Even feedback that is wrong on the surface can still be useful. Why did the judge think it was too high in alcohol? What characteristics of the beer might lead to that conclusion? Whatever those are (hot mouthfeel caused by water issues or sourness, solventy notes caused by warm fermentation, etc.) might need to be dialed back.
He says it would be helped by fermentation temps being watched, but I fermented with a fermentation thermistor and thermostat at 50 degrees F in a thermowell. This just seems to be a judge looking for flaws… I am willing to accept constructive criticism, but not erroneous criticism. Sorry to sound sour grapes, but really… At least get it close to being accurate.
I sat down with a couple of commercial beers and BJCP score sheets last night. I am cramming in an attempt to take advantage of a last minute cancellation for the tasting test. My weak spot as a brewer is dark ales and lagers. I do not brew, nor do I care to drink dark beers. The bulk of my amateur brewing career could be best described as how many ways can a base malt be combined with maize, torrified wheat, cara-vienna, and/or carapils malt (90% of the beers that I brew are all base malt or 90-95% base and 5-10% maize or carapils).
Anyway, I picked up a six pack of Guinness draft and thought that I picked up a six pack of Spaten Optimator. I did not want to pull a six pack from the front of the shelf because Spaten uses green bottles. I pulled a six pack from the back of the shelf and paid without checking to see that it was Optimator. I discovered that I pulled a six pack of Spaten Premium Lager upon arriving home. That stuff was so light struck that it made judging the beer incredibly difficult. It took more than 15 minutes for the stench to dissipate to the point where I could smell anything but skunk. I had to remove if from the table to be able to judge the other beer that I pulled.
I probably should just give up on competition brewing. The people that like my beer, like my beer and that is all the reinforcement I need. Judges have to find fault with something, regardless and I don’t need their opinion to validate my brewing. I enjoy making flavorful beer and don’t need validation from beer snobs who have to pick apart beers that are considered great by the people I brew for. Not sour grapes, just pointing out inconsistencies in the judging process… It’s hard to reconcile these things.
What yeast strain did you use? I agree that we are cellar blind to point, but there’s no way that a 3.9% ABV beer should be marked down for being too alcoholic unless the fermentation suffered from poor yeast health.
I pitched a slurry of 34/70 - no way it was under pitched. I really wish I had an excuse to say it was solventy. The beer was spot on for what I intended … Maybe I just suck as a brewer.
No. I doubt that. One bad scoresheet doesn’t make you a bad brewer. Hang in there.
Yea, I re-read the comments and can accept the constructive ones; the ones that are noted as being out of style when they are perfectly permissible under the BJCP guidelines are the ones that I will chalk up to a need to tweak the recipe a little. The outright wrong ones I will ignore - the judges were probably not sitting with the style guidelines handy - that is why I would only judge those styles that I feel I have down cold (and those are none at this point!)
It is a thankless job, so here’s to those willing to do it!
the judge doesn’t have any idea what your process was. If they say they detect excessive alcohol, perhaps they did. Perhaps they did not, but some other flaw was identified on their palate as alcohol. Dominant alcohol in a 1D should get dinged. I assume they’re talking about a harshness to the alcohol profile or a noticeable warming in the mouthfeel or a finish that disappears on the palate leaving an alcohol aftertaste. I suppose it’s possible some perfumy higher alcohols were noted though obviously it seems unlikely. What other comments did they have?
I make a great porter that more often that not is dead-on to Eddy Fitz. Last comp entered it scored a 29/30, one of them by a National Judge. Still got pushed to mini-BOS, where I’m told it finished 4th. Obviously that pair weren’t a fan of many porters that day. It happens. If three competition results reveal that the judges think my beer sucks, then yeah at that point I’ve got an ugly baby.
Did you send that batch to NHC yesterday? If so let’s see what they say first. I always request to judge that category if I don’t enter it myself.
good luck–
–Michael
The judge could have been wrong about the alcohol, but let’s suppose for a second he was right. You fermented at a controlled temp, but did you have it to that temp before you pitched? It’s possible the judge is sensitive to alcohols and you are not, it’s also possible the bottle submitted to the competition was mishandled along the way.
I judged yesterday and the best in our flight was a Dubble which got a 45.5 average score. At the BOS table it tasted like soap…my guess, the bottle was not cleaned well and had soap residue. So at the judging table they got a 45.5 and should have been a contender for 1st place in the BOS. If I had gotten the BOS bottle in the flight it would have done well to score 30. There is and can be bottle variability so keep that in mind.
How about where the style guidelines are historically inaccurate? Classic American Pilsner is the only beer that I attempt to brew to style. I probably have more experience with the style than most amateur brewers, especially brewing it with heirloom, period correct yeast strains. If brewed correctly, CAP resembles Bohemian Pilsener more than it does German Pils. The immigrant brewers in the Mid-Atlantic states that created this style were attempting to replicate Bohemian Pilsener (which is reflected in names such as National Bohemian). The surviving period-correct yeast strains are weakly attenuating, Saaz-type diploids that are anything but neutral and leave residual diacetyl because they are so flocculent (e.g., Christian Schmidt, August Schell, Leopold Schmidt). Brewing this style of beer with a Frohberg triploid lager strain should be considered to be a fault; however, the style guideline is written such that a clean fermenting Frohberg-type yeast strain should be used. Updating the CAP style guideline to make it more historically accurate is one of the reasons why I am attempting to join the club.
Agreed. If there had been oxidation issues, for example, I would certainly understand, since it was bottled off the keg. I think I must have done something in the bottling process to change the perception in some way…and maybe the judges were particularly low scorers - I have no way of knowing the scores received by the rest of the style grouping.
For now I am fine with the results and look forward to seeing if the NHC first round judges concur.
I think the style guideline authors have a difficult challenge balancing between modern interpretations of a style and historical versions. At some point I imagine it becomes necessary to split a sub category if the modern and historical drift to far from one another.
In the case of your CAP if it doesn’t do well in the CAP sub category due to your adhering to a historical interpretation of the style then you might try 23A.
I judged all day yesterday for our club’s competition (the Bluebonnet) and judged an ESB that had huge concord grape flavors. Made me think of this thread.
Learned the new items for the day, re the yeast and the chromosome numbers. Back a while, I knew there were differences in lager yeasts, and then it was termed Carlsberg or Tuborg types.
I would think that some of the Midwestern breweries would have strains brought from Germany, as many of those were established at or around the big immigration wave in the 1870s. Any thoughts on German strains used?
Jeff Renner mentions August Schell and Christian Schmidt in his article. Jeff is extremely sensitive to Diacetyl, and does not like it. Maybe that influenced the guidelines.
/attachments/0000/1298/SOzym00-Pilsner.pdf
I’m guessing your focus is only yeast and the beer is much, much more than that. You will never convince me that Bo Pils and German Pils have any of the corny and grainy nature of a well crafted CAP.
The BJCP style guidelines for homebrewing a CAP are set at no diacetyl in aroma and flavor and you should brew a beer to style to excel in homebrewing competitions.
Jeff Renner did much of the research on the CAP style as did George Fix. IIRC his goal back in 1995 was to create the beers he remembered from the 1950’s, not necessarily what was seen at the turn of the century. Unfortunately Wahl & Henius don’t really describe the flavors of the beers, they spent more time on the composition. It would certainly be interesting to see where you find historical references for a Pre-prohibition CAP which details diacetyl in the flavor, but I’m doubtful the guidelines will change to include diacetyl with a style which mostly exists in the homebrew world and has been brewed clean for almost 20 years.
IMO, it doesn’t really matter of the BJCP guidelines are historically accurate or not. They are the standards that homebrew beers get judged to and if you want to do well in a comp you brew to those standards…historically accurate or not. If you want to brew a beer that you think is more historically accurate, then don’t enter it in a comp unless it fits the guidelines.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that judging is a subjective process performed by mere humans. Even the best of us occasionally will allow their personal preferences to intrude on their better judgement. Or we’ll just be flat wrong. That’s part of being human. Doesn’t mean that we can’t pursue perfection, just that we can’t expect it.
Additionally, if your personality is such that you have difficulty with constructive criticism, you might be better off not participating in any sort of judged events. Better to just serve your beer to your appreciative friends than risk an easily bruised ego. (Says the guys who doesn’t participate in judged events…)
+1. Makes me think of English Mild ales - historically they were stronger at times, but the style guidelines today place the OG in pretty sessionable territory. If you enter a beer regardless of style it’s gonna get judged to accepted guidelines. Probably better to serve the ‘historically accurate’ one to friends.
“The people that like my beer, like my beer and that is all the reinforcement I need. Judges have to find fault with something, regardless and I don’t need their opinion to validate my brewing.”
At the end of the day, remember that this is really all that matters. While it’s nice to receive validation of what you’re doing in a competition, it still comes down to a random opinion on one particular bottle of your beer:)