First off, I want to thank everyone who participated in the last community brew. It was a very cool experience to brew the same recipe as everyone, and then taste 3 samples from three other brewers. As I mentioned last night, it was my first experience with formal judging - and a major reason why I am now studing to be a certified BJCP judge.
Here are a couple of things that we learned from the first comp:
1) It is very helpful to have at least one certified judge on each tasting group.
2) A commercial calibration beer (that is available to all judges in the group) should be secured to taste and discuss first. It it not necessary that the calibration beer is the same style as the beer being judged - but should not be something very hoppy or roasted - to prevent palatte fatigue.
3) Tasting groups were very random. Some people paid quite a bit to send their beer all over the country. I think we should make an effort to try to make the groups more tightly geographically grouped.
4) Tastings should be conducted by conference call with everyone present. Scores should be negotiated to within 7 points of each other (as recommended in the BJCP Study Guide).
5) Electronic copies (.PDFs) of the scoresheets is very helpful. Many of us (myself included) have horrible penmanship - and this avoids an unreadible scoresheet.
6) Because each judge is physically separated - there exists a possiblity that one or more of the judges might have a bottle that is significantly different (better or worse) due to handling. The scores that cannot be negotiated to within 7 points should be removed from the average.
7) Deadlines are a fact of life.... It really helps if everyone that participates also sticks to the agreed upon deadlines. It keeps it moving along.
This spring we had about 20 people say yes, and 15 actually brewed and judged. Let's see if we can grow this even bigger, this time. Please understand that your commitment means that you need to brew, package, ship, and judge your beers in a timely manner.
So... what is the next style? I like to volunteer two styles for consideration.... 1) Tasty's "Tasty APA", and 2) (also Tasty's) "Janet's Brown Ale".
Thoughts, comments, recipe suggestions?
Mylo
