Non-BJCP Score Sheet Help

[gotsumbeers]

I wasn't able to check out Papazian's scoresheet yet. I did have a nice rainy day at work to sit at my desk and work this out. Thoughts or opinions?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eds ... sp=sharing


Thanks

[BDawg]

Looks pretty good, though 3 things kind of stood out to me:

In the intro, you specify to judge these "in the spirit of the competition", but that's not really defined anywhere. BJCP comps judge to the style guidelines . Others judge to "best to brew commercially". Still others are for "most drinkable". These all have their merits. For example, a Bourbon Barrel aged RIS might win for style, but never even be considered as "most drinkable" or be remotely commercially viable for a small brewery, etc. You probably want to at least tell what "the spririt of the competition" means for THIS competition.

Aftertaste is more properly associated with flavor characteristics rather than body and mouthfeel.

You may wish to somehow weight these criteria, or use different numerical scales. Appearance is nice, but let's face it, it's not as important as aroma or flavor.

HTH-

[gotsumbeers]

Thanks BDawg and Bugeater,
I like the idea of judging for the beer people want to drink, not necessarily best to style beer. I'm hoping that filling in the top portion where it says "Competition:" with a bit of explanation will clue people in on how to judge the beer.

The club will do some BJCP style comps, but I hope this will be general enough to pick a winner and good beer as well. Hell if I know what I'm doing! We'll see. The guysI sent this to in the club are less prompt with responses than the BN.

Thanks BN Army.

[spiderwrangler]

It may be useful to note some reference for the the scale from 1-10. Whether it is strictly linear scale, or whether it should give a more bell curve distribution across a number of beers. Depending on how each judge approaches a 1-10 with no reference, you may get pretty different responses.

[EagleDude]

I would also make the various scales add up to 50. I guess it doesn't really matter, but then you could still use the BJCP sore ranges to help guide the judges toward Excellent, very good, good, etc beer scores.

[BDawg]

Or, make them add up to 100-

[dmtaylor]

When we have non-BJCP competitions in my club, we usually use two different factors and judge each beer on a scale of 1 to 10 for each factor, i.e., each beer can receive a maximum of 20 points from each taster. These factors are listed on little slips of paper about 3" by 4" size or so that serve as the scoresheets / score cards. We keep a small bit of space on the score cards for a couple of words to describe the beer, and each entrant receives the score cards for their own beer at the end of the judging. Also the way our club works, it is each entrant who gets to do the judging, and the tasting is done blindly so that no one even knows for certain when they are tasting their own beer -- it's a great way to get unbiased feedback from yourself on your own beer!! We also judge secretly, with no names on the cards, so that people can feel free to give honest feedback without fear of retribution or anything like that. It's all done in such a way so as to be a fun and easy AND educational experience for everyone involved.

As an example, for our upcoming saison competition, each entrant/judge will have to determine for each beer on a scale of 1 to 10:

1) How close to the style (saison) they feel the beer is, and

2) How delicious the beer is overall (i.e., would you like to drink this all day long, would you buy it, is it severely flawed, or is it just meh).

A good third option 3) might be "how well the beer fits in the spirit of the competition" or any other factor you can dream up.

For the style nazis out there, before the competition we will read the BJCP style guidelines to everyone out loud and also provide copies so they have an idea of what the experts say the style should be before going into it. Of course you would skip the style factor for competitions where there is no single style being brewed. But for something where a style is the main goal of the competition, it makes sense to include it as part of the judging. It just gets a little bit harder to judge when you have a Munich helles lager being judged immediately following a Russian imperial stout, etc. So we do find it best to keep the entries similar if not the same for every entry.

So.... in this manner, after the tasting is complete, we are able to add up all of everyone's scores for each factor and dish out separate awards for which one is closest to style, which one tastes the most awesome, etc., and ultimately determine which one is best overall for both factors, simply by adding all the scores for that entry all together.

For those who by some miracle are not yet bored reading this dissertation... To show how this all works, let's say for example I am tasting a really delicious unflawed beer that I feel deserves a 10 for taste, but unfortunately it just totally misses the saison style that was specified -- it's red in color, kind of sweet, kind of tastes like Arrogant Bastard -- so for style it only gets a 4 from me. Now let's say that after everyone's scores are added up for that entry (let's say there's about 10 judges), the beer scores about 85 points total for the taste factor, and 55 points total for style, for a grand total score of 140. Meanwhile for a second entry that nails the style but just seems to be missing something, it scores 60 total for taste and 90 for style, for a grand total score of 150. A third guy might hit both factors pretty well, with an 80 and 80 and a grand total of 160. In this manner, the first guy might win the taste award, the second guy the style award, and the third guy who was more consistent might beat both with his grand total score of 160 and win the overall competition trophy for the best saison style that also tastes pretty darn good too. I guess you could compare this scoring system to Iron Chef or Puttin' On the Hits or anything like that, where the judging goes fast as you don't need to horse around with aroma and appearance scores or checkboxes, etc., just mostly based on what each individual knows and feels, then at the end, add them all up and dish out awards in a logical manner.

No need to be a BJCP judge... but it couldn't hurt!