Homebrew Beer Blog

A week or so ago I took the BJCP Exam. I almost took it last year, but things get busy, priorities change, and suddenly the exam is a couple weeks away and my head throbs thinking about all the material. Here in MI, it’s traditionally given once a year, so during the past year I read a bunch (as seen in the Books section) and brewed a bunch. I just bit the bullet and stuck with my plans to take it, even though I could have used more time.

This is kind of a weird goal for me. I first got into entering competitions a couple years ago to bring my brewing up to the next level. Things got better, but I’m on a continuous improvement plan. As time went on, I started getting lower returns on my score sheets. Basically, if it wasn’t technically flawed in the check box sense, I didn’t get much useful feedback. Metals/ribbon are cool, but I know my beer could get better, and these guys weren’t telling me much to help. Clearly the beer wasn’t blowing anyone away to give me something in the mid 40’s, nor was it good enough to consistently place. Something was lacking, and I can only assume the judges didn’t know how to articulate this in a meaningful way. The other problem was just plain crappy sheets that said nothing. Just kind of arbitrary scoring and comments, with no indication of why aroma was 8 out of 12, nor what could make it 12 out of 12. I’m not even getting what they say. I can respect an opinion, provided it’s within the stated guidelines. I just want an some kind of it out from there, but I can’t read someone’s mind as to why they took off four points, provided there actually was a reason. It gets a little tiring to pack up six bottles, and then pay the shipping and entries, wait a month and get “nice aroma.”

So, I felt a few different things about the BJCP.

1 - I didn’t want to rely on someone to tell me about my beer. Anonymous, objective feedback is enormously valuable, but I wanted to stop sending in beer to see what they think/detect. Instead I wanted to send in beer of which I have a strong opinion, and then see if others share it.

2 - Contribute to a solution. BJCP is a great program, but I think it has some weak judges, or at least judges who don’t share my opinions of amateur brewing.

The conflict here is that I’m in this to improve my beer. I don’t particularly enjoy judging other people’s beer. Usually it involves a 1-2 hour drive and killing an entire Saturday. I would rather try and improve my beer by actually brewing – which doesn’t involve travel and only takes up 1/2 a Saturday. But, each comp is a great learning experience, if you make the most of it. There are great judges out there. Every judge and strengths and weaknesses, and getting paired with a good judge or even just recognizing other’s strengths, is a great way to learn. There are also many styles. And many defects. If you judge long enough, you’ll keep getting exposed to different things. Basically in one day I’ll get hit with 25-30 different beers. I really think this will greatly help pick out issues and help fine tune my brewing.

3 - A third side reason here is to simply understand the whole process. As much as I want feedback, winning is cool. It’s pretty eye opening to start judging after sending so many beers to competitions. Sometimes I marvel that I managed to win anything. But, more to the point, it’s given a bit more respect to the judges. The whole BJCP thing is a learning experience, for both the brewers and judges.

I think it takes an exceptional judge to be an expert in any category they’re judging, in addition to a skilled and knowledgeable brewer. I think that if you’re mostly either a beer geek or home brewer judge, you’re at a big disadvantage. If you never had more than one of the classic examples of a style, and had them a few times, brewed it yourself, and perhaps even visited where it’s brewed, it’s hard to have a deep understanding of that specific sub-style. You can read about it all you want, but that’s not the same as experiencing the range the style has to offer. And I mean range, not just one example, or even the best example. On the flip side, I think it’s not too hard to brew a good beer, but you have to be a really great brewer to consistently brew great beer. To get there, you need to know how to make it happen, and I think that’s the only way to really know the difference between a good and great beer. So basically I’m saying you need to be a great brewer to be a great judge. Reading about brewing and knowing great beer is just like only reading about a sub-style and knowing it.

Anyways… a bit of a soapbox. I’ve got a lot of opinions here, so maybe I’ll revisit someday. If you’ve got something to share, please do in the comments.