Anybody ranting about the results from the National HB competition yet?

[Yooper]

I have a beer going to the 2nd round too, and I put down the brewing network as my club. Again, not really a club.

The clubs that win are competitive in nature. It was my expectation that the majority of winners would be from clubs. They have the resources (both in equipment and knowledge) to make better beer.

Why would that be? Why would someone in a store-front club have a better system, equipment, and knowledge than I would (who entered the last competition with HBT as the "home" club- as we ARE an AHA recognized club)? I don't enter competitions anymore, just because of lack of time and inclination, and I'm judging some comps. But I would say the odds of my winning wouldn't have a thing to do with my club.

I have a pretty cool system. I have a bit of knowledge and experience. I've brewed about 300 batches. I make good beer.

Some clubs (like those San Diego crazies!) have a ton of great brewers. That's why they win, though. They have lots of great brewers as members. So does HBT.

But why would someone who wins a competition necessarily be in a "competitive club"? Most clubs of homebrewers are the coolest places to be and with the most uncompetitive people I know. Even as a visitor to a club meeting in Grand Rapids (thanks for having me!), I was welcomed and everybody was sampling. Not a cut throat in the bunch, but some award winning mead and beer makers.

 

[bob1852]

You are The man

Thanks. Very nice feedback.

I really think the “opposing critiques” is a huge flaw for BJCP-certified judges and should not happen. Disagreement about degrees of the same defect is all right, they are human beings after all, but a totally different opinion in the same feature for the very same beer is a good proof that the certification process is far from great.

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. We are talking about individual tastes here.

Take spaghetti sauce for example. One person might say "too much garlic" and another might say "not enough garlic" to the same recipe, that to style contains garlic.

 

[SwampassJ]

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. We are talking about individual tastes here.

One person might say "too much garlic"

No such thing.

 

[Indyking]

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. We are talking about individual tastes here.

Take spaghetti sauce for example. One person might say "too much garlic" and another might say "not enough garlic" to the same recipe, that to style contains garlic.

Perhaps. But good chefs will never say too much garlic and no garlic at all for the same dish. That's what the judges did for my beer...

 

[remilard]

This year's Ninkasi will be an HBT member. You heard it here first folks.

You gonna get Nathan Smith to join?

 

[bob1852]

Perhaps. But good chefs will never say too much garlic and no garlic at all for the same dish. That's what the judges did for my beer...

Why not? What if their pallets are different when it comes to garlic?

Ever brewed with summit hops? You'll get "Awesome tangerine flavor/aroma" or "detracting oniony flavor/aroma" from two different judges for the same beer....

(ask me how I know)

 

[Indyking]

Why not? What if their pallets are different when it comes to garlic?

Because i love cooking as much as I love HB, but I'm not a chef and can tell the difference just by the smell!

If certified beer judges cannot tell the difference between extremes, what's the point of the certification at all?

 

[bob1852]

Because i love cooking as much as I love HB, but I'm not a chef and can tell the difference just by the smell!

If certified beer judges cannot tell the difference between extremes, what's the point of the certification at all?

The differences aren't always quantifiable, and often come down to the individual and their perception....

Perhaps you should send you beer to an organoleptic lab instead of a human juddged competition?

 

[MalFet]

There is an extensive literature on conflicting descriptions in sense perception, both from neurological and associative perspectives. There's even a lot written about the productivity of language in these kinds of tasks (see Silverstein on Oinoglossia). Add to that variable judge's skill levels (compounded by the shortage of judges) and there's no surprise that you can find inconsistencies.

In my experience, descriptions tend to vary but scores are a lot more steady. There is simply not going to be a single definitive assessment of a beer. If you get enough people to taste something, you start noticing trends. It's a limitation of the system. It has gotten and will continue to get better, but it will never go away completely. This is just the way subjective competitions go in any field.

If you find it not useful, then save your seven bucks. Better yet, make friends with a high quality taster whose opinion you trust and go on his/her recommendations.

 

[Indyking]

The differences aren't always quantifiable, and often come down to the individual and their perception....

Perhaps you should send you beer to an organoleptic lab instead of a human juddged competition?

There is an extensive literature on conflicting descriptions in sense perception, both from neurological and associative perspectives. There's even a lot written about the productivity of language in these kinds of tasks (see Silverstein on Oinoglossia). Add to that variable judge's skill levels (compounded by the shortage of judges) and there's no surprise that you can find inconsistencies.

In my experience, descriptions tend to vary but scores are a lot more steady. There is simply not going to be a single definitive assessment of a beer. If you get enough people to taste something, you start noticing trends. It's a limitation of the system. It has gotten and will continue to get better, but it will never go away completely. This is just the way subjective competitions go in any field.

If you find it not useful, then save your seven bucks. Better yet, make friends with a high quality taster whose opinion you trust and go on his/her recommendations.

I don't actually have any close friend who is a certified judge, so my opinions about them are limited to competition feedback they have provided to my and friends’ entries. For most part, it has been very frustrating. I do have a few friends who are chefs, not really professional I guess, but very experienced and with good local reputation. It's all a matter of sense perception and it is very subjective, I agree with you guys on that, but I can tell you that the perception quality/consistency of the beer judges I have been exposed to so far is not nearly as good as the chefs I know. This is probably because the field of beer tasting evaluation is years behind that of food. Don't take me wrong. I don't expect perfection when dealing with sense perception, that would be ridiculous, but it is just the quality, which, in my experience, seems to be in the crawling stage yet. I already used many examples, but I have another one that rises that inevitable questioning about the quality. I was afraid one of my entries would not carbonate on time because it was bottled just 3 weeks before the competition evaluation. It seems that it did carbonate well since that specific entry did not have any negative feedback on carbonation, but what caught my attention was a call from a judge saying that he bets the beer was quite different when it was younger. Really, how much younger could it be, perhaps he was talking about when the grains were being harvested. Oh well, despite of the frustration, I appreciate all the comments and help trying to make any sense of competition results. I’m not quite giving up on submitting my brews to competitions yet. After all that’s what we are stuck with for now anyway…

 

[MalFet]

The comparison with cooking doesn't work, precisely because a cook is able to exert far more direct control over the product with practically zero time between skillet and plate.

Judges need to make a lot of assumptions about your process in evaluation. For example, the judge who wondered about what your beer tasted like younger was likely observing some oxidation/staleness. His operating assumption was that your beer was old, but it sounds like you've just got some handling problems in your pipeline. That should be your takeaway point from his comments.

Nobody is denying that beer judging is still an immature trade, but you aren't going to get anything out of competitions if you approach it like you do.

 

[remilard]

I'm not trying to be a dick, but join a homebrew club.

As your your comment that the beer would have been better younger. I think a lot of well brewed beers are best before they are 6 weeks old. You are one of those long primary people right? So you never drink 4-5 week old beer. If you were in my club you would get to drink 10% American barleywine that was 4 weeks from brew day and completely void of any off flavors. That would be an eye opening experience for a lot of people that mostly get their information from each other online. I suspect most clubs offer those kinds of experiences. People bringing in a beer, you like it, you learn something about how it was made. You can't get that online because you don't know if you like the beer made by the person whose posts you are reading.

Nothing against the interwebs but I think forums are best used as a supplement to true interpersonal interactions with homebrewers and not as a replacement for that.

 

[Indyking]

The comparison with cooking doesn't work, precisely because a cook is able to exert far more direct control over the product with practically zero time between skillet and plate..

Maybe, but I have been quite impressed with the ability of my chef friends to pick up minimal or subtle use of ingredients in my cooking. Something that seems a totally different world for the current level of judging homebrewing.

But your point about changing my approach to competition results is well taken. It was just that, in my first experince with the national competition, there wasn't really a good trend to follow in any of my entries. There was just way too many opposing opinions or some random comment that I could make little sense out of them. One of my Pils, which I thought was indeed bad, and submitted on purpose to see what was actually going on, was evaluated by 3 judges (the only one evaluated by 3 judges). One called too much esters, the other too much Diacetyl and gave me advice on how to reduce it (his advice was actually my exact proccess of D-rest), and the other judge called some esters but the main issue was flat beer, so I ended up more confused about what the problem was :-(

 

[Indyking]

I'm not trying to be a dick, but join a homebrew club.

As your your comment that the beer would have been better younger. I think a lot of well brewed beers are best before they are 6 weeks old. You are one of those long primary people right? So you never drink 4-5 week old beer. If you were in my club you would get to drink 10% American barleywine that was 4 weeks from brew day and completely void of any off flavors. That would be an eye opening experience for a lot of people that mostly get their information from each other online. I suspect most clubs offer those kinds of experiences. People bringing in a beer, you like it, you learn something about how it was made. You can't get that online because you don't know if you like the beer made by the person whose posts you are reading.

Nothing against the interwebs but I think forums are best used as a supplement to true interpersonal interactions with homebrewers and not as a replacement for that.

Yes, I'm looking at that but I travel too much to be a consistent member in a club, so it seems, but I agree that kind of club interaction can offer things not available in internet forums.

 

[wildwest450]

You could enter a county fair and proudly display your blue "best of the worst" ribbon.

 

[ayoungrad]

You could enter a county fair and proudly display your blue "best of the worst" ribbon.

Intended humor not withstanding, you should absolutely enter local contests. I entered two contests locally and then the NHC. All were judged equally as critically.

I don't have time to join a club either. But I'm finding that my impressions of my beer are often close to the judged impressions. And I only realized that from entering contests.