1st ever brewers choice homebrew competition

[nico soze]

can't figure it out. can someone do it for me please? its my newest album picture.

[brahn]

http://www.brewcommune.com/coppermine/a ... FLYER1.png

[nico soze]

thanx

http://www.brewcommune.com/coppermine/a ... FLYER1.png

[Brewfoo]

I may be a little late in jumping into this thread but I want to commend the monitors of Brewcommune for letting the thread survive and allowing one of its new members to voice his opinion, even in the face of a virtual mob lynching of Nick.

I know Nick personally. At least I think I do. He vocalizes a lot of crazy ideas, some of which may be better kept in his head. That said, it's just one man's opinion and I do trust we all have and are entitled to our own.

@Nick, you have to know your audience. This board, its members, have been homebrewing for much longer than either one of us put together X 5. I'm sure some of these members have worked their asses off to enter comps, become official judges themselves, or have taught others how to brew to style.

My analogy would be that music is also subjective. Who's to say what good music is? However, in a singing competition, you could definitely distinguish those who are in tune, pitchy, or harmonic. This competition at OOTP in November will be more like a talent show (I love the Gong Show) rather than a singing competition. Frankenbrews are right up my alley and I look forward to it. Your idea for having the competitor becoming the judge is also unique and interesting.

Again, my virtual hat off to BC for holding back its censorship hand and allowing the thread to work it self out.

[nico soze]

I agree. Its refreshing to have a disagreement worked out and mulled over rather than just disappear.

What I did was mix up my own opinions about traditional competitions with my explanation of what this is. Its not the same thing aall. When I first heard the way bjcp comps work, my first thought was "how is this fun for me, the brewer?" And my 2nd thought was "but what if I don't want to make my beer exactly like that?" And I started brainstorming. This is the best I came up w so far.

[Brewfoo]

In yet another analogy, you can't go enter a karate competition after less than a year of training, get your ass handed to you and call bullsh*t on their rules. Their rules and point system are there for a reason and not every karate school trains the same and agree about it but they still enter and hope to win.

Winning a trophy, a belt, a ribbon, or a certificate is really all about the bragging rights and the aesthetics of displaying them in your home where there's the most foot traffic.

Making a beer and impressing myself and a few close friends and maybe my club too, is all I care to do.

[nico soze]

You see, when I started doing this, brewing perfectly classic styles was never even remotely a goal. You can buy those. My goal was to create a new and unique flavor that no one ever attempted and make it tasty. Bjcp judges are well trained and dedicated to the culture, but that style of comp can only judge how close a beer is to its classic profile. I don't serve my beer to judges. I serve it to casual drinkers.

[nico soze]

In yet another analogy, you can't go enter a karate competition after less than a year of training, get your ass handed to you and call bullsh*t on their rules. Their rules and point system are there for a reason and not every karate school trains the same and agree about it but they still enter and hope to win.

Winning a trophy, a belt, a ribbon, or a certificate is really all about the bragging rights and the aesthetics of displaying them in your home where there's the most foot traffic.


Making a beer and impressing myself and a few close friends and maybe my club too, is all I care to do.

using that analogy, I'm not trying to score points when I know damn well that a shot to the groin ends the fight.

[brahn]

Well, there are two specialty categories in the BJCP guidelines that are designed explicitly for this purpose (16E and 23), depending on the ingredients you might include 21 and 22 as well. Having judged specialty beers (cat 23) before, I can say that it's much different than judging any other category. It's very subjective and basically comes down to what beer the judges like best. This is a tough category to win because you have to brew a very good beer and have judges that happen to like your beer better than the others.

There are flaws that are unacceptable in any beer, regardless of whether you're trying to brew to style or not, like fusel alcohols, phenols (specifically medicinal/plastic), under-attenuation (cloying), infection, etc. If a beer tastes like chloraseptic or feels like slimy tapioca pudding in your mouth it's simply not a good beer. A judge should be pointing out these flaws and maybe some common causes of them on the score sheet in order to help the brewer improve.

[bwarbiany]

Well, I wouldn't call the response a "lynch mob"... I think most folks were supportive of his idea and only reacted to his BJCP criticism because he offered it... Even though I'm unlikely to have a "frankenbeer" available at the time, I'm hoping to be able to attend this event; I wouldn't be doing so if the goal was to lynch Nick!

And this drives to the heart of a classic discussion in brewing -- whether style guidelines should be descriptive or prescriptive. I tend to think the former, while most competition judging [necessarily] has to be the latter. Nobody was [or would] criticizing anyone here for brewing what they want to brew, but rather responding to what we saw as a flawed attack on the entire concept of BJCP judging.

[nico soze]

I didn't see it as an attack as much as energetic defense of your own philosophies. And I wasn't so much attacking bjcp so much as stating that it doesn't fit my philosophy at all. Of course if your beer tastes like band aid or cat pee You made a mistake and sometimes it takes a trained palatte to pick it out and an experienced Brewer to correct it. But, for example when you tell me my beer isn't white enough to be a wit or bitter enough to be an Ipa, you aren't taking into consideration that I used a darker malt because I think wits are bland or I loaded all my hops to 3 min because my wife prefers to smell her hops than taste them in the back of her throat. They can only consider that its not "to style" according to a group of experts who will never taste the beer in question. I don't brew for them, I brew for the group of guys I'm inviting to this challenge. For us all to enjoy and one up each other. I'm not gonna Ever make a red better than half of you, so I put honey malt in it so its the first beer of its kind to make a meeting. I brewed it for you, and I want you to be the judge.

[jward]

Again, my virtual hat off to BC for holding back its censorship hand and allowing the thread to work it self out.

You will not find a lot censoring going on here. If anything, you see what happened here where a topic gets moved from our public areas to the club only areas.

[backyard brewer]

Again, my virtual hat off to BC for holding back its censorship hand and allowing the thread to work it self out.

You will not find a lot censoring going on here. If anything, you see what happened here where a topic gets moved from our public areas to the club only areas.

Yep. Unless you're being a flat-out asshole, racist or name-calling; I rarely censor or lock a post. I'll move them at my own discretion to the private area if I think the thread is a giant zit on our public face, but rarely. We're all big boys.

[backyard brewer]

I didn't see it as an attack as much as energetic defense of your own philosophies. And I wasn't so much attacking bjcp so much as stating that it doesn't fit my philosophy at all. Of course if your beer tastes like band aid or cat pee You made a mistake and sometimes it takes a trained palatte to pick it out and an experienced Brewer to correct it. But, for example when you tell me my beer isn't white enough to be a wit or bitter enough to be an Ipa, you aren't taking into consideration that I used a darker malt because I think wits are bland or I loaded all my hops to 3 min because my wife prefers to smell her hops than taste them in the back of her throat. They can only consider that its not "to style" according to a group of experts who will never taste the beer in question. I don't brew for them, I brew for the group of guys I'm inviting to this challenge. For us all to enjoy and one up each other. I'm not gonna Ever make a red better than half of you, so I put honey malt in it so its the first beer of its kind to make a meeting. I brewed it for you, and I want you to be the judge.

Nick I like your concept, I just don't think you should be so quick to bash the BJCP as you did initially but have since backed away from. There are a lot of guys here who appreciate what you're trying to do and say but have also invested an amazing amount of time and energy to become BJCP judges and try to brew to style. Several guys here, Brad N, John W, Jon W, Brian C to name a few go to great lengths to accurately reproduce styles of beer that have hundreds of years of tradition behind them and millions in equipment, yet they can consistently produce nearly identical beers at home; and they are consistently recognized by the BJCP for doing so. (as they should be)

So to say, 'those BJCP guys are all fucked up because they don't know what I like and I've got it right', well, that kinda puts seasoned brewers immediately at odds with you. It's kind of like someone that can't (or doesn't want) to hit or catch saying ' baseball sucks and I have my own sport that is going to replace it' rather than, 'hey check out this sport I came up with that I think will be fun'. I applaud you for not wanting to brew by the rules that are out there, just don't crap on them because you don't like them, continue to brew around them.

[Brewfoo]

"The Sound of Silence" was and is a great Simon and Garfunkel song. When people stop talking to each other or worst, they become afraid to talk to each other, then we all failed. What's the point of a messageboard if all people do is read and not post.

All egos aside, Nick and I have a lot to learn about brewing. We both need all the help we can get from any and all sources. Before this thread, think about how much less we knew about each other and our perspective on beer.

I knew so little about the different beer styles and still do, that it's amazing how far I came in a year. I only know that when I drink a beer, any beer, I know instantly whether it's an expensive beer or a cheap macro soul-less beverage.

Homebrew is an art, a science, and to me, a religion. Don't piss on it.