2010 HHHC Thanks and give back to the entrants

[Kally]

The HHHC process works like this - Entrants provide two bottles of beer for each entry. One bottle is opened and used for initial judging. The best of these beers are entered in the Best of Show round. The second bottle is opened to determine Best of Show. Another possibility is that the original beer is considered a bottle failure and the second beer is opened in order to give that entry its best chance at winning for the category.

So for those entries that don't fit the above scenarios, there is a second bottle of beer waiting to be sampled by others outside of the competition. The club generally finds ways to drink these with other homebrewers - at the club meetings, picnics, etc.

I would like to try something new and provide a means for entrants to get a little extra thanks for being a part of our competition. If you are able to partake in one of these many fine beers, how about adding a little post of which beer you got to taste and a note or two about it?

Cheers!

[Kally]

I'll start -
Cat 4B - Munich Dunkel
Entry 0378
opened - 12 December 2010
Drank in a Spiegalau tulip glass

Aromatics are toasted bread crust, melanoidins, and no prominent hop character. Flavor is full of munich malt - toast, melanoidins. Perhaps a tinge hot on the tongue with some definite warming effects. Body is on the medium light side, some minor level points would have been lost due to lack of body. Flavor characteristics are right where they should be for style.
Alcohol appears to be a little above the 5.6% ABV guideline.
Color is caramel brown with tinges of orange. Very good clarity (not bottle conditioned, at least not in this bottle)
No head retention and a little low on carbonation, although to be fair, this was served at a bit lower than typical judging temps.
Great beer, enjoying this very much!
Cheers and thanks for being part of our competition!

[Kally]

Cat 22B - Other Smoked Beers
Entry 0421
opened 12 December 2010
Drank in a Spiegalau tulip glass

I don't have access to the entrant notes, so I'm going to guess that this is a smoked dry stout. It has a thin body with roasty notes. Prominent smoky aroma. Smoke carries through the mouth and finish. This is a lighter smoke flavor without any peat or coal.
Nice beer!
Cheers and thanks for being part of our competition!

[bmock]

I drank 4 random beers. They we all fairly good.

[JE]

Kally, this is a nice idea...however...

What happens if you (or anyone else) drinks a beer that they thought was great, reports about it on here, but then the brewer gets their scoresheet and sees that it was "trashed" by the judges?

I am only saying what some may be thinking...

[David]

This is a nice idea but a bit hard to put in practice, especially after a day of judging beer. It was nice to knock back a few and enjoy them without having to justify everything I picked up in the flavor. I can say that it was an impressive collection of beer this year. I want to thank everyone that entered, a nice job! Personally I wish we would have had a few more bad beers, they're easier to judge!

As for undermining the authority of judges, as in the conversation under Notes on Non-Specialty Beers; judges rate beers using a rigid set of guidelines, not the way they were intended to be enjoyed. Every judge with whom I have worked rate beers honestly and to the best of their abilities. It's not an exact science, nor could it ever be. The score is an attempt at quantifying the intangible and subjective. How a beer places is based solely on the notion that someone has to win and someone has to lose. With so many worthy beers in front of the judge, that is a mighty hard decision.

[Kally]

Kally...What happens if you (or anyone else) drinks a beer that they thought was great, reports about it on here, but then the brewer gets their scoresheet and sees that it was "trashed" by the judges?

I give up. What happens?

[JE]

Kally...What happens if you (or anyone else) drinks a beer that they thought was great, reports about it on here, but then the brewer gets their scoresheet and sees that it was "trashed" by the judges?

I give up. What happens?

I am just worried that some may get their feelings hurt, or worse, if we sit here and claim how wonderful their beer is and then their score shows a 22 or something...

I am not trying to "poo poo" the idea, just wondering if this is a good practice or not. I was simply putting the "what if" out there...that's all.

[Kally]

It's always valuable to educate. I'll put my comments out here for feedback. That's the best way to learn and find out when something is off base. I made some mistakes when I did my first judging years ago. I wouldn't have known it either if I hadn't done the same thing when I took the BJCP exam. That was the first time I received feedback that some of my comments were not constructed well.
Some of the top BJCP judges submit score sheets to brewing magazines. They don't always agree with each other, but things are generally in the same range and it's all valuable experience.

This venue can be a bit more informal also and allows more discussion on style categories. It's a good place to say that something may not have fit the guidelines dead on, but it was still a great beer to drink.

With respect to hurting people's feelings - brewer's submitted their beers to get feedback. The beers should be named by only the entry number so that the brewer will know if it was their beer. There's no way to link a brewer to an entry number (unless you won a medal), so names will remain anonymous unless a brewer chooses to identify themself here (which is fine).