Well Jamil, The real reason I go to these beer meetings is to drink rrreeeeaaalllly good beer for the low low cost of free. I enjoy drinking and if someone gives me a beer to sample I will try it first, then ask them if they were shooting for a paticular style before I jump all over them and try and make their beer into something I want it to be.
I do have respect for the people who like to compete, but I am not into the subjective results that beer judging creates and I wish people at my brew club would respect that. What kind of scientifical emperical results can a beer judge use to prove that one beer is more to style than another? Can this be possible, or is beer judging an art form rather than a science? If it is an art form than it is like saying Monet is better than Picasso. I believe there are a lot of the members of my group that have been brewing for so long that they have lost their creativity and have decided that the only good beer is a beer that can fit in a BJCP catagory. And that makes me mad.
I am looking for approval from my group just a little bit. I want to show them that my methods are sound and I control the quality of my product. But this isn't the real reason I brew. I like good beer and enjoy the microbiology behind the art. I am in school right now and think everyone should be forced to brew beer to supplement their chemistry and biology classes.
I belonged to a wood carving club once and there are just as many wood carving styles as there are beer styles. But in my club when someone came up with a clever way to blend 3 dimentional carving with chip carving their creativity was rewarded. Everyone used each other's creativity to help redefine their own style.
So for all you style nazis out there all I have to say to you is relax, don't worry and have a homebrew, whatever the flavor may be.
