- Joined
- Jun 2, 2008
- Messages
- 64,951
- Reaction score
- 16,516
All five of mine went to mini-BOS. So close to having 5 in the finals! 
NHC 2015 - Registration Open
- Thread starter Darwin18
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
All five of mine went to mini-BOS. So close to having 5 in the finals!
That's me every year. This time I hope it's different...
Is that mash temp or room temp?
Also, sparge pH is just as likely the culprit, particularly if you're using fairly alkaline water and aren't acidifying it.
Congrats all who made it! I'm happy my 7A made it through...
Question for judges? How are the top 3 per category selected? I only ask because my 7A that made it scored an average 40.5 though I also entered a 7B and it averaged 41 and did not make it...any insight out there? Thanks!
Question for judges? How are the top 3 per category selected? I only ask because my 7A that made it scored an average 40.5 though I also entered a 7B and it averaged 41 and did not make it...any insight out there? Thanks!
As discussed previously, at NHC it inevitably goes through mini-BOS. Previous scores are discarded and the beers are reevaluated directly against the other mini-BOS contenders.
It's just as described above as the mini-BOS.
For example, we had 6 judges at one table, which is 3 pairs. Each pair could push forward the best beers of their flight. In one case, we only had one to push (our beers didn't score very well) and the mini-BOS had 5. Each pair of judges sends one of the pair to the mini-BOS, generally the highest ranking judge of the pair. They then select the top 3, by eliminating the least favorite. It's not just 'favorite', as we still go by BJCP guidelines. The original score is not given, so the judges are not prejudiced towards certain beers. After eliminating 'the worst', they rank the remaining as #1, #2, and #3.
40 is a very high score! The highest score I judged on Saturday was a 38, but aside from one or two 31/32 scores, the rest were in the 20s.
NervousDad
BFM
Just curious were the scores due to oxidation/contamination? It was a rather long waiting period and if sanitation/oxygen limiting practices weren't good I could imagine a lot of really bad beers.
Nope. That was not a flaw that we noted/listed, at least in my flight.
Age could be a factor, as the one "pumpkin spice beer" and the one "Christmas ale" had almost no spice flavor and got gigged on that. I surmise that it could have been due to age (from last fall?) but it wasn't flawed or anything.
23 and 21 are hard categories. For example, I had some ridiculously overdescribed beers. Like this "robust porter with cardamom, ginger, coconut, chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla bean, honey with orange peel". (Not exactly, but something like that)
Now, I know you have to list special ingredients, but if you list it, I'd better damn well find it. That example didn't have chocolate flavor, or at least not over the ginger, cinnamon, orange and cardamom. I didn't get the coconut either. Or the honey. Maybe the beer had it when it was bottled in November(?) or maybe it's just a list of the special ingredients, but if you list it- it'd better be there. Plus, in that case the base beer was not a great robust porter to begin with. So it got gigged for not being a great robust porter (perhaps thin due to the honey), and then not having the aroma or flavor of the listed ingredients. It didn't taste bad at all, but leaving out some of the descriptors from a careful tasting might have helped that score.
Some things just don't work. A vanilla amber ale was simply odd. Strong vanilla in an American amber just wasn't a harmonious blend of ingredients.
^ This ^
Overcrushing would be easy to see, since the husks would be broken. Do you check your gravity while sparging? If you batch sparge, it's generally harder to oversparge, but if you fly sparge, it can happen.
What were the comments on the 15?
My scores pretty much all hit the good/very good range, my lowest was my stout at 31.5 and my best was my hefeweizen at 39 (consistency I guess? Yay?), no flaws were detected by the judges, so that's a major positive. I think I need to make the jump towards actually managing my fermentation temperatures, rather than just trying to do things seasonally. In any case, I suppose I can't complain too much, though I found one of the judge's sections on my CDA to be confusing, he heaped lavish praise on the flavors of the beer...then gave it a 15 out of 20. Oh well, better luck next year.
I was a bit disappointed with the score on my saison (15 points) with Brett and crooked stave Vielle dregs in secondary. Judges said too much Brett and too sour for style. I haven't done a side by side with vielle yet, but mine is damn close, not that I was aiming for a clone however.
Comments stated that it was too sour for style and too much Brett for style. Also one thought the fermentation temps were too high. Wonder if these folks know muuch about the style they were judging. My double Bock got infected (probably from beer gun tubing or the crappy capping job on the shorty bottles with the cheapo bench capper) with Brett, and it scored higher! One judge even liked it! Frankly it's pretty tasty stuff, but it got a 23.5. Last time I send bottles to Nashville.
TD
Comments stated that it was too sour for style and too much Brett for style. Also one thought the fermentation temps were too high. Wonder if these folks know muuch about the style they were judging. My double Bock got infected (probably from beer gun tubing or the crappy capping job on the shorty bottles with the cheapo bench capper) with Brett, and it scored higher! One judge even liked it! Frankly it's pretty tasty stuff, but it got a 23.5. Last time I send bottles to Nashville.
TD
I made the mistake of putting too many descriptors in my beer in cat 23. It was a split batch of wort I was making for a KBS clone. The beer I sent was the soured half. I described it as a sour chocolate oatmeal imperial stout with chocolate coffee and whisky soaked oak aged. Dinged because of no oat character (both judges) and chocolate (one judge, the other said strong chocolate), and whisky (same as the chocolate but from the other judge). One also thought the alcohol was strong (hey I said it was Imperial!) and slightly harsh, but the other said very smooth and they would pay for this beer. 34.5 points, with comments that had I left out oats & chocolate/whisky, but especially the oats, that I'd have scored "much" higher with underscore and exclamation point. Lesson learned. Would have been better to have a generic sour category for sours that aren't traditional belgian style lambics and avoid the 23 category altogether.
TD
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2008
- Messages
- 64,951
- Reaction score
- 16,516
I'm guessing they do....
It's my experience that when judges give you great scores, they're great judges......and when they give you crappy scores, they don't know what they're talking about.
I'm guessing they do....
It's my experience that when judges give you great scores, they're great judges......and when they give you crappy scores, they don't know what they're talking about.
To be honest, on several of my highest scoring beers (40ish points), I was not only surprised, but thought the judges were kind of crazy. I had one judge give me a 45 on a Vienna lager that I thought kind of sucked. The ones I like the most always score a 34. Go figure, lol.
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2008
- Messages
- 64,951
- Reaction score
- 16,516
Again though, judging isn't about "good beer" or beer that you really like, or not.
It's about comparison to the style, using aroma, appearance, flavor, and mouthfeel (described using the qualifiers in those categories).
Too often we break it down to: take a sip and say "man, that's a good amber" or "that's an okay IPA."
And that's not what BJCP judging is.
For anyone that enters comps, I highly suggest going through the BJCP....it's extremely helpful for understanding judging, but also to improve your own evaluations and ultimately, improved brewing.
The way I look at it, there's good beer, there's competition winning beer, and (irrelevant for homebrewers) there's sellable beer. And those three, while often overlapping, are not always overlapping, and it's a mistake to think they're the same thing.
Frankly, I think that they judged my Saison poorly. Probably since its my first competition I was dreaming of victory perhaps. I suppose it is possible that I might have had a bad bottle that was submitted, poorly transported, etc. I had a family reunion of sorts and many BMC drinkers readily slurped down pint after pint of that stuff (was the only Light colored beer) without complaint. Maybe I have to deep clean my Beer gun or something and that contaminated the bottled versions. One judge called color "brown" (grain bill 95% pils 5% flaked barley and enough acid malt for pH) The other called it golden - a rather significant discrepancy if you ask me. Maybe they got tags mixed up on the bottles. Maybe is my own high expectations too. At this point my only complaint is that I wish I hadn't wasted the bottles because it came out near exactly like I had wanted it to and would have rather drank it myself than waste it on someone who didn't appreciate it. I thought it would be fun to enter and it was to an extent. Will be a while before I consider entering NHC again. I get the idea about the whole BJCP judging and maybe that's the issue for me. Fitting in has never been my strong suit.
TD
TD
Pic of my brown saison.
Oh yeah, dishwasher glasses with the drying agent. probably accounts for the flat appearance of the head of both the commercial beer (left) and my Homebrew (right).
View attachment 1429055809516.jpg
Oh yeah, dishwasher glasses with the drying agent. probably accounts for the flat appearance of the head of both the commercial beer (left) and my Homebrew (right).
View attachment 1429055809516.jpg
One of the reasons I got involved with the BJCP is because I was tired of getting subpar scoresheets, and I figured put up or shut up. If someone called that brown, uh, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2008
- Messages
- 64,951
- Reaction score
- 16,516
That's one reason I don't like the check box scoring. You don't know if the judge checked the wrong box (maybe meant to check 'copper'?). At least if they write brown, you know what they wrote...
Thanks.
Kudos and HUGE appreciation to you for getting into the BJCP program. I just don't have time to do it at this point in my life between my job and my family commitments.
Maybe when I'm older and kids are out of the house I can get further involved in this.
TD
Same here. Figured I'd be part of the solution rather than the precipitate.
What is that, Saison de Dick?
I judged several competitions last year and try very hard to fill out the scoresheets with helpful and credible information...but these scoresheets at the NHC threw me off my game a little bit. they force you into describing the beers with pre determined word like brown, tan, cream... not vey descriptive or helpful. They are faster to fill out but I didn't even notice there were places for comments until we were on the third beer. Honestly, I think the best beers do gravitate to the top and I don't think the NHC is about feedback as much as other competitions are.
Looks like the weekend's locales are starting to post. Denver is up...
microbusbrewery
Senior Member
Yeah, I got a blue ribbon last year but it looks like I'm going ribbon-less this year. Looking forward to getting my score sheets back.
Got 1 out of my 3 through to the finals. An inconvenient leak caused me to lose a half keg last weekend, so I will be brewing tomorrow after work. Its a light lager (Dortmunder) so it looks like I will be pushing the limits grain to glass to have this done and presentable in time.
Nice! Bummer about the keg, though. You lost the last half of the keg, I assume?
Denver was tough this year; it looks like a lot of out-of-staters sent their beer here, I guess to help out their clubs.
Yep It was the remaining portion I had saved for bottling if it had proceeded to the finals. I figured it would be the one I had none remaining that would advance because that is just how things work. On the plus side having 10 gallons of light lager will make yard work easier.
I just hope it is stored in a cold fridge after it is shipped. If that is the case it will be 8 weeks grain to glass with ~6 weeks lagering.
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2008
- Messages
- 64,951
- Reaction score
- 16,516
And only 527 entries...
Surprised to see many of the other regions below capacity...
Has NHC jumped the shark?
DonRikkles
Well-Known Member
Anyone have an idea when the rest (esp Philly) will post? Will it be before the weekend?
In looking at the St. Paul results, Doc (Scott Lothamer) from the Brewing Network won the porter category with a Baltic porter. There was a recent Session where they spent over an hour talking about a Baltic porter that Doc brewed last fall that was a complete fail because he had a power outage halfway through fermentation, and his ferment temp (lager style) shot way up, then he crashed the beer back down into the 50's and the yeast basically crapped out on him. I wonder if this is the same beer? He did mention brewing a second one to blend back in with the first one, so I guess it could be bottles from the second batch that won.
Similar threads
- Poll
