[Megary]

I’ll be the outlier and say that I find SNPA to be a mediocre beer.  I’ve had many better Pale Ales.  Forget the BJCP or competitions, but I’ll take a Dale’s or a Yard’s over a Sierra Nevada any day, to name just a few off the top of my head.  I’ll acknowledge that maybe I’m not getting SNPA at its best, but it always comes across as too sweet and very unsessionable to me.  Pass.

[dmtaylor]

  Low efficiency should in theory increase malty flavor.  Perhaps that is the balance these judges were looking for in the APA.  And maybe the brewer diluted the beer down to make it more quaffable?  There is a lot we don't know.

Not understand this- why would malt flavor increase?  I suppose this could be true if malt flavor extraction efficiency is different that malt sugar extraction efficiency.  Is there some other mechanism you have in mind?

That is exactly right. If you use more malt in the same volume, you get more malt flavor.

[Wilbur]

At GABF a few years back, SNPA failed to medal in the category it defined.

Perhaps you could amplify on this a bit. Since Sierra Nevada is the definition of Pale Ale, and set the standard for the beer, what the heck happened?

Is it that other breweries are brewing a better Pale Ale?

Or is it that breweries today have gone over-the-top in their approach?

Is a Pale Ale of today the same beer a Pale Ale was 20 years ago? If not, has the definition changed?

Those are great questions!

I would agree the style has changed and become more hop forward commercially. I’m quite sure snpa has become more hop forward through the years.

However mostly these commercial realities should not matter in a bjcp competition especially the nationals. What defines commercial beer is immaterial in a bjcp event as the liquid is defined by the guidelines and the commercial references backup those descriptions. When beers fall outside those descriptions they fall outside the guidelines, period.

A perfect example of this is that Tinroof Voodoo Pale Ale won gold at gabf a few years ago which I have zero problem with due to it being a very different competition. I LOVE that beer, but if I turned the hazy soft hop forward beer into a bjcp event as a pale ale I’d expect a 30-35 point score not a 48 point winner. Why? The style guidelines.


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I guess I think the BJCP style guidelines are more descriptive than prescriptive. The same the dictionary doesn't define our language, it just describes how we use it.

I don't the concern over SNPA not medaling. Can multiple beers medal? Either way, there's 9k breweries out there. It doesn't seem like a stretch that there are a few out there that make a better pale ale, especially when you have craft malts, advanced hop products, and dozens of new hop varieties.

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[Cliffs]

At GABF a few years back, SNPA failed to medal in the category it defined.

I hate that this is true. Sierra Nevada makes some of the best beer in the world. We are so spoiled that we can get it at almost any grocery store.

[reverseapachemaster]

I’ll be the outlier and say that I find SNPA to be a mediocre beer.  I’ve had many better Pale Ales.  Forget the BJCP or competitions, but I’ll take a Dale’s or a Yard’s over a Sierra Nevada any day, to name just a few off the top of my head.  I’ll acknowledge that maybe I’m not getting SNPA at its best, but it always comes across as too sweet and very unsessionable to me.  Pass.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of SNPA myself but this is a good example of why beers with higher gravity, hopping, etc. win medals in competition. If you look at Dale's it's 6.5% ABV and 65 IBUs, which is well within IPA territory, especially for when it came out. Is it really an APA because they call it one? If not, after twenty years, how much can anybody be expected to care?


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More broadly to the discussion: We're asking a lot from judges, who might spend five minutes max on a beer, to strike entries because they taste too good or seem a little over the top for the style. Guidelines nor competition rules set hard limits on gravity or hopping rate. Competitions don't require seeing the recipe beforehand and even if they did, it wouldn't objectively prove anything. A brewer with a dialed in process on a twenty gallon system can brew with better hop utilization than a new brewer with a stove top partial mash. The new brewer might use way more hops but that doesn't mean that beer necessarily has the best or most hop flavor.

Letting judges come up with their own hard limits is going to create chaotic results and discourage a lot of good brewers. I've seen judges try to do this and I've only ever seen it turn into a ridiculous discussion. It was obvious in short time in every instance that the judge only cared about showing how smart or superior his palate. If anything, we need a lot less of those judging experiences. I agree judges probably should strike entries obviously beyond the guidelines but striking close calls is probably not in the competition's best interests.

[ynotbrusum]

I had a Lichtbier get dinged for being too flavorful for the style.  It medaled anyway.

[HighVoltageMan!]

I had a Lichtbier get dinged for being too flavorful for the style.  It medaled anyway.

I had something similar. I entered a Pale Ale, the judges commented that it pushed the limits of the style, it got a gold. This has happened several times with that beer. Brewing for commercial consumers and for competitions should be the same, but I believe that good competitors will have a strategy and changed things up a bit. Brew a little bigger to get them to stand out. If they go too big, they may get bounced.

[Bel Air Brewing]

I had a Lichtbier get dinged for being too flavorful for the style.  It medaled anyway.

Brew a little bigger to get them to stand out. If they go too big, they may get bounced.

History shows that most of the time, bigger really is better.

[goose]

I had a Lichtbier get dinged for being too flavorful for the style.  It medaled anyway.

I had something similar. I entered a Pale Ale, the judges commented that it pushed the limits of the style, it got a gold. This has happened several times with that beer. Brewing for commercial consumers and for competitions should be the same, but I believe that good competitors will have a strategy and changed things up a bit. Brew a little bigger to get them to stand out. If they go too big, they may get bounced.

Same thing happened to me.   I entered an American Brown Ale that I brewed to imperial strength in a competition a couple years ago, got a 43 on it, and took gold.  I knew it was somewhat out of the style guidelines since it was around 8% ABV but it tasted great and I wanted feedback on it.  Believe me I am not complaining here, that was the highest score I have ever received at a competition.
As a BJCP judge, sometimes because of palate fatigue, the bigger beers will definitely stand out more to a particular judge.  Since judges don't see the specifics on the beer like ABV and IBU's (as has been mentioned), they have to go with their impression of the entry during the judging, especially when there is only 5-7 minutes to evaluate each entry in a flight.