Sitting in Judgment

This is one of the high points of my year. I don't have the leisure or budget to travel for judging, so the Kansas City Bier Meisters annual competition is the only one I judge at these days.



I'm a National rank BJCP judge, for those of you who didn't know. Basically, this is the alcoholic beverage version of a Star Trek convention, a bunch of monomaniacs fixated on suds.






When you tell people you're going to judge beer, they typically say, 'I'm going to judge some beer, too. But I already know how I'm going to score it.' Or they say, 'In my judgment, it's time to get another case.'



Their looks of disbelief and ridicule will not abate if you explain that this is something you read books about, that you've taken classes, spent $50 to take the BJCP exam, etc. In fact, the more you tell them about the 27 categories and all the sub-styles and so on, the more alienated you become.



At least that's been my life story.

I should tell you about the pictures I'm posting since I took such a ridiculous number of them.



For one thing, I have to tell you that judging beer is not about drinking beer. A flight will typically contain six to fifteen entries, with three judges and a steward. The steward is likely an aspiring judge, who will taste along with and listen in on discussions. Or sometimes the steward is a wife or girlfriend of one of us nerds.



You pour about an ounce and a half into each of four glasses, which is more than enough for evaluation purposes. You start by smelling the beer, making notes in the 'aroma' section of the score sheet, and awarding points according to the appropriateness of various components relative to the style the beer is entered in. Smells that contribute to a world class Belgian Dubbel would be problematic in a Bohemian Pilsner.



Then take a look at the sample and evaluate it for color, clarity and head retention, again, relative to style. An English Barleywine will almost never have any head retention, but a Dry Stout damn well better have it. Color that is appropriate for an IPA would be too light for a Schwarzbier. Haze that is required in a Witbier would lose points for a Blonde Ale.





Then you take a taste. Not a big taste, just enough to roll around your tongue and get an impression. The biggest difference between this and wine judging is at this point: beer judges swallow. There are several reasons for this. The aftertaste of the beer is part of the evaluation, and aspirating the sample really isn't the same as swallowing it from that standpoint. Also, wine's higher alcoholic content would contribute more to palate fatigue if wine judges swallowed samples. But the biggest reason wine judges use spittoons is that wine is nasty.



No, it's not. But wine competitions often put 40 to 80 wines into a single day and it's simply impossible to drink a small enough sample not to become intoxicated if you're going to do that. Beer judges bitch if they have to get through 18 in a flight, and we don't generally do more than two flights in a day, three if you judge Best of Show.




After you've also evaluated mouthfeel and the overall impression, you add up your points, then discuss with the other two judges. You don't want to be more than 5 points apart, and sometimes a judge picks up on something the others missed, or has a blind spot, and there might be need to adjust to get within range. But there's not nearly as much adjusting as you'd expect.



I have a blind spot, for instance, for DMS. Dimethyl Sulfide is the cooked corn smell you get in a Rolling Rock, and in most beer styles it's a defect. I can't smell it until it's damned obvious. I can hardly smell it in a Rolling Rock, and it's a signature of the brand. On the other hand, mercaptans, the skunky smell you get in light-struck beer, I'm very sensitive to. I can just about smell it before you open the bottle and from across the room. All judges have these sensitivities and weaknesses, so sometimes one judge will be eight or ten points off of the other two.



But more typically, you finish your score sheet and when it's time to discuss, you find that you are all within a couple of points. This is what years of study, taking exams, and endless discussions of various beer styles does: it makes us a consistent lot of middle-aged fat guys who don't have a life.






There are, dear reader, some lovely and savvy women judging beer, but I would guess they are 5% of the BJCP crowd.



The weekend starts out with food. In this case, Oklahoma Joe's barbecue. You can't judge on an empty stomach, right?

Friday night tends to be the long flights. This is because you need to get two flights in on Saturday and you don't want a table struggling to finish up before lunch. Some of the higher alcohol categories also tend to go on Friday night because with only one flight, palate fatigue is less an issue.



Then it's back at 8:00 on Saturday for breakfast, and the breakfast speaker. Who was Danny from the Roasterie again this year. We really love him because he brings enough coffee to wake a brigade, and it's great coffee. We're beer freaks, but we love all sorts of beverages.



Danny's a fun speaker, too, because he's the kind of geek about coffee who is identifiable to a group of beer lovers who commonly aspire to open a microbrewery. Or, in the case of some, open a microbrewery again.



After the morning flight, we had pizza. Then another flight to judge.



At this point, a lot of people go on the tour. In this case, a tour to a massive liquor store in Martin City for a beer tasting. I'm in poverty, so I didn't go on the tour, which meant I was available to judge Best of Show.



I love judging Best of Show. It's much more a beauty pageant in that your personal preferences come into play more than they can on a flight where you're judging one style. These are the 27 first place entries and you get to argue about whether 1443 is a better Braggot than 1631 is a Still Sweet Hydromel. Or whether 1544 is a less a world class Imperial Stout than 1244 is a California Common.



Early BOS judging is pretty easy. There are always some winners that must have come from weak flights, where you can find defects straight away and eliminate. A judge will say, 'I'm ready to kick the Dubbel, I'm getting a really harsh finish that's out of place.' Another might say, 'I think the American Barleywine is too sweet for style.' At which point you might say, 'I'm not ready to kick that one. I think that's a textbook example.'



This goes on with lots of water drinking to cleanse the palate, lots of arguing. Especially when you get down to the last ten or so in the Best of Show round. By now, every one is a legitimate contender with no obvious flaws. Intangibles matter at this point, and for good or ill, the proclivities of the judges do too.



Beer judges are notoriously biased towards the strong beers. A big Dubbel or Doppelbock is naturally more impressive than a Blonde Ale or Ordinary Bitter. There's more going on in a big beer. But the small beers have less to hide their flaws in, and sometimes take more skill to brew at this level.

So some beer judges will almost kill themselves to make sure the BOS goes to the best small beer than can identify.



But with five judges, it's hard for either of these prejudices to run roughshod. A well run competition, in fact, will do its best to make sure that not only are all the BOS judges National rank or higher, but that it's not a group who naturally agrees about such things.

Here's the thing your coworker really doesn't get about beer judging. It's thirsty work. You've essentially been teased for hours on end, because judging is not about consumption. Drink a lot of beer and your judgment is impaired. This is about giving good feedback to the brewers so they can make better beer.



So naturally, when John asked me if I wanted to head to Granite City for a beer on him, I accepted. Granted, we were leaving a brewery, and homebrewers are the one group who actually bring beer to an event at a brewery. Besides the entries for the competition, we had homebrews on tap.



But of course, I'd love to go grab a beer. And if you think we'd had plenty to eat, the awards banquet is a couple hours off, and the entourage decided to order food as well.





We might not be getting drunk, but I won't say we're not a bunch of gluttons.





You know, too, nobody seems to have such an affinity for weird beers as a bunch of judges.



The dinner is followed by the awards ceremony. If you're wondering, yes, many of the winners are also judges, but no, they don't get to judge their own. Many a qualified judge can't do the BOS round because he's got an entry that placed first in its flight.





By the way, despite the relatively sober process, I love this picture. I took this picture of Carl on Friday right after we arrived. He was stone sober, but you wouldn't know it from the shot...



And by the time the banquet is over, I can't say it's quite like a meeting of the Temperance Union.