Lynchings will be cumulative
That, will not surprise me
I noticed the volume of comments about the new guidelines lined up with my own thoughts about the biggest issues.
I like a lot of what im seeing. I still find the category organization to be confusing and probably fodder for arguments for years to come.
I know what they’re doing and I understand why and everything, but… my heart clamors for simplification. I feel we need fewer styles, not more. I find the differences between many of the styles to be so very slight that they deserve union rather than separation. It’s all grown overly cumbersome, and almost no longer worth the bother to keep up with. My 2 cents, after reviewing most of the styles in great detail over the weekend. I’m trying to like the new guidelines, and maybe they’ll grow on me… but I don’t think so.
Dave Houseman has been advocating doing away with the categories all together and simply numbering the ‘styles’ B1, B2…Bn.
I’m starting to lik that idea more and more.
I understand the merits. But I wonder if that would affect new judge recruitment.
“Hey, want to be a beer judge? Just memorize these 127 beer styles.”
Sure they’ll do it anyway, but the task seems less daunting split into related categories.
Why memorize numbers? You can’t taste them in the beer. Why have a test question "what number is wee heavy? "
you still have to memorize 127 styles, you just also have to memorize 30 plus categories and those categories relationships with the 127 styles.
Actually I believe it will boil down to only having to know about the same number of styles one currently needs to know. Some styles will never appear on the exam like clone beers…
mumbles to himself out loud Yep… when our club starts a BJCP competition next year 2015, I am going to advocate that we stick with the 2008 guidelines… yep… if it ain’t terribly broken, then no need to design a Cadillac…
Rube Goldberg would strongly disagree with you.
Nice 
Using 2008 guidelines might not be a bad idea anyway - depending on where they are in implementing the new guidelines. I’m sure that’s going to take a while.
I believe they will be completed before the end of the year. I’m guessing in October/November.
Competitions can use whatever guidelines they desire and still be a BJCP Sanctioned Competition. They could even go back to the somewhat pathetic 1997 version if they wanted or write their own.
What is more likely is a competition will only use some of the new guidelines, the ones that fit the entries they have received in recent competitions.
To say I’ll push to only use old guidelines because that’s all I feel like learning is really like living in the past. I remember rotary phones, party lines, and long cords on the receiver, but it’s a heck of a lot better with a smartphone or a wireless around the house. Old dogs can learn new tricks, it just takes them awhile.
I sat in on Gordon’s talk and may be totally misrepresenting here (you know, drinking and all), but I thought I remember him saying the comment period would be open until November. At that time, they would need to review the comments and do the rewrites, so I’m guessing it won’t be until sometime in 2015 that they become official.
I believe I read on the BJCP forum that they were keeping comments open for a month or so.
I beg to differ. The old phones had a heckuva lot better sound quality than a smartphone has now.
Ha…you actually use your smartphone for talking?
That’s probably the case…maybe Gordon was saying they would all be done by Nov. I guess I’ll have to listen to the talk again (or stop drinking :o )
The BJCP Forum will remain open for at least a month or until useful comments cease.
The smart phone I had once upon a time (read as BlackBerry) was horrible for phone service. My Iphone does pretty darn good all things considered. I remember our rotary phone always had a horrible sound quality during thunderstorms.