California state fair home brew comp

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phoenixs4r

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Not sure where to post this... sorry if in wrong forum.

Did anyone else enter this? My brewing buddy entered in one of the best beers I had along with 3 of his own, and they all did bad according to the judges.

Perhaps I am a wee bit bitter, however it seems as though the judges were pretty unprofessional. I have 1 sheet that ranked a beer pretty low, and under each category of judging he marked 1/whatever with no notes. The side section that listed whether or not they were actually a bjcp judge was blank on a few forms, with simple initials on the name column. Is that the norm?

Again this was my first beer entered, but not theirs and they've won a few 1sts and 2nds on smaller competitions.

Maybe my brew did suck but I'm more disappointed at the lack of notes.
 
phoenixs4r said:
Not sure where to post this... sorry if in wrong forum.

Did anyone else enter this? My brewing buddy entered in one of the best beers I had along with 3 of his own, and they all did bad according to the judges.

Perhaps I am a wee bit bitter, however it seems as though the judges were pretty unprofessional. I have 1 sheet that ranked a beer pretty low, and under each category of judging he marked 1/whatever with no notes. The side section that listed whether or not they were actually a bjcp judge was blank on a few forms, with simple initials on the name column. Is that the norm?

Again this was my first beer entered, but not theirs and they've won a few 1sts and 2nds on smaller competitions.

Maybe my brew did suck but I'm more disappointed at the lack of notes.

I entered the san diego fair competition. I did not score great but not too poorly. The notes were short. Judges names were hard to read. They did not have to be certified. I noticed alot of the judges were also club members. I also noticed many of the first place awards went to club members. I can taste a great beer. I can taste a bad beer. The tweeners are hard to place. I imagine you were a victim of probably over 1200 entries, many of which belong to local clubs. I would also venture to guess your judge was not certified. The fair events are manned by volunteers. They are usually disorganized. If judges do not show up as promised, their spot is filled by a volunteer. I would rather pay a service to have my beer analyzed. I wonder if there is an affordable solution.
 
maddad said:
I entered the san diego fair competition. I did not score great but not too poorly. The notes were short. Judges names were hard to read. They did not have to be certified. I noticed alot of the judges were also club members. I also noticed many of the first place awards went to club members. I can taste a great beer. I can taste a bad beer. The tweeners are hard to place. I imagine you were a victim of probably over 1200 entries, many of which belong to local clubs. I would also venture to guess your judge was not certified. The fair events are manned by volunteers. They are usually disorganized. If judges do not show up as promised, their spot is filled by a volunteer. I would rather pay a service to have my beer analyzed. I wonder if there is an affordable solution.

Interesting. I would have assumed since it was a state fair it would have been a bit more oriented to actual judges but we all know where assuming gets one.
 
phoenixs4r said:
Interesting. I would have assumed since it was a state fair it would have been a bit more oriented to actual judges but we all know where assuming gets one.

Were you more interested in placing or getting feedback from a certified beer judge?
 
The judging at the midstate fair was done by all BJCP certified judges as far as I know.Your score sheets should have an email address for the judge,if you have questions perhaps an email to the judge is in order.if you have some constructive criticism about the contest,send the coordinator an email with your suggestions.
I can tell you that the competition at the midstate fair is tough.Their are a lot of really top notch home brewers in SLO county who are on top their game.
 
The judging at the midstate fair was done by all BJCP certified judges as far as I know.Your score sheets should have an email address for the judge,if you have questions perhaps an email to the judge is in order.if you have some constructive criticism about the contest,send the coordinator an email with your suggestions.
I can tell you that the competition at the midstate fair is tough.Their are a lot of really top notch home brewers in SLO county who are on top their game.

It sounds like he is talking about the California State Fair in Sacramento. I have never entered but think it is interesting how they assign ribbons. It looks like it goes by counties. So you could win a Gold for your IPA but really it is judged as the best IPA that was sent in from your particular county. In other words there would be multiple 1st places for every category.
 
Fat_Bastard said:
The judging at the midstate fair was done by all BJCP certified judges as far as I know.Your score sheets should have an email address for the judge,if you have questions perhaps an email to the judge is in order.if you have some constructive criticism about the contest,send the coordinator an email with your suggestions.
I can tell you that the competition at the midstate fair is tough.Their are a lot of really top notch home brewers in SLO county who are on top their game.

Well, that's where I was disappointed if I'm honest, out of all the very negatives of our beers were done with folks that hadn't bothered filling out their full name, emails or whether or not they were in fact judges or non judges. I'd like to be the bigger man and just say I'm not discouraged by the results, but I'm sure I'm a bit butthurt, but again I felt the entire score sheet was pretty unprofessional with the lack of info.

Again, this may be the norm and I may be expecting too much.

I believe out of the multiple judges that had reviewed each beer there was one that could be bothered to list his email and BJCP qualification and he was genuinely helpful.

I really dislike responding to this thread and creating it because it sounds like I'm complaining about failing at brewing beer, lol, so if you are still reading this I'm genuinely more interested in whether or not most competitions are run with this manner of seemingly unprofessionalism or not
 
Fat_Bastard said:
The judging at the midstate fair was done by all BJCP certified judges as far as I know.Your score sheets should have an email address for the judge,if you have questions perhaps an email to the judge is in order.if you have some constructive criticism about the contest,send the coordinator an email with your suggestions.
I can tell you that the competition at the midstate fair is tough.Their are a lot of really top notch home brewers in SLO county who are on top their game.

Hey Skip ;)
 
Well, that's where I was disappointed if I'm honest, out of all the very negatives of our beers were done with folks that hadn't bothered filling out their full name, emails or whether or not they were in fact judges or non judges. I'd like to be the bigger man and just say I'm not discouraged by the results, but I'm sure I'm a bit butthurt, but again I felt the entire score sheet was pretty unprofessional with the lack of info.

Again, this may be the norm and I may be expecting too much.

I believe out of the multiple judges that had reviewed each beer there was one that could be bothered to list his email and BJCP qualification and he was genuinely helpful.

I really dislike responding to this thread and creating it because it sounds like I'm complaining about failing at brewing beer, lol, so if you are still reading this I'm genuinely more interested in whether or not most competitions are run with this manner of seemingly unprofessionalism or not

I don't really see it as you being disappointed in the performance of your beer, I see it as disappointment in the judges not doing their jobs. The point of the score sheets (particularly if giving low scores) is to provide feedback on why it scored the way it did and what could be improved in the future. If the judges were so lazy that they couldn't even provide their names and contact information, that reflects pretty badly on the competition as a whole. I've got a beer entered into my first competition coming up at the beginning of August and all I'm looking for is constructive feedback on how to tweak the recipe in the future. If all I get is some scores and no comments that's not going to do me any good.
 
BJCP judging is hit or miss. I've gotten score sheets back with great feedback, and I've gotten score sheets back with completely inaccurate feedback. I competed in the San Diego Fair a few years ago with a Belgian IPA, and I had a judge seriously tell me to check my process for hot-side aeration. HSA, from absolutely everything I've read, is detrimental to long-term shelf stability of a beer -- this beer had been in the keg maybe 3-4 weeks... And my processes are pretty good, so I don't think HSA is an issue on my system. I think it was a judge who had learned a fancy new term and wanted to show it off.

So I'm sorry to hear your judges were crappy. Not all competitions are like that. And, frankly, I'll bet that not all styles judged at the Cal State Fair were like that... I'm sure they got a good number of qualified judges, but perhaps not enough to fill all the categories. So hopefully your next competition will go better...
 
Most competitions I have entered are NOT AT ALL like this.

I am not a BJCP judge, but my close friends are, and occasionally things happen to the scores where they have to adjust. Say the beer gets a 42 and a 46, makes it to a mini best of show (the top beers from each judged flight) and then tanks; but the beer that wins the mini BOS has a lower total score...they end up adjusting the beer that should have had a 44 to whatever it needs to be to fit into the scale -- could be a 35, or maybe a 38, if the other beer was a 40, for example.

I am in Indianapolis (co-founder of Tuxedo Park Brewers & MONK brew club member). Our club's first huge appearance at the Indiana State Fair this year netted us second place for most awarded Homebrew club. At our State Fair competition, the judges and stewards are outstanding, and the score sheets are generally helpful if not almost always thoroughly filled out. Heck, one of the judges who often does the State Fair among other comps wrote a freaking dissertation on the back page of the score sheet for one of our customers / friend's entry in another competition, the Upland Brewery's UpCup (held in May). She filled up the entire back page talking about the quality of coffee! I think that's a bit much, but he got his entry fee's worth of opinion. Our State Fair competition (it's called the Brewers Cup) had over 1000 entries this year, 750 + homebrew -- pretty good for a little state in the Midwest. Anyone can enter -- maybe you should send an entry to Indiana next year -- you WILL NOT be disappointed (unless your beer isn't very good, but that's neither here nor there). You probably wouldn't be able to make it, but they also have a really awesome awards banquet with great food and donated brew.

Furthremore, it is VERY difficult to cheat in a sanctioned competition -- or any competition for that matter if the bottles are unlabeled. Generally speaking, if you are a judge and member of a club, you don't judge your own...but with so many beers, it's nearly impossible to tell whose is whose, unless there's just one truly strange taste in a category -- to make that kind of cheating happen is far more work that it's worth. Keep in mind that there are usually two judges. So to get to the point where your judges can collude -- well it's just darn difficult. I wouldn't worry as much about that as giving constructive criticism to the organization of the event to improve in the future. There are plenty of VERY well run competitions out there to use as models.

HTH.

EDIT: P.S. If you want a pre-competition opinion from at least 2 certified judges, feel free to send a sample to our shop. We'd be happy to fill out score sheets and give you an unbiased opinion and write up some real score sheets. I'm sure you can find *some* shop in Cali that will do that for you too, but I thought I should offer -- we do it all the time : )
 
lindenboy said:
Most competitions I have entered are NOT AT ALL like this.

I am not a BJCP judge, but my close friends are, and occasionally things happen to the scores where they have to adjust. Say the beer gets a 42 and a 46, makes it to a mini best of show (the top beers from each judged flight) and then tanks; but the beer that wins the mini BOS has a lower total score...they end up adjusting the beer that should have had a 44 to whatever it needs to be to fit into the scale -- could be a 35, or maybe a 38, if the other beer was a 40, for example.

I am in Indianapolis (co-founder of Tuxedo Park Brewers & MONK brew club member). Our club's first huge appearance at the Indiana State Fair this year netted us second place for most awarded Homebrew club. At our State Fair competition, the judges and stewards are outstanding, and the score sheets are generally helpful if not almost always thoroughly filled out. Heck, one of the judges who often does the State Fair among other comps wrote a freaking dissertation on the back page of the score sheet for one of our customers / friend's entry in another competition, the Upland Brewery's UpCup (held in May). She filled up the entire back page talking about the quality of coffee! I think that's a bit much, but he got his entry fee's worth of opinion. Our State Fair competition (it's called the Brewers Cup) had over 1000 entries this year, 750 + homebrew -- pretty good for a little state in the Midwest. Anyone can enter -- maybe you should send an entry to Indiana next year -- you WILL NOT be disappointed (unless your beer isn't very good, but that's neither here nor there). You probably wouldn't be able to make it, but they also have a really awesome awards banquet with great food and donated brew.

Furthremore, it is VERY difficult to cheat in a sanctioned competition -- or any competition for that matter if the bottles are unlabeled. Generally speaking, if you are a judge and member of a club, you don't judge your own...but with so many beers, it's nearly impossible to tell whose is whose, unless there's just one truly strange taste in a category -- to make that kind of cheating happen is far more work that it's worth. Keep in mind that there are usually two judges. So to get to the point where your judges can collude -- well it's just darn difficult. I wouldn't worry as much about that as giving constructive criticism to the organization of the event to improve in the future. There are plenty of VERY well run competitions out there to use as models.

HTH.

EDIT: P.S. If you want a pre-competition opinion from at least 2 certified judges, feel free to send a sample to our shop. We'd be happy to fill out score sheets and give you an unbiased opinion and write up some real score sheets. I'm sure you can find *some* shop in Cali that will do that for you too, but I thought I should offer -- we do it all the time : )

I appreciate the input and the offer. Once I build my pipeline up from nothing and can supply myself with beer I'd like to take you up on that.
 
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