And the 2009 first round results are in...

[BDawg]

agreed, i have no idea what one of my sheets says, the aroma section has two full lines of text and the only word i can decipher is "finish".

Was it the cherry dubbel or a different beer? If different, what style?

[DannyW]

I realize there's a cost hurdle, but I can't wait until the day we can get our scoresheets back from competitions in electronic format. Can't tell you how many times I've been unable to decipher the judge's handwriting, so a legible typed scoresheet would be nice, not to mention easier to send.

Often the judge information is a printed sticker, so that should be legible. email him a copy of the score sheet and ask "translate, please." If they get called on it a few times they will probably take more care when writing future sheets.

[UnaHopper]

Got my Belgium Blonde through to the second round.

Feed back was light for the most part. Didn't even have some areas filled out on one sheet. I'm guessing there were a lot of beers to judge? Anybody judge in the northwest region?

[BDawg]

Got my Belgium Blonde through to the second round.

Feed back was light for the most part. Didn't even have some areas filled out on one sheet. I'm guessing there were a lot of beers to judge? Anybody judge in the northwest region?

I was there, but I didn't judge any Belgian styles. I was on Dark Lagers, Light Hybrids, and Spice/Herb/Vegetable.

All styles had multiple flights, each of which would send up to 3 beers to go to mini-BOS rounds. There were a LOT of beers to judge. The Belgians, IPAs, and Pale Ales in particular had a huge number of entries compred to some of the other styles. (I think I heard that there were 6 or 7 flights of IPAs).

Don't be too surprised if a beer that scored higher in a flight doesn't go as far in mini-BOS as another beer that had a lower score. The format is different. The scores are used to select the best of the flights, then all of those are re-judged side by side without scores by an experienced representative judge from each of the flights. At that point, it is the mini-BOS board that selects the winners, and that selection is independent of the prior scores. As a matter of fact, in most cases, we didn't have any idea what the prior scores were when we were doing the mini-BOS. I saw it happen a couple of times where a lower scoring beer placed higher than another higher scoring beer. I all cases where I saw this, I agreed with the outcome, even in a case where I personally scored the beers "reversed" in the flight. The mini-BOS format really does work to zero in on the best all around beers. That is not to say that the scores are bullshit, because they are NOT bullshit. Most of the time the scores aligned with the outcome, but there were the exceptions. It is just that tasting and scoring each beer in isolation is very different than tasting several of them side-by-side simultaneously. Time has passed,and the beers have warmed up. The judges palates have adapted, too. And there is a combined panel of a subset of the judges from all of the flights, not all the same judges. All of this adds up to possible changing perception for some of the beers. Each gets to start over with a 'clean slate' and sometimes that ends up different than the earlier scoring.

Honestly, I feel bad that some beers that scored very well will not advance, while the other lower scoring beer did. But, I can say with all honesty that the best beers went to 2nd round when the beers were compared side by side, and I think we will all agree that that is the true intent of the competition.

I really hope this makes some sense and helps explain what will undoubtedly be some confusion and no doubt some disappointment for a few folks. I know we did the very best we could do. Keep in mind that anything over a 35 is a damn good beer and something to be proud of in its own right.

[Field]

Argh - Come one Canada, Great Lakes, Old West, and Southwest. Your dragging this out for the rest of us!

http://www.beertown.org/events/nhc/recent_winners.html

nah, just blame Canada, for Great Lakes, Old West, Southwest to get the results into the AHA in an all-volunteer effort in 3,4,5 days is great

Canada should have been in and processed a week ago, instead they send their info in on the 30th, after judging on the 18th, and now they're taking up work time that should be dedicated to doing the results from Great Lakes, Old West & Southwest. The Canadian results could have been processed before the last 3 regionals even did their judging. Now the 1st round results will be delayed a day or more.

[Larkin W.]

So if you have beers where the cover sheets indicate a placement, does that mean that they are in the second round? I have two beers that indicates placements, however neither beer actually indicates that it made it up to the second round. Both made Mini BOS round. I'm glad you posted information about mini BOS. That definitely clarifies things.

[BrewerJ]

If your scoresheet has a 1 2 or 3rd on the place then its going to the second round. congrats

[dontblake]

Regarding BDawg's note on the BOS round and how lower scoring beers can get a higher place...

Remember that you need several scoresheets to really get a feel on your beer - something like 8-10 not just 2. One table's judges may have been a bit more critical on average and scored all beers lower vs another table. When the cream of the crop is evaluated at the mini BOS round, it's what we call the "beauty contest" where all beers are compared against each other. No previous points are discussed and no score sheets are filled out. The usual approach is to first eliminate obvious non-contenders, then wind up with 4-5 beers to be whittled down to 1,2, and 3.
In the scenario where a lower scoring beer goes on to take 1st vs a higher scoring beer... I would bet that if it were judged by the same judge panel that was scoring higher, its score would indeed be higher. (Hope all that makes sense. Maybe I should post in the afternoon after some beers vs in the morning over coffee).

I can't wait until the day we can get our scoresheets back from competitions in electronic format

Sorry, but you'll be waiting a long time for that one. This has been discussed on the BJCP forums before and it's just too labor and cost intensive. You'd have to have people typing their comments while judging, which would require computers for everyone at the competition. Not to mention that some people don't type very fast. Scanning and emailing scoresheets is a possibility, although quite labor intensive and the lousy handwriting thing is still an issue. It would probably take longer to get your scoresheets that way as someone would have to scan them.

DannyW has a great point - take advantage of the fact that the judge has put their e-mail on your scoresheet. Send them some feedback - good and bad. If the sheet is not legible or is weakly judged, call them out on it and remind them that you are PAYING for their feedback and you should be able to get something useful. I've seen a scoresheet from a BOS-winning beer that was very lame. The Flavor comment said "Malt, hops" and that's it (and I ain't kidding)! It wasn't my beer, but if it was, that judge would be getting some feedback for sure.

Cheers and good luck to everyone. When all this is over, it would be really cool to see how well the BN Army did overall!