My favorite NHC round 1 scoresheet

[JohnF]

There is really no excuse for the terse appearance description. If the beer was truly too bad to taste and describe, the judge had plenty of time to fill out the appearance section completely.

Also in the checkbox section the beer was marked as technically flawed and also stylistically flawed, there was zero explanation of any style deficiency. That is kinda nitpicky though.

I would be interested in seeing the second scoresheet.

[mcstellar]

I would be interested in seeing the second scoresheet.

http://unresponsive.org/sheet2.png

I think this judge (BJCP National) was spot on. Of all the judges who have tasted this beer, he was the only one who nailed the "no bittering hops" part of my process. This was an experimental beer for me as I wanted to try using all late hop additions and no bittering additions. By the time this beer was tasted at NHS first round, most of the bittering qualities had dropped out and you were left with what I perceived as a decent amount of aroma, but the beer was WAY out of balance. As I said before, I wasn't expecting much in the way of scores from this beer but I'd already paid the fee and didn't have anything else to send in its place.

[JohnF]

I would be interested in seeing the second scoresheet.

http://unresponsive.org/sheet2.png

I think this judge (BJCP National) was spot on. Of all the judges who have tasted this beer, he was the only one who nailed the "no bittering hops" part of my process. This was an experimental beer for me as I wanted to try using all late hop additions and no bittering additions. By the time this beer was tasted at NHS first round, most of the bittering qualities had dropped out and you were left with what I perceived as a decent amount of aroma, but the beer was WAY out of balance. As I said before, I wasn't expecting much in the way of scores from this beer but I'd already paid the fee and didn't have anything else to send in its place.

That is what I expected. Still a low score but a much better sheet.

[thatguy314]

In my experience, I get consistently terrible scoresheets from non-BJCP judges. They tend to judge to personal interpretation, not BJCP style. They tend to just say whether they like it or not. They don't do the job of describing the flavors, which you're supposed to do for a good or bad beer. Part of the BJCP is to provide constructive criticism to let people know if something went wrong or to help them trouble shoot a particular problem.

Though, like I said, the biggest problem is they tend to have very narrow interpretations of styles in their heads. I've had them trash saisons because they weren't super hoppy like dupont (nevermind they were much hoppier than fantome or the like), trash oatmeal stouts because they were roastier than Samuel Smith, and rave about pale ales that were over the top hop monsters with no malt character at all. These are all beers that in other competitions scored very well, pretty well, and poorly (out of style) by more experienced and BJCP trained judges. I think a lay person who has taken class and gone over the style guidelines and studied for the test (even if they just scored the apprentice rank) would make a much better judge much more than a lot of serious beer nerds who are just coming in to judge off the streets. The latter knows the style guidelines and the judging process, where as the former just seems to think they know everything.

I think far too many competition organizers (my competition included) are too lax about letting non-BJCP people judge. If they're pressed, they should only take people who have stewarded a few comps and participated in discussions with them. If they can't find those people, they should just run an extra session the day before/after with some local judges. It'll make for a much better comp

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

This is why I quit entering competitions, except for NHC.

[Petedadink]

while scoring your beer a 24 he does mark you one spot down from a classic example...strange. Aroma and flavor are below average. ok.. yet no correction was given to the gym locker aroma , thinness of malt and how to correct it.

[BDawg]

I agree that the 2nd box for style is strange too. ([edit] -One other thing, I also use the spaces between the boxes, too, to give a bit more fine granularity.)

I think that judge is trying to approach the advice it from the "fix the biggest problems first" angle. Raising the mash temp may help solve the thinness issue, but the perceived overabundance of aroma hops and no bittering hops seems to be the "Big" problem that he's trying to help fix.

I know I've done similar things on score sheets before. It's useless to talk about water adjustments when there's a huge phenolics problem or a butter bomb that needs to be fixed first. Personally, I think it's better to help them work on getting the beer out of the teens and 20's and into the low/mid 30's. Once they get there, that's when to get into the more subtle stuff. Otherwise, it starts to sound overwhelming.

My .02-

[mcstellar]

So, in the spirit of fun-ness, I offer this:

I have 4 bottles of this beer, 2 from the same batch as these sheets and two fresh ones. I will send one old and one new to the first two people (in the US) who PM me with shipping instructions if they agree to post their judging notes for this beer as a reply to this thread. I'd love to post the feedback!