Your worst beer comp score

We all love to brag about our good scores, but lets hear some bad ones and the comments that went along with them. Sorry for the negativity, but I am sure this bottle I just opened is infected, soooooooooooo cheer me up!

Cheers

HumboldtBrewer said:

We all love to brag about our good scores, but lets hear some bad ones and the comments that went along with them. Sorry for the negativity, but I am sure this bottle I just opened is infected, soooooooooooo cheer me up!

Cheers

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29: off syle. No esters.

29 on a beer that scored a 39.5 a week earlier in a much bigger comp. still waiting on score sheet.

I am pretty sure I win this thread.

I got an 11.5 combined score on my Robust Porter in a competition last year. I am thinking about framing those scoresheets because they are perfect examples of how not to judge a beer. There were maybe a total of 10 words on each scoresheet, and absolutely no useful feedback whatsoever. The really sad part is that the bottle must have been infected or otherwise contaminated (hard to tell from the useless feedback), and the correct action on the part of the judges would be to ask for another bottle from the steward.


The 11.5 is notable because there is an unwritten rule that you don't score a beer below 13.

I saw a 12. It was a barleywine submitted in a Surly Furious clone competition. It was a good barleywine, just in the wrong comp.

He last club competition people where laughing about a scoresheet where one of the entries had notes on it where the judge said it smelled like human feces. Well I got my score sheet back for my Schwarzbier and got a low score the judge tore it to shreds. It wasn't really that bad. Well I found out the infamous poo beer scored better than my Schwarzbeir.

23, was also my first and only thus far. Comments were solvent off flavors from fermentation temp too high and body too thin.

Dok said:

He last club competition people where laughing about a scoresheet where one of the entries had notes on it where the judge said it smelled like human feces. Well I got my score sheet back for my Schwarzbier and got a low score the judge tore it to shreds. It wasn't really that bad. Well I found out the infamous poo beer scored better than my Schwarzbeir.

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Cannot stop laughing... great story!
Just enterred my first competion... nervous to hear the results! Hopefully there are no fecal notes on my score sheets!

20.... Amber Ale. Judges said it was a great brown ale that they could drink all day, but out of category....... No idea what happened. It was definitely an amber and not a brown.... it was high on gravity, hops and it was 15ish on color.... but not a "brown." I am still wondering if I grabbed the wrong beer off my shelf and actually sent a brown...

Also got a 21 on a Belgian Golden this past weekend - that would be my second worst...... waiting to see why. I don't know much about belgians though and it was the first one I brewed. Thinking I was out of style or it was too young because the beer is decent tasting... have to wait and see I guess.

weirdboy said:

I am pretty sure I win this thread.

I got an 11.5 combined score on my Robust Porter in a competition last year. I am thinking about framing those scoresheets because they are perfect examples of how not to judge a beer. There were maybe a total of 10 words on each scoresheet, and absolutely no useful feedback whatsoever. The really sad part is that the bottle must have been infected or otherwise contaminated (hard to tell from the useless feedback), and the correct action on the part of the judges would be to ask for another bottle from the steward.


The 11.5 is notable because there is an unwritten rule that you don't score a beer below 13.

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Also isn't another unwritten rull to provide 1 feedback comment on how to improve your brewing for every 10/5(?) points off 50.
I would woder if your beer had been mistreated or mixed up somehow.
Also any chance you can scan and post the scoresheets on here?

lester77 said:

Cannot stop laughing... great story!
Just enterred my first competion... nervous to hear the results! Hopefully there are no fecal notes on my score sheets!

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I also just entered my first comp. Sole purpose for entering 5 beers is for feedback. If somehow I place in the competition, awesome, but I can't wait to get my (potentially) embarrassing scores!

HumboldtBrewer said:

We all love to brag about our good scores, but lets hear some bad ones and the comments that went along with them. Sorry for the negativity, but I am sure this bottle I just opened is infected, soooooooooooo cheer me up!

Cheers

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Alright, it seems most people are keeping quite with their bombers. I scored a 20 for a Belgium triple. As you can guess from the score it was low in every category. However, I believe the important point is the notes I received. Based upon them I was able to retrace my process and see that I did not allow the yeast enough time to do their thing.

I was following the kits instructions without listening to the yeast - with proper hydrometer measures, etc. from the tasting notes and additional tastings I was able to discern that the beer never had a chance convert all of the sugars to alcohol goodness (my basement was cold in January). I was left with a beer that finished at 1.030 (SG 1.096) as opposed to the style norm of 1.008 -1.014.

As a result I eschew secondaries and allow my beers to send a month in the primary - finding their way. This has resulted in better beers being brewed. The only way to learn this is entering your beers into completions and reading the feedback. Scoring a 40 for a beer is gratifying, but it does not necessary teach you as much as a lower scoring brew with good tasting notes.

Don't let it get you down. A saving grace for me was I had already had three or four beers I the pipeline after receiving this feedback, so it did not derail any future brews.


-John

24 two weeks ago..... Pale Ale was too sweet

A month ago, 26

One judge said too much bourbon, not enough vanilla, second judge said the complete reverse
Go figure....

Who cares, the beer is fantastic

weirdboy said:

and the correct action on the part of the judges would be to ask for another bottle from the steward.

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This is not standard protocol as part of brewing great beer is having great sanitation and packaging processes. If every bad beer were rejudged on a second bottle, we'd be there more than all day (and for every competition I've judged, we're already there all day).

PseudoChef said:

This is not standard protocol as part of brewing great beer is having great sanitation and packaging processes.

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Not sure what competitions you've judged in, but the one in question specifically has 3 bottles per entry to cover things like this. Granted there was something wrong with my sanitation procedure for that bottle, but for any competition with more than one bottle per entry, there is no reason NOT to try another bottle when scoring an entry. It's not like the infected one is going to BOS. Maybe the competitions around here are run more efficiently, but it shouldn't take all day to judge a flight and then do BOS, and the incidence of infected bottles is generally quite low in every competition I've judged.

Of course if you've got 20 beers in your flight it's another story, but for an average flight what difference does it make? Set that bottle aside, judge the next beer, then come back to the infected one later.

PseudoChef said:

This is not standard protocol as part of brewing great beer is having great sanitation and packaging processes. If every bad beer were rejudged on a second bottle, we'd be there more than all day (and for every competition I've judged, we're already there all day).

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I agree that every bad beer should not have the second bottle open, and I always though the second bottle was for if the beer progressed to best in show, etc. type judging. But if you scored someone a 11.5 would you not want to give them the benifit of the doubt that it was an isolated bottle?

I got a 23 on an IPA a bit over a year ago, I think a few of the bottles must have had a slow infection which led to some off flavors almost solvent like. Not a strong off taste, but clearly there.

weirdboy said:

Not sure what competitions you've judged in, but the one in question specifically has 3 bottles per entry to cover things like this. Granted there was something wrong with my sanitation procedure for that bottle, but for any competition with more than one bottle per entry, there is no reason NOT to try another bottle when scoring an entry. It's not like the infected one is going to BOS. Maybe the competitions around here are run more efficiently, but it shouldn't take all day to judge a flight and then do BOS, and the incidence of infected bottles is generally quite low in every competition I've judged.

Of course if you've got 20 beers in your flight it's another story, but for an average flight what difference does it make? Set that bottle aside, judge the next beer, then come back to the infected one later.

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Just judged in the largest competition in the Midwest (Drunk Monk Challenge - 2012 and just two weeks ago) and it's not the norm. Like I said, we'd be there all day. 850 entires max each year - morning and afternoon sessions plus BOS.

mattd2 said:

I agree that every bad beer should not have the second bottle open, and I always though the second bottle was for if the beer progressed to best in show, etc. type judging. But if you scored someone a 11.5 would you not want to give them the benifit of the doubt that it was an isolated bottle?

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I gave the customary 13 on a beer last year. It's just a bad beer - we need to move on. Get the sanitation right. That's all I can say. I've never been instructed to ask for another beer.

PseudoChef said:

Just judged in the largest competition in the Midwest (Drunk Monk Challenge - 2012 and just two weeks ago) and it's not the norm. Like I said, we'd be there all day. 850 entires max each year - morning and afternoon sessions plus BOS.



I gave the customary 13 on a beer last year. It's just a bad beer - we need to move on. Get the sanitation right. That's all I can say. I've never been instructed to ask for another beer.

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How many beers are you getting in each flight? That's the determining factor. It sounds like maybe you there just aren't enough judges for the competition.

weirdboy said:

How many beers are you getting in each flight? That's the determining factor. It sounds like maybe you there just aren't enough judges for the competition.

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This year I did Cat 1 in the morning. Two teams of judges (2 and 3) with 19 total beers. The afternoon I did 14A and C with 4 teams of judges (2, 2, 2, and 3) and 25 total entries.

With 3 bottles, maybe you're right. This is a two bottle comp with the first bottle being recapped for mini-BOS.

So 19 entries split between two groups would be pretty average, plus mini BOS adds maybe another 20 minutes. 25 entries split among 4 judge pairs is almost nothing.

Of course I wouldn't want to judge e.g. 18, then 14, then do BOS. That would be a bit rough on the liver.

PseudoChef said:

I gave the customary 13 on a beer last year. It's just a bad beer - we need to move on. Get the sanitation right. That's all I can say. I've never been instructed to ask for another beer.

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I supose it is also one of those things in where to draw the line - rejudge a 12, well what about a 13... a 14... a 17...
I hope you gave better feedback than 10 words on your 13 though

I've only entered one BJCP competition. I got a 26 on my American ipa. The comments didn't seem that bad, they just thought it was "meh". One woman kept putting question marks in the comments though; "lackluster?", "watery?", "not very exciting?". I thought that was funny. Are you asking me, because I thought it was pretty good. Ha.

I think this number will be beaten soon though; I entered a pale ale in OSHC that has since shown strong signs of infection.

22, for a Bohemian Pilsner that was 9 months old and most of the hops had faded. The sheet said that it would have scored better if entered as an American Pilsner. Also that I had under-pitched.

But not bad for my second all-grain and my first lager.

I entered my Maibock into a competition and one judge gave it a 32 and the other gave it a 20. I was surprised by the widely diverging scores. The judge who gave it a 32 is a professional brewer. The judge who gave it a 20 was listed as Other (whatever that means) and only put his first name on the score sheet. pretty lame if you ask me. I put more stock in the pro brewers score. I also sent in a Vienna lager that had probably aged to long and got a 21. Those scores were close and one of the judges was a Master BJCP judge. Can't argue with that.

During my early days in brewing, I entered an APA that was brewed without temperature control and scored a 19. The feedback is helpful, but getting scored by a complete stranger is also helpful as it validates whether your process and recipe are down. Purchasing a dedicated freezer to control fermentation temps was the best piece of brewing equipment I ever purchased as my beer has increased dramatically in quality and I've scored well in competitions since.

I gave an APA a 17 at a competition I judged last week. It was to be blunt, terrible. Musty, oxidized, full of esters, and had a nasty solvent finish that made me gag. I tried to give the brewer good feedback (watch sanitation, try to avoid splashing while bottling, watch fermentation temps). You don't want to kick someone when they're down already with a bad score. Sometimes, in my case when I first started brewing, you don't realize your beer has all these flaws and while having them exposed to you is a good thing, it can be tough to take constructively.

Mb2658 said:

I entered my Maibock into a competition and one judge gave it a 32 and the other gave it a 20. I was surprised by the widely diverging scores. The judge who gave it a 32 is a professional brewer. The judge who gave it a 20 was listed as Other (whatever that means) and only put his first name on the score sheet. pretty lame if you ask me. I put more stock in the pro brewers score. I also sent in a Vienna lager that had probably aged to long and got a 21. Those scores were close and one of the judges was a Master BJCP judge. Can't argue with that.

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That is a wide score difference....the goal is for the judges to be within a few points of each other. It sounds like perhaps the 2nd judge didn't know what he was doing.

I entered a smoked ale in a local competition. 2 of the 3 judges scored it 34,32 respectively. The other judge scored it a 19. His one and only comment, "totally undrinkable"

I got a 7 and an 11 on a golden strong! I never thought it was an amazing beer, but these two bottles were infected or something. They opened both and both were gushers. I just laughed at the comments, one judge said it tasted like tomato bisque.

Well now I'm even more upset with my Bluebonnet scores. I don't know how it happened but apparently the bottle of IPA they opened was a screw-top bottle that we recapped and it didn't cap well, so it got infected. They gave it a combined 10, one person gave it a 9. I don't drink screw-top bottles so I am really at a loss how this happened, but they said it was terrible, tasted like mud and hops, was orange-green, def nothing like the IPA I am still drinking on.

We entered 7 beers, aside from the IPA we got killed on score-sheets, mostly mid 20's, one low 30 on a 2nd place winning beer from Dixie Cup, another large Texas comp. I know scoring is hard at Bluebonnet with 1500 entries but I feel we got some rough breaks on our scoresheets.

SLI said:

I got a 7 and an 11 on a golden strong! I never thought it was an amazing beer, but these two bottles were infected or something. They opened both and both were gushers. I just laughed at the comments, one judge said it tasted like tomato bisque.

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Wow, a 7 is definitely the lowest score I've ever heard of anyone getting. That's impressive!

I've gotten a 26 a couple of times. One of them, the same beer (dry stout) scored a 41 and took first in its category over 40 other entries in another comp two weeks prior. The other, an APA, is regularly the fastest keg to kick.

Got a 26 with yoopers house pale ale. Judges said it was a fine American ale but no pale ale.

I was impressed myself! The golden strong is one of those beers that I love drinking but can't for the life of me brew well.

I entered a coconut stout into a local comp, which I thought was a fantastic beer. It tasted close to maui coconut, heavy aroma of coconut, smooth taste. I pretty much drank half the keg before I put them into bottles. So I bottled 12 up, submitted them to the competition. When I got the score sheet back, I was pretty surprised, 15's, 20's... the comments said the beer had ZERO coconut smell / taste, harsh, etc etc.

When I got home, I chilled down 2 bottles and gave them both a try, thinking they might have been infected. The beer was FANTASTIC! Strong coconut, smooth, very good. Anyway, I never contacted the judges, but I have the feeling that they mixed my beer up in the process. I assume that mistakes are made, especially in high volume competitions, but I was shocked to say the least.

I entered a black currant saison as a fruit beer and it got a 14. I knew it was too tart. The only thing good about it was that it was pretty. Purple beer with a bright pink head. I used too much of the fruit puree and it ended up being extremely tart. Would have been better as a sour.

Thing is, I blended this with a belgian dark strong that was too sweet and it was unbelievably delicious.

Lowest score I've ever given at a BJCP comp was 19. Lowest score for my clubs comp was around an 11 or 12. The nice thing at least with the club comp you can find out what they did and help them.

For all you that enter comps, don't be afraid to email the judge and ask them what they meant about the beer or to clarify something. Usually there is an email on the score sheet. just make sure you let them know what comp it was and what beer it was because they won't have a clue what the hell you are talking about otherwise.

Cheers!

I don't remember what the average score for the beer turned out to be, but I got a low score of 20 from one of two judges on a cream ale. Those comments helped me diagnose a chloramine issue with my water. The sting was cut by a better score on a bitter that I also entered into the contest, which I guess had more for the band aid to hide behind, but I was still down for a few days.

Great thread by the way. When you do get one of those low scores, it is good to see that you aren't the only one in a sea of mini best of shows.

Brewmech said:

For all you that enter comps, don't be afraid to email the judge and ask them what they meant about the beer or to clarify something. Usually there is an email on the score sheet. just make sure you let them know what comp it was and what beer it was because they won't have a clue what the hell you are talking about otherwise.

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Unless you do it fairly soon after a competition, I am probably not going to remember any specific beer that I judged even if I get a few hints, at least, probably not enough to remember the details, especially if it was an average-scoring beer in the middle of the flight. That's not to say I won't try to remember and do my best to provide useful feedback, but I wouldn't necessarily count on it helping.

Am I missing the part where a 27 is a bad score? IMO really bad scores start at like 22-23, where you're in technical flaw territory. Most of the beers that I've had score in the 26 - 30 range were good beers that were a little bit off style/had very minor flaws but were overall reviewed as "good beers". I had one beer that had some sort of infection issue that scored an average 19.5...that was a bad score.