The Annual California State Homebrew Competition is one of the oldest homebrew competitions in California, if not the country. Simply referred to as Stern Grove because the final round of judging takes place in the Stern Grove clubhouse in San Francisco. I didn’t sign up to judge the final round of competition so when the opportunity came up to judge a preliminary round this past Monday, I jumped at the chance.
Pre-lims were held in the clubhouse of Grand Master BJCP judge John Watson’s place. There were 7 judges total, 6 available to judge. John Watson wasn’t judging as he was the organizer. Of the judges in attendance, I recognized Gail (Beer by Bart), Micah and Matthew.
Stern Grove pre-lims were different for me in a couple of ways. First of all, we used a different scoring system. Modern BJCP scoresheets score a beer on a 50 point scale. The old throwback Stern Grove scoresheets score on a 20 point scale. Also, the Stern Grove scoresheets have only 4 main categories whereas the modern BJCP scoresheets have 5 main categories. The difference between the two is that taste and mouthfeel have been combined into one category in the Stern Grove scoresheets.
Another big difference between modern BJCP events and the Stern Grove events lies in the categories. The BJCP has about 26 major beer style categories while Stern Grove has half the amount at 13 main categories. Last night, I judged the “Dark Lager” category which includes the following styles: bavarian (dunkel), American dark, märzen/oktoberfest, vienna lagers, traditional bock, maibock, doppelbock and the catch-all other. Between the 6 judges in attendance, there were 15 beers in this flight of which our group judged 8 beers. While I cannot comment on beers directly, I think I can say that out of the 8 beers we judged, we passed 4 of them with 3 beers being very good. At least in my opinion.
As with many other competitions I’ve judged, I was part of a table of 3 judges. I really like this format for various reasons. I believe the scores that are given are more accurate and the feedback much better between. While I think I’m very knowledgeable about beer, I am a n00b when it comes to beer judging with some judges having decades of experience.
I am getting better at tasting and judging beer. I am able to recognize many of the different flavors that define a particular style of beer and that excites me because it makes finding a really good beer that much more enjoyable. At the same time, I am also getting better at recognizing beer flaws. As a judge it is my duty to help homebrewers improve their beers and a huge part of that is by finding flaws. My achille’s heel remains as I am still unable to fully and accurately suggest ways to improve a beer. There are some flaws that I understand more than others and it’s easy to suggest a solution to a problem. Unfortunately, I don’t have all them all memorized just yet but I am improving.
Even though I have only judged a handful of events, I almost have enough experience points to move up a rank. Even if I did have enough experience points, I would still need to take the BJCP test again in order to move up. That’s just the way the BJCP rolls, it’s a balance between experience and knowledge. The good thing about living in California is that there are a good number of competitions held yearly and moving up in experience points is relatively easy. It’s just a matter of driving to where the competitions are and putting the work in.
I thoroughly enjoy being a beer judge. I have the opportunity to taste some really good beers brewed by homebrewers like me. Being a beer judge has given me the opportunity to visit many places I wouldn’t normally go to. The best part is that I get to meet a variety of cool people everywhere I go. It’s not all roses though. For every good beer I come across as a judge, there are about 3-4 beers that aren’t so good. Still, I have to think the good outweighs the bad. If you are thinking about becoming a beer judge and have questions, feel free to shoot me an email at betterbeerblog(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll do my best to answer all of your questions.
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