Dirk McLargeHuge wrote:TastyMcD wrote:Dirk McLargeHuge wrote: No rhyme or reason....... I'm beginning to lose faith in judging.....
Dirk,
I've been where you are right now some time ago. I once had a beer judged first in the second round of the national competition and have the same beer get a 26 on the very same day at one of my local country fairs. I think it CAN be explained. In fact, it can be proven. But do we really want to go there? Do we really want to in any way be critical of a guy who gives up his Saturday away from his family to drink our crappy beers? Or even our fantastic beers that he drinks after the palate busting crappy beer.
If beer judges were busting down the doors to the judging sites we would need a way to decide who gets in. But they are not so we don't need to institute a lottery or subjective testing.
I've been fortunate to see competitions ran from the inside. One thing is always consistent. Judges are very serious about what they are doing. I've never seen anyone take the responsibility lightly. That said, all the good intentions in the world are not going to offset a dead palate or a mis-understanding of the style. That's a lot of "rhyme and reason".
So don't lose faith. Just know that there are going to be differences of opinion and sometimes you'll be lucky and sometimes you won't. One judging is not the definitive opinion on a beer. Nor is two when the scores are varied. Over time, you'll get to know who the good judges are in your region. Although they aren't right all the time, they get it right a larger percentage of the time.
Now go out and hug the next judge you see. He needs the love.
Tasty
I'm not trying to be critical of the judges or the organizers. On another thread we've been talking about regional differences and on another about everyone's palates being different. I understand that judging is subjective. And I'm not complaining that I didn't win. I honestly didn't expect to win. And I've listened to enough of the shows about judging to know how many other variables are involved. But so far, all I've really learned from these competitions is that it costs about $20 to ship beer.
I have learned two other things:
First, the Furthermore Knot Stock clone I brewed only lasts about 4 months. Then it goes south very fast.
Second, American Dark Lager (which scored 28.5 at Bluebonnet and 31 at Nationals) gets better with age. And the roasty flavor (which knocked off some points) turns to chocolate flavor.
It scored a 40 at the US Open in Corth Carolina a couple of weeks ago. That's an 11.5 point spread. If it had scored 33 or 34 I would have said that is a reasonable spread. This is just weird.Looks like next year, I'm going to be able to keep a lot more of my beer, and save a lot of money on postage.
And I'm not dissing the judges. Everyone tastes things different, and some people are more sensitive to certain flavors. I'm just trying to figure out what all these scores mean. Do I suck or not? Sometimes, I wish the judges would just clip a $50 bill to my score sheets with a note asking me to stop entering competitions and be done with it.
