Beer School: Week 6

I have been absent from the BJCP class for the past two weeks. The first time was because I was planning for my SF Beer Week Beer & Dessert Event, the second was because I was attending another SF Beer Week that I helped to plan; the Beer & Cheese Pairing Event at Firehouse Brewery & Grill. On one hand, I was excited to be back in class, having been inspired by the Beer Judging 101 & 102 Workshops put together by Gail and Brian and taught by Dave Teckam. On the other, the classes can take a toll on me. Humanity, in general, tends to take the path of least resistance, especially if it leads right to a comfortable couch.

Still, if I am to improve my beer judging skills and tasting abilities, practice makes perfect. This week in beer school we covered the following styles:

• 6A. Cream Ale
• 6B. Blonde Ale
• 6C. Kölsch
• 6D. American Wheat or Rye Beer
• 15A. Weizen/Weissbier
• 15B. Dunkelweizen
• 15C. Weizenbock
• 15D. Roggenbier (German Rye Beer)

Continuing with Week 3′s trend, we were able to sample a lot of homebrews again this week. I have a few homebrews that I wanted to submit for the class’s review but the timing was off with just about all of them. My own pale ale wasn’t ready while I missed out on last week’s Porter and Stout class. Being able to judge homebrews is a great priviledge. As the homebrewer, you get honest, accurate and real-time feedback for your beers. As a BJCP judge, or wannabe judge for that matter, being able to taste a homebrew next to a commercial example is an excellent way to learn about the style and the flaws for that style.

Of all the beers from Category 6, my favorite is still the kölsch. Our commercial example was an authentic Reissdorf Kölsch from Germany. The best thing about this style is the subtlety of the flavors. Despite looking like an American Standard Lager, this beer packs in the flavor but in a restrained and muted way. When done well, this is a fabulous beer.

I learned a lot about Category 15 this week. Weissbiers and Hefeweizens are easily overlooked beers. We tend to take them for granted because they’re everywhere. It seems to me that every brewery does a hefeweizen because of it’s broad appeal. It’s not bitter, has lots of yeast-derived flavor, and is easy drinking. Despite the simplicity of its recipe, hefeweizens can be difficult beers to brew, with a lot of that difficulty arising from temperature control issues. At least for me that’s the case.

A really good hefeweizen has a light to moderate yeast-driven flavor profile. You should primarily be picking up banana esters and clove phenolics in both the flavor and aroma along with, to lesser degrees, citrus, vanilla and bubblegum notes. The hop bitterness is really low but the noble hop flavor (a soft spiciness) can be from low to medium-low. You should also be picking up a grainy wheat flavor as well. These characteristics make up the soul of the (German) wheat beer styles while other characteristics round out the flavor profiles, depending on what they’re made of (Weissbiers=pils malt, dunkelweizens=Vienna and/or Munich malt, weizenbock=more Vienna/Munich malt character and roggenbier=rye). In my opnion, all these characteristics need to be in balance with each other. Generally speaking, the further you go down the Category 15 list, the less prominent yeast-driven flavors become but they should always be there.

With all that being said, I ended up scoring a lot of the wheat beers we tasted, homebrews and commercial example, in the high 20s to low 30s. A big part of my apparent harshness is that I didn’t get a sense of balance in many of the beers nor did I get enough of the yeast-driven characteristics (banana, clove, etc.) that I would’ve expected. Call me old-fashioned but if I’m judging a beer and it’s missing key aspects, I’m going to rate it lower.

That brings me to the one contentious point of the evening. Whenever I bring up to people that I am BJCP judge, I get one of two reactions. The first reaction is, “Really, that’s cool” or something equally positive. The second reaction usually begins with a rolling of the eyes followed by, “Aren’t styles useless? Isn’t it enough to just have a good beer?” Well, how would you know if it was a good beer if you didn’t have guidelines telling you? The BJCP is a volunteer organization that exisits to support the homebrewing community. Style guidelines are necessary to give everyone a standardized way of talking about beer.

Put another way, why even categorize anything at all? Why not call all clam chowder clam chowder? Why even differentiate between New England, Manhattan, or Rhode Island? Chowder is chowder, right? Of course not! There are enough differences between the chowders to warrant different names. Same with beer, there are enough differences to warrant different names and categories. As with the names of the chowders, many of these differences are geographic in nature, specific to the beer’s (or chowder’s) point of origin.

Now that I’ve defended the necessity of BJCP guidelines, I must reiterate that these are just guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Homebrewers continually push the boundaries of these guidelines each year and the result is that they are rewritten to accommodate what is now considered acceptible.

But what happens when the style guidelines are incorrect? The weizenbock we sampled last night was a commercial example froma reputable German brewery. This is a beer they’ve made for many, many years and frankly, it’s a good beer. I gave it a 20. I gave it a 20 because when compared to the standard presented within the BJCP guidelines, it was way off. It was too light in color. It lacked the appropriate flavor characteristics. It was a slightly lighter in body than I expected. In short, it missed half of what was supposed to make it a weizenbock. It should’ve gotten no more than a 25.

What happens when the beer you’re drinking does correspond with what’s on the page? There are no easy answers to this question. The unofficial rule for the BJCP is that all judges for a beer must be within 7 points of each other. In the weizen bock example, I scored it a 20 while another judge gave it a 38. With an 18 point diffrence, we would discuss the merits of the beer and the beer as it stands versus the guideline standards. The hope is that both (or all, if there are multiple judges) can reach a concensus peacefully. I’ve heard that some people have been roused to physical confrentations. Crazy, crazy stuff. At the end of the day, it’s all semantics and the most important thing is to give the homebrewer in question the most appropriate feedback to brew the best beer they can.

I’ve probably said too much already. I have a habit of rambling. I guess I just needed to get some issues off my chest and hopefully some of you will comment in with your opinions. In any event, I learned a lot about German wheat ales this week.

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