New Judging Scoresheets?

[tnlandsailor]

This thread is for all you competition entrants out there. We have all seen the traditional BJCP scoresheets. These are the "essay" type ones where all the feedback is handwritten and a score assigned in each judging category. For anyone who made it to the AHA National Finals, you got a scoresheet back that was a "check sheet" type with very little hand written feedback.

Of the two, the essay type is the most often used. But it is also abused and massacred often. We have all seen the illegible, 4 word descriptions of flavor or aroma with some arbitrary score assigned. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten some real quality feedback on these, but the scoresheet itself just lends itself to vagueness depends too much on the judge to be descriptive and verbose. The check sheet is just about useless and is mostly built for speed. There is little or no written feedback and the results tell me just about nothing.

Is it just me, or does there need to be a new way to provide feedback to competition entrants? Something that is useful, descriptive, and legible? And, as a BJCP judge, something that is easy to fill out but gives me the flexibility to provide useful feed back to the brewer?

What kind of scoresheet would you all like to see? Improvements? Wholesale change?

 

[duboman]

Personally I think the check sheet provides a little more specific information that the essay type being filled out may miss depending on the judge. The essay type definitely is completely judge dependent all the way around but in reality they both are. Some judges are just great at filling out the form and taking some time to evaluate the beer with good descriptors, others are just, well, not great...........to be polite

I find that the higher ranked judges are definitely better at properly providing feedback that is helpful and legible. The apprentices and un-ranked judges leave a lot to be desired. In one comp this year I got an un-ranked judge whose comment was to "See XXX's comments on his sheet" Really??? Needless to say I emailed the event coordinator and let him know this was unacceptable

I think the check box style is decent because in the appropriate spaces there is a comment section. I think the bigger issue is getting the judges to really understand the value of what they do and provide insight to the brewer to improve the beer, not just rate it and this only comes with judging and training and guidance from the more experienced, after all, they are all volunteers!

 

[Daybis]

Lately I've seen a lot of people who are interested in learning to judge beer. Often I get paired with a non-experienced judge. I don't mind because this gives me an opportunity to talk and educate about beer and judging beer, but this takes away from me being able to focus on my own score sheets.

I treat my score sheets as if I'm taking the BJCP exam again. I hate getting terrible score sheets back from a competition, so I do my best to not do this to someone else. If someone spent the money to pay for the entry fee and ship the beer to a competition, the least I could do is give them the best feedback I can.

I find the "check sheet" type score sheets to be very helpful and easier to under stand for those who don't have much judging experience. It provides a great starting list of descriptors that are both useful to experienced and non-experienced judges. I feel the "check sheet" version keeps judges in line with what they should be looking for and almost forces them to comment on each aspect of the beer. I wish at least half of the feed back I have received from competitions were done with the "check sheet" version mostly because of the lack of feed back I tend to receive.

My biggest issue with the "essay" type of score sheet is the lack of available space to write. I don't have huge had writing, but it isn't small either. In the flavor and overall impression sections, I often find myself running out of room to write, forcing me to write on the back of the score sheet. I try and be as short and concise as I can be, but some beer just have a lot that can be discussed.

Overall, I think I would prefer to get the "check sheet" version back from competitions. Just because I think the feedback would at least more consistent. As a judge, I would prefer to use the "essay" version because it allows me to give more detailed feed back.

 

[Darwin18]

I prefer the "essay" style scoresheets when judging. It's a very simple form to complete when judging and evaluating a beer. Each subsection lists what to write to out, and I try hit all the listed descriptors as possible. If someone is spending the time and money to pay the entry and ship the beer, then I can take the time to fill out a score sheet. It's really up to the competition coordinator to limit the flight size so that I can do a good job on the scoresheets without being treated like an assembly line.

The "new" BJCP exam is designed so that the test taker has to pass the written portion which consists of evaluating beers and filling out those "essay" style scoresheets. Their score is a bigreflection of how well they filled out those sheets.

 

[Wynne-R]

The scoresheets are terrible. They waste a lot of space on stuff many judges don’t even fill out. Descriptor definitions? Throw it out. If somebody doesn’t know what something means they can look it up.

BJCP rank? Put it on the line with your ID, the way the checklist did. We can do the faults like the checklist, LMH on the bottom of the form.

Nobody cares about ‘scoring guide’. Everybody knows scores in the twenties suck and are fairly undrinkable. Why try to tell us it’s ‘Good’?

“Classic Example” “Flawless” “Wonderful” Isn’t that what ‘Overall Impression’ is for?

Astute readers may notice in their mind’s eye that I’ve cleared the dead wood that is the left third of the form. This frees up a lot of space that we could use for writing. Imagine, boys and girls having a normal length line. No more cryptic fragments running together, we can use whole sentences! And wouldn’t it be fun if the lines were far enough apart to print full sized letters?

If we had more room to write it would be more legible and easier to understand.

Basically, I’m saying take the top and the bottom of the checklist and give us the middle to write on. Write on!