One of my entries was a Munich Helles. It was actually one of our best beers. We expected it to do well. It did not.
They knocked it for “balance”. Comment was it drinks like a Pilsner.
But their scoring showed it to be malt forward, with “grainy sweet malt up front”, both in aroma and flavor.
I agree with my wife, when she said…“Why spend over $200 to have someone else tell you if your beer is good?”
[emoji106]
Also agree. I only enter a couple beers in my club’s competition, because it is our biggest fundraiser. I’ve judged enough to know that despite its best efforts to create objective standards, the BJCP still cannot avoid the hedonistic preferences of specific individual judges. I consider myself as a judge in decline due to normal aging - so when I am paired with a younger judge, I will yield to that other judge fairly readily, unless the other judge is vastly less experienced and clearly missing important aspects on a particular entry. In your case, that judge must have felt that the entry was hoppier than he or she preferred. But there are ranges of acceptable nuances and not knowing the IBU or other bittering/flavor measure, the judge is basically making a personal preference call.
Keep making good beers - to your taste preferences and to those who appreciate your beers. Cheers.
I chatted with one judge at Homebrew Con. She said there was a lot of pressure just to eliminate beers from each round and not enough time to give quality feedback. I have heard rumblings that this feeling is not isolated to this one judge.
The above is from another forum.
After getting comment sheets, I believe this is the case. There was no helpful input / feedback regarding my entries.
Looking at my results, the initial thought was the judges were just trying to get it over with, as quick as possible.
NHC is not the competition to seek feedback. It’s been that way for years.
Yes there was time pressure on the judges to get through the flights.
The short for sheets can be completed quickly, anf there is little room to write down comments.
Maybe they should be more clear, but the final round is not for feedback. That’s what happens in the prelims. What this judge experienced is nothing new for the comp. She had a misunderstanding of the job she was there to do.
There is something wrong with this picture.
Especially when it’s obvious the judges did not have enough time to judge the beers, with appropriate feedback.
My comments were scribbled so fast that they are barely legible. Perhaps they need reduce the total entries even further, to allow the judges adequate time, rather than just rifle through the beers post haste. Or, get more judges.
The AHA/NHC would be far better off to return to a series of regional competitions, then have those winners go to a national.
Overall, a disappointing experience for us. Not because we did not place, but because of the total lack of constructive criticism.
And they would be wise to use the standard BJCP Score Sheet, with numerical values.
They used to use the long scoresheet. Guess what, too time consuming to fill it all out and write a page of comments. Then long sheet in first rounds, a short form used in second round.
Now all judging takes place over most of a week. I think some of the judges were worn out at the end.
My “score” sheets were legible and gave reasons for the beer failing to advance, so that’s good.
Perhaps Denny didn’t realize when he commented above that there were no first rounds this year.
This competition is not about feedback. It is a competition to see whose beer is the best, so I understand the use of the short forms and the lack of feedback.
On the other hand, even local competitions are easily overwhelmed with too many entries and not enough judges. It’s been that way for as long as I have been brewing.
This is where the Bluebonnet excels. The judging takes place over a series of weekends, not just crammed into 3 days. I think the judging actually runs over 4 weekends, Friday, Saturday, and maybe Sunday. Good constructive comments on all of our entries, in digital format so it’s easy to read…that is, legible!
Judging beers should never be rushed.
Up until a year ago, the Bluebonnet was the largest single site competition in the US.
No, I had forgotten that.
I have judged finals a number of times and never felt rushed. There is no way that this comp could do what Bkuebonnet does without huge cost increases.
NHC understands the problem with time and the lack of enough judges. They have decided to tackle the issue by trying to reduce the number of entries. The price to enter is not merely a cost of sales issue, although it does help to pay for costs and logistics, but it is also a deterrent to all but the most serious homebrewers. Six bottles, $18 plus shipping is enough to discourage a lot of people.
We usually hear this in reference to GC candidates or AHA’s role in lobbying to change state laws. Maybe this is a common thread throughout the AHA.
Clear communication to set expectations in the AHA mission, GC job description, NHC, etc. might be a good topic at the next GC meeting. If one or two members are talking about it on at least two forums we know of, quite a few more are probably thinking it.
18 bottles (3 entries), nearly $100 entry fee, plus well over $100 FedEx overnight shipping.
Lot’s of time and effort went into this. Plus my lovely bride assisted in the bottling line.
Yes, we take brewing seriously. Very seriously.
I will not enter again.
Had I been aware of the situation beforehand, no entries would have been submitted.
With close to 1300 entries this year, from 24 states in the Union, how does the Bluebonnet make it work? And it works very well. And I think the entry fee was $9.
The AHA membership would be far better served to have the NHC return to a series of regional comps.
Just a thought on the regional competitions for the NHC - it worked fine enough, but having judged both regionally and at NHC, I found that some regions must have had some mediocre beers make it to the final round (or some brewers who entered fresh beers at the regional competition, scored well and then entered the same batch beer at Nationals - now older by months in some instances - at the national level in the summer, or re-brewed an inferior second batch for Nationals). Having them all come in at the same time helps with freshness and getting beer at its finest to compare with others.
The minimal feedback is a problem - I have used the new quick score sheets, but I still try to get some explanatory words down for each entry. For just ranking beers, they work pretty well.
Don’t forget the added cost of needing to be an AHA member just to enter the NHC comp, so more like…
18 bottles, $100fee, $100ship, $40membership and your time
Definitely better places to invest your money.
It all depends on what you want. May not be the thing for some people, but obviously Ok with others.
No offense but the op sounds a bit peeved that he did well in bluebonnet but not NHC