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Author Topic: NHC Gold Medal Recipes  (Read 7470 times)

Offline mainebrewer

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #15 on: August 30, 2017, 05:51:36 pm »
The BJCP has always been firmly against electronic scoring.

I don't know if I would phrase it that way. There are certainly some logistical challenges, but the burden of those is more on the organizers of competitions. If a comp uses an electronic app, are they also going to provide the judges with a tablet or device to be able to use that scoring app? If they expect judges to use their own devices, what are they going to do when a judge's smartphone gets a beer spilled on it?

At most of the comps that I judge, many of the judges are using their smart phones to reference the BJCP guidelines. That said, I wouldn't want to fill out a score sheet by "typing" on my smart phone.
"It's not that people are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that just isn't true." Ronald Reagan

Offline Wilbur

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #16 on: August 30, 2017, 09:59:02 pm »
Type to text is a great thing! Honestly, this might be my age showing, but I'd rather be digital. Worst case scenario-pens and paper forms. Best case scenario? You've eliminated tallying scores, emailing scoresheets. You can have an in app bjcp guide, or a guided tasting mode... I'm getting a little tempted to dust off my C programming skills...

Offline hackrsackr

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #17 on: August 31, 2017, 08:10:11 am »
The score means nothing. All the beers chosen for medals are "considered" to be world-class examples of their respective style.

That's hardly my experience. Its rare that beer in the first rounds of NHC are 'world-class' beer. With almost two decades of judging in the NHC, most beers are only OK and their scores reflect that. But some of those OK beers do advance or are awarded medals because they are the best of the OK.

With that knowledge, I know that 'medal-winning' beer may not mean a lot. However, a score above 38 is more likely to signal that a beer is special and possibly 'world-class'.

A blue-ribbon, 30 point beer is still a mediocre beer.  I would welcome a mention of how a beer was scored by its judges and if those judges were well-experienced. That will tell far more than a medal ever could.

We're talking gold medal final round recipes, not first round ones.

Also the quotation marks implied that it's not always true.


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Offline mabrungard

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #18 on: August 31, 2017, 09:20:34 am »
We're talking gold medal final round recipes, not first round ones.

Also the quotation marks implied that it's not always true.

Understood, but an important point still applies to final round beers too. They are not all 'great'.
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Offline denny

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #19 on: August 31, 2017, 09:44:33 am »
The BJCP has always been firmly against electronic scoring.

I don't know if I would phrase it that way. There are certainly some logistical challenges, but the burden of those is more on the organizers of competitions. If a comp uses an electronic app, are they also going to provide the judges with a tablet or device to be able to use that scoring app? If they expect judges to use their own devices, what are they going to do when a judge's smartphone gets a beer spilled on it?

Exactly
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Offline oginme

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #20 on: August 31, 2017, 10:30:18 am »
We're talking gold medal final round recipes, not first round ones.

Also the quotation marks implied that it's not always true.

Understood, but an important point still applies to final round beers too. They are not all 'great'.

Drawing a parallel to my other hobby, showing goats, the grand champion of the day is the least worst of the  goats at that show.

Offline brewinhard

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #21 on: August 31, 2017, 12:39:34 pm »
We're talking gold medal final round recipes, not first round ones.

Also the quotation marks implied that it's not always true.

Understood, but an important point still applies to final round beers too. They are not all 'great'.

Drawing a parallel to my other hobby, showing goats, the grand champion of the day is the least worst of the  goats at that show.

This is awesome!  Just made me laugh...

Offline joeinma

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #22 on: August 31, 2017, 01:34:55 pm »
I usually add the recipes this issue of Zymurgy into my Beersmith software and some of the recipes don't make sense.   For instance, the Historical London Brown ale, the English Brown winning recipe uses 10 lbs of base malt and another pound of specialty malt but the OG is only 1.038?  That OG is in the range for the that style of beer, but only way to only get 1.038 with over 11 lbs of grain is I put Beersmith's Brewhouse efficiency to 45%.

Ditto with the Other Pale American Ale, American Wheat recipe,  1.042 OG with 11.65 lb grain bill??   Wish the recipes included the brewhouse efficiency so we know what to start with.   

Offline riceral

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #23 on: August 31, 2017, 05:26:40 pm »
   Wish the recipes included the brewhouse efficiency so we know what to start with.

Or just list the % of each malt. Then we can use our own system's efficiency and whatever batch size we want and determine how much of each fermentable to use.



Ralph R.

Offline BrewBama

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NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #24 on: August 31, 2017, 06:37:57 pm »
I usually add the recipes this issue of Zymurgy into my Beersmith software and some of the recipes don't make sense.   For instance, the Historical London Brown ale, the English Brown winning recipe uses 10 lbs of base malt and another pound of specialty malt but the OG is only 1.038?  That OG is in the range for the that style of beer, but only way to only get 1.038 with over 11 lbs of grain is I put Beersmith's Brewhouse efficiency to 45%.

Ditto with the Other Pale American Ale, American Wheat recipe,  1.042 OG with 11.65 lb grain bill??   Wish the recipes included the brewhouse efficiency so we know what to start with.

Though I didn't plug it into a calculator I'm thinking that has to be for a 10 gal batch. Instead of changing brewhouse efficiency try increasing the batch size and see what you get.


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« Last Edit: August 31, 2017, 06:39:35 pm by BrewBama »

Offline waltsmalt

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #25 on: August 31, 2017, 08:58:49 pm »
We're talking gold medal final round recipes, not first round ones.

Also the quotation marks implied that it's not always true.

Understood, but an important point still applies to final round beers too. They are not all 'great'.


Drawing a parallel to my other hobby, showing goats, the grand champion of the day is the least worst of the  goats at that show.

This is great.  For a minute or two I remembered this is just a hobby for me.   ;)

Offline hackrsackr

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #26 on: September 01, 2017, 02:47:44 am »
We're talking gold medal final round recipes, not first round ones.

Also the quotation marks implied that it's not always true.

Understood, but an important point still applies to final round beers too. They are not all 'great'.

Drawing a parallel to my other hobby, showing goats, the grand champion of the day is the least worst of the  goats at that show.

Agreed, but...
This just happens to be the largest goat show in the world, and has four rounds of judging with about four months in between. The final judging (final round mini- BOS) being done by some of the highest ranked judges in the country. Of course they're not all great (June shipping the biggest factor IMO, lack of freshness from beers not rebrewed being second,) but a medal in the final round means more than a numerical score in some regional competition from less experienced judges. There may be some dud recipes in there, but there's going be 20-25 great recipes in there. If the recipe doesn't look right, don't brew it, or brew it to see how it turns out. Them's the options.

I for one, love the fact that the AHA publishes these recipes. Doing so gives new homebrewers a ballpark recipe for every style, each and every year. While they may not ALL be great, they have been more rigorously judged than any other entries you'll find.

Congrats to the winners, and thanks for sharing. Even the baaaah-d ones. 🤠


Offline dsmitch19

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Re: NHC Gold Medal Recipes
« Reply #27 on: September 12, 2017, 09:16:51 pm »
The BJCP has always been firmly against electronic scoring.  It's their decision, not the AHA.

Ok, I'm late to the party on this one b/c I've been traveling and off the grid for a couple weeks. But, I do want to clarify this in case someone reads this thread in the future.

The BJCP does not have a stance on electronic score sheets. Our competition sanctioning rules state that BJCP Judging Forms are recommended but not mandatory. The AHA runs the National Homebrew Competition, not the BJCP (I often see confusion there from entrants and sometimes even judges). The AHA can choose to run the NHC in any way they see fit as long as they follow the BJCP sanctioning rules and regulations (link below). We provide wide latitude for competition organizers to run competitions as they see fit as long as the basic rules are followed. So, nothing is stopping the NHC or any other competition from using electronic scoring other than perhaps the logistical concerns and work required to do so.

http://dev.bjcp.org/competitions/rules-regulations/

Cheers,
Dennis
Cheers!
Dennis Mitchell
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