Back from the contest, it was interesting to say the least. As feared, I was the only BJCP judge and the only one who knew anything about judging beer. Fortunately I thought to bring a couple copies of the Style Guidelines and a bunch of scoresheets. They had only 28 entries thank goodness. I grouped them as best I could into three flights of six, a flight of seven and a flight of three. We judged IPA (6), brown/porter/stout (6), English/Scottish/Irish Ale (7), Belgian/French/German (6), and Specialty (3). The Belgian/French/German was mostly wit and weizen, although there was a saison and it happened to win the category. A honey lager won Specialty, barely edging the cherry pale ale. Overall the quality of brews was good, very few examples of obvious flaws.
At first the event coordinator started to help me judge but he passed off to another volunteer after the first flight because he kept getting interrupted. I worked with three other people and a couple more hung around long enough to get an idea of what to do. It took us from 10AM-2:30PM to get through the beers, I know I'm slow but I thought we did a thorough job. My helpers did an excellent job. One ws an English major, I told him to whip out his adjectives. Another was a stat professor, he corrected the math on my sheets and averaged two numbers at a rapid rate.
People's Choice went to a Bitter that didn't win its category, but some people entered just two bottles like a normal contest so not all were represented in that contest. We had a few entries from the KC Biermeisters, and one from AZ. I think they did well but I really don't recall for sure. Hopefully the contest coordinator will scan those and email the sheets soon.
So all in all it was a mild success, they didn't have the crowd they wanted but nothing new about that. The people who came and those who entered got to see what a beer judging contest is all about, we'll see if they do it again next year.