I received my cover sheets today from the NHC and I noticed that one of the sheets was added up incorrectly. I don’t know if I should bother to contact them because with the mistake, the average comes up to 27.5 Without it, the average is a 29.5.
The score for a bronze cert is 25-29 and 30-37 for a silver cert. Do you know if they round up? If they do, who should I contact?
Normally I would be happy with the feedback but this is the beer that my SWMBO designed and helped me brew. A silver would really make her more interested in brewing (a bronze will as well but…).
It’s not always an average, could be a consensus score. I’m looking at a cover sheet right now and it says “at least two judges from the flight in which your beer was entered reached consensus on your final assigned score. It is not necessarily an average of the individual scores.”
In any case, that’s just two judges opinions on a given day, not gospel by any means. In my experience, you will probably get quite different results if you enter the same beer in a few other competitions.
You can contact Janis if you like. It will not change anything for your beer (you did not place and will not advance) but she will mail you a silver certificate instead of a bronze certificate.
Thank you both for taking the time to reply to my question.
Tim - yup. I saw that disclaimer. It would be strange though if one person gave it a 30 and one gave it a 29 and then they said, this a 27.5 beer.
Tom Schmidlin - thank you very much!
And I know that this isn’t a big deal to many people but I really want my wife to be excited about brewing (which is getting more and more difficult the more gear I acquire!). She made the recipe “from scratch” and helped me brew it.
However many it takes! That’s why at least once a year I brew her a fruit wheat with her choice of fruit. Not because I like the style. We all get the idea !
I have a brown porter that I brew with a pound of Blackberry Honey every 6 months or so that I call “Happy Wife, Happy Life Porter” It’s my wife’s favorite beer.
Sounds great! I made a honey porter a few years back that came out great,with orange blossom honey. Any fruitiness in the blackberry honey? I’ve never had it.
Also, since NHC is a big competition - the winners were very likely chosen during a mini Best of Show round. During these rounds, judges taste the best beers in a category from different flights and pick the top three to get ribbons. They are actually prohibited from seeing previous scores during this process, since they want the judging to be based on current preception, not notes from a previous tasting. So if it went to BOS, you can be reassured that a lower score didn’t ruin your chances. Although this doesn’t apply to the certificates.
Not that this matters much, but I have been a stewart at both regional and national NHC comps. I’ve always doubled checked the judges math. It’s wrong more than one might imagine. The judges can get ereal busy, and anything us stewarts can do to help has always been quite appreciated.
Unbelievable! Drinking beer and messing up math? What’s next, people laughing and having fun?
Actually I would like to submit a couple brews some day just for the objective trained critique. I can’t imagine being a judge. There must be a lot of stress. I couldn’t even umpire little league
I just judged at one of the regionals and our steward saved me by catching a math error on one of my sheets. I’m not the type to screw up simple addition very often, but it happened. Honestly, I think stewards are what makes these competitions work. It would be a mess without them.
I just stewarded my first comp. It was for sure a fun experience. got to pretend I was a buttler
But I did catch a couple math mistakes and one or two situations when I suggested the judge might want to fill out the sheet a little more. Hopefully that helped the entrant get some good feedback.
