. In fact I've learned a lot from great judges and plan to continue that. I'm merely saying that no matter what a beer judge god thinks, I still have to like it myself. I'm never going to be someone who just takes one guy's word for it.

However, when you walk into a bottle shop and are looking at THE WALL OF CRAFT BEER it can be pretty overwhelming. and if you are a neophyte and get overwhelmed you will grab... whatever is familiar. either BMC or, if you're committed to trying 'craft', something you've seen an ad for like blue moon.

I have a hard time buying wine because I really like good wine but when I walk into a wine store I don't even recognize 90%+ of the labels I see and the ones I do recognize are the big names. I can buy a bottle of ravenswood zin and know that it'll be okay but I won't discover anything new. I can randomly buy the bottle with the cutest critter on the label and I might get lucky but probably not. I can narrow my choices by going to the organic/sustainable/biodynamic section but it's still the same problem, just narrowed down. Or I can read the little Wine advocate blurbs and try to match the 'experts' evaluation to my desires.

Whether you like it or not the craft beer industry is maturing into something like the wine industry with a very very wide field of players and having some basis for comparison is helpful.

That said, if you drink a beer and it's tastes like blech and eeeeew you shouldn't let a gold medal make you question your own experience.

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Offline klickitat jim

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Re: You Don’t Have to Be a Supertaster to Be a Good Judge of Beer
« Reply #20 on: August 03, 2015, 07:00:40 am »


That said, if you drink a beer and it's tastes like blech and eeeeew you shouldn't let a gold medal make you question your own experience.
[/quote]


Well said. Exactly what I was trying to say.