To all BJCP members !!
- Thread starter Basevol
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Gameface
Well-Known Member
I'm not a BJCP member. However, last time I talked to the owner of my LHBS he said homebrewing has grown by double digit percentage points every year for the last 10 years. I've been brewing shy of 3 years and I have noticed growth since I started. Heck, Hank Schrader on Breaking Bad was talking about his homebrew on the semi-season finale and Walt was telling him how it interested him because of the chemistry involved. Craft and micro brew is growing as well. Get ready for homebrewing and craft beer drinking to go mainstream...that's my prediction anyway. With that you've got to imagine homebrewers are getting better. As the community grows, resources become easier to come buy, information gets deciminated faster and farther, there are more and more good examples of a particular style.
I think it's an exciting time to be a homebrewer!
I think it's an exciting time to be a homebrewer!
I haven't judged a competition in about a year, but I'd say there are just as many terrible beers as ever, but there are more entries. 
To be fair, there are often two kinds of bad beers submitted to competitions- the first are the "ugly baby beers" that are beers that are LOVED by their brewers. They don't taste a single flaw at all, and submit the beer to win the Best of Show. The problem is, just like with parents with ugly babies, the people who aren't in love with the beers (the ugly babies) judge them accurately and their feelings are hurt because they and their friends love the beer. I've had some astringent, phenol, estery messes and the brewer really had no clue.
The second type of bad beer is a "I brewed this beer and it's not good but I don't know what's wrong!" type of beer. They know it has off flavors, but they want to know WHY and what the problem is. It could be fermentation temperature, water chemistry, ingredients, infection, oxidation, etc and they want to fix it for next time. They send it in for competition to get it scored objectively so they can correct the flaws.
I've been in some competitions where the highest scoring beer was a 35. So, not bad, but certainly not a way to drink lots of free good beer!
To be fair, there are often two kinds of bad beers submitted to competitions- the first are the "ugly baby beers" that are beers that are LOVED by their brewers. They don't taste a single flaw at all, and submit the beer to win the Best of Show. The problem is, just like with parents with ugly babies, the people who aren't in love with the beers (the ugly babies) judge them accurately and their feelings are hurt because they and their friends love the beer. I've had some astringent, phenol, estery messes and the brewer really had no clue.
The second type of bad beer is a "I brewed this beer and it's not good but I don't know what's wrong!" type of beer. They know it has off flavors, but they want to know WHY and what the problem is. It could be fermentation temperature, water chemistry, ingredients, infection, oxidation, etc and they want to fix it for next time. They send it in for competition to get it scored objectively so they can correct the flaws.
I've been in some competitions where the highest scoring beer was a 35. So, not bad, but certainly not a way to drink lots of free good beer!
OP
OP
Basevol
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Wow Yooper, that's given me a whole new way to look at competitions. I was thinking it was getting harder to be a judge, because all the beers were better, making it tough to pick one.
Now I'm second guessing about my beer, do I have ugly baby beer, I'll have to enter a competition now.
Great name for a beer by the way "Ugly Baby Beer"
Now I'm second guessing about my beer, do I have ugly baby beer, I'll have to enter a competition now.
Great name for a beer by the way "Ugly Baby Beer"
I'm with Yooper on this. I judged our state fair recently, and I was judging Pro beers most of the time and was appalled by some of the crap that we had to taste. There is more beer out there but overall quality is not improving as much as I would have expected. Bear in mind this is a single data point from a large pool of subjective data.
