Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:14 am
I recently brewed up an IPA. It was my first try using mash hopping, so my only guess on the IBU levels were those that Promash said it would have. Bottom line, this is a "tweener" beer, too bitter for an APA, not bitter enough to really be a kick ass IPA. Technically, it's a nice, clean, flavorful beer, very well balanced, etc, so I figured it might do ok. So, I entered it in BOTH categories in a competition yesterday. I was there to judge, too, so I was able to get an inside view of some of the things that were going on.
Well, I judged the porters and stouts. After primary judging was over, they had the beers still in their bins, and I was able to recognize mine by the caps (it was a small competition, and mine were the only ones in their categories that used the color bottle cap I used in either of those 2 bins). So I got the entry numbers and went over to the rollup score sheet and WOW - a 34 (4th place in category) as an APA and a 38 as an IPA (1st place in cat). 2nd place IPA was a 35 -- this is important. I'm pretty psyched, it is doing much better than I ever thought. (I kept all of this to myself for obvious reasons).
So, Best of Show time comes around, and I help steward for that (this was only my 2nd time judging, so the sr. judges do BOS). The way the organizer wanted to do this BOS round was to take the top 3 of each flight, and then narrow it down from there.
As each of the BOS beers was poured, I took the bottle to the next table to keep the judging table clear. So, when we got down to the IPAs, I of course took a little sample myself of each one just to see how mine compared side by side.
The 2nd place beer wasn't a tweener, and it made my "technically correct" beer seem incredibly tame and lame. He wound up getting 2nd place BOS despit his lower 35, and mine was just another one in the crowd.
Now, it was still pretty good beer, it just got overshadowed because of its "tweener" status. And, deservedly so. That other guy's IPA tasted and smelled GREAT, while mine just didn't pack the same hop punch and so it really didn't show well in the BOS round. I didn't look at either of our writeups, so I don't know exactly what it was that he got dinged on that I didn't. But, side by side, when you are really comparing the intangibles, the one that is a better overall tasting beer will do better than a technically more correct beer. And I think that's the way it should be.
I hope this serves as a good case study of how BOS judging differs from 1st round judging. The scores don't cover ALL aspects of the beers. A BOS beer really does kick ass, even though it might have gotten a lower technical score in the earlier round. If you get a BOS, it really is something special to be proud of.
Next time, no mash hopping. But in the meantime, in accordance with Brew Engineer's donation amounts in the 1st post in this thread, here's another 15 bucks for the BN.
-B'Dawg
BJCP GM3 Judge & Mead
"Lunch Meat. It's an acquired taste....." -- Mylo
