For those who're confused about scoring and judging at NHC

spkrtoy · Post by **spkrtoy** » Mon May 12, 2008 2:49 pm

Here's the info from Janis Gross on AHA's Tech Talk forum:

This year we had a record number of entries (5,643) and a record number of entrants (1307)!

All of the score sheets have been mailed by the regional organizers. This week and next I will be sending the ribbons, certificates, instructions, and bottle labels for the Final Round of the competition to the brewers with First Round winning entries. Because of this, I will only be checking my e-mail in the morning and in the evening, and it may take a while for me to answer your e-mails about the competition.

Many people are confused by the statistics shown on the results web page and how they relate to the scores on the score sheets. Here's how the score and the placement work in the National Homebrew Competition (NHC). Depending on the number of entries for a given category, the category is split into flights with different teams of judges judging each flight. The top 2 or 3 beers from each flight are then pushed forward to a "mini-Best of Show" which is judged by the top ranking judges from each of the flights. During the mini-BOS, the judges do not fill out another score sheet, nor do they know the scores of the beers pushed forward. Instead they taste each one, and by consensus chose the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for the category. Because of this, a beer may have the highest score and not place at all, or a beer could have a score well below the high score and still place.

Congratulations to all the winning brewers from the First Round! Good luck in the Final Round of the NHC! Final Round judging will take place June 19th in Cincinnati, OH on the first day of the National Homebrewers Conference. See you in Cincinnati!

Cheers,
Janis Gross
NHC Director
AHA Project Coordinator

backyard brewer · Post by **backyard brewer** » Mon May 12, 2008 3:06 pm

Hmm.. I see the need for some way to condense so many entries... But that kinda sucks.

bwarbiany · Post by **bwarbiany** » Mon May 12, 2008 3:24 pm

Backyard Brewer wrote:Hmm.. I see the need for some way to condense so many entries... But that kinda sucks.

Not really, when you think about it. If judges' scores were *truly* objective and accurate, it would suck that a beer that was scored, say, 40 in one round didn't end up winning, even if it was the highest score in the category.

backyard brewer · Post by **backyard brewer** » Mon May 12, 2008 3:52 pm

bwarbiany wrote:
Backyard Brewer wrote:Hmm.. I see the need for some way to condense so many entries... But that kinda sucks.
Not really, when you think about it. If judges' scores were *truly* objective and accurate, it would suck that a beer that was scored, say, 40 in one round didn't end up winning, even if it was the highest score in the category.

That's what I mean. It seems to me that they should merge scores from each flight and if there are ties, then maybe I could see the need for a mini BOS, but if a beer that originally scored say a 30 goes on to win 1st over a beer with an original score of 40, something is very wrong.

Post by **brahn** » Mon May 12, 2008 3:59 pm

That's what I mean. It seems to me that they should merge scores from each flight and if there are ties, then maybe I could see the need for a mini BOS, but if a beer that originally scored say a 30 goes on to win 1st over a beer with an original score of 40, something is very wrong.

That's not really fair, either. Each judge has their own way of scoring and it's quite possible that the beer that scored a 40 from one set of judges would have gotten a much lower score from another set of judges. In your example, I think it would be tough to go from 40 -> 29, but it's very possible that a 40 from one set of judges could be a 35 from another set of judges.

It's a difficult problem and there probably isn't a perfect solution. I think their solution is probably more fair than just combining the scores from the different flights.

bwarbiany · Post by **bwarbiany** » Mon May 12, 2008 4:52 pm

brahn wrote:Each judge has their own way of scoring and it's quite possible that the beer that scored a 40 from one set of judges would have gotten a much lower score from another set of judges. In your example, I think it would be tough to go from 40 -> 29, but it's very possible that a 40 from one set of judges could be a 35 from another set of judges.

Well, as an example, my RyePA has scored > 40 in the AFC competition this year, and in the Pittsburgh competition I entered. It scored a 29 in the NHC.

There could be several reasons for that... A bad bottle, oxidation, the fact that this bottle was stored differently than others (we found some later), etc. There was no mention of any sort of infection-related flavors on the score sheets, so I at least think that's not it. But it's still fundamentally the same beer, and scored WILDLY different.