Pacific Brewers Cup

[BrewMasterBrad]

Just got my score sheets and I am very disappointed in the quality of the judges. Out of the 6 score sheets, only two are from BJCP judges. Have attached the score sheets for my Traditional Bock. Take a look at the second page. How is this acceptable? I'm pretty pissed off right now. I enter competitions to get contructive feedback. That's just ridiculous. Okay, you scored my beer a 35, but why? Did your pencil break or something? If I was judging with someone that was filling in sheets like that, I would go to the judge coordinator and say something.

I have never had this problem before at Pac Cup and it just really ticks me off when I think about the time, effort, and money I spent to enter those beers for little to no feedback.

265.pdf

Traditional Bock Scoresheet

(159.1 KiB) Downloaded 425 times

[maltbarley]

Looks like they put the newbie with Mike: bummer.

[brahn]

Looks like they put the newbie with Mike: bummer.

Mike was the judge coordinator...

That is a lousy scoresheet. We had 3 judges at our table, 1 certified, 1 recognized (me, though I'll be certified once I get these points), and one inexperienced judge. The two bjcp judges at least wrote lots of comments on everything we judged.

[BARL Brewing]

Got my score sheets also. I'm happy I guess? I got a 27,33,33. It seams like I got good judges, maybe you can tell me, except the scans are bad so I cant read the feed back so In that case their worthless.

[backyard brewer]

Yeah Brad, I'd be pretty upset too. "too malty for style"? It's a Bock. I didn't think it could be too malty assuming you even fermented it... But no explanations at all?

I will say that in my experience, that's not the norm at Pac Brewers. That has always been a very tight competition.

[hjw]

Brad, that is looking more like an OC Fair scoresheet.The morning session I had 2 inexperienced judges that we were pretty close on except one beer they scored in the teens but was in the mid 30s for me. We had to get Mike to bring their scores in line. He was right when he said he needed more judges.

[maltbarley]

I assume you guys got yours via e-mail? I haven't received mine, yet

[BrewMasterBrad]

I assume you guys got yours via e-mail? I haven't received mine, yet

Yep. Very nice the way they did it. I just wish the judging had been better.

[maltbarley]

I noticed that my entry fee hasn't cleared...hmmm.

[BrewMasterBrad]

I noticed that my entry fee hasn't cleared...hmmm.

Neither has mine.

[lexuschris]

Was wondering where my scoresheets went, and seeing now that they were emailed... found them in the spam bucket folder.

Ok, have read them. Definitely learning some things from the comments. However, many of the comments seem out-of-place with the beer I sent. Looking at the recipe and the comments, it is hard to understand what I'm supposed to do. For example, my overly hopped Brown Ale (Janet's Brown based) had med to low bitterness. My Eng.Northern Brown based Spiced ale, needs more nuttiness, even though I used all maris otter & 1/2# of Victory. I guess I just need to amplify those specific characteristics of the style so they will be noticed...??

I also saw a lot of comments on 'raisiny' or 'dark crystal malt' flavors/aromas in my Amber & Brown ales, even though I used only Crystal-40...

One comment was that my metheglin should have been entered as a melomel..??..??..?? what?

To be fair, I completely respect the difficult job a judge has with identifying ingredients, defects & recipe issues merely by observing & tasting the product. As much as I hope someday to be able to judge beers, I can see it can be very challenging.

I'll just take the learning points that I have (my beer gun & filling style left room for oxidizing, and I don't intentionally try to clear my beer in any special way) and try to do better next time.

I'm definitely thrilled with the feedback, and hope to keep improving. I HIGHLY recommend that any brewer enter a few beers every so often to get some professional feedback on their work. It can only help!

--LexusChris

[lexuschris]

Metheglin scoresheet.. 28.5 average score... so the 3rd place was probably because I was the 3rd & last entry in the category...

-LexusChris

[ScottK]

I'd use that email at the bottom, Comp_Director@BJCP.org. I think Mike would also benefit from hearing constructive feedback about the judges. I received lots of emails to the LBHB group requesting more judges, so indeed they were hurting for more.

[bwarbiany]

Ok, have read them. Definitely learning some things from the comments. However, many of the comments seem out-of-place with the beer I sent. Looking at the recipe and the comments, it is hard to understand what I'm supposed to do. For example, my overly hopped Brown Ale (Janet's Brown based) had med to low bitterness. My Eng.Northern Brown based Spiced ale, needs more nuttiness, even though I used all maris otter & 1/2# of Victory. I guess I just need to amplify those specific characteristics of the style so they will be noticed...??

Two things...

1) Sometimes you get good feedback, sometimes you don't. This isn't necessarily dependent on how completely the score sheets are filled out. I submitted a beer to the SD Fair competition and the score sheet was just plain wrong on several levels. Often you'll get multiple score sheets which contradict each other. Competitions provide very valuable feedback, but they're not gospel. The more competitions you enter, the better you'll get at figuring out what feedback is worth following and what is not.

2) Competitions are judging your beer against a style. If you want a hoppy brown ale that is out-of-style, it may not do well in competition but taste great to you. For beers like that, the key is to get feedback on the technical rather than the stylistic aspects of the beer. A good judge can pick up on fermentation and other technical issues, and can give feedback on making the beer better even if it's not feedback on hitting the style. For many of my beers, which are outside typical stylistic guidelines, this is the type of feedback I'm actually seeking.