BetterBeerBlog

Beer School has come to a close. If you’ve noticed that I skipped from Week 10 it’s because I didn’t go to Week 10. At the time, Sammy was preparing for her road trip while my back was acting up again so we didn’t go. In hindsight, it seemed like we missed a few interesting doctored beers.

The last week at Beer School was a bittersweet affair. The class initially started off with about 30+ people, by far one of the largest I’ve seen. 3 months later, there were 10 of us. Not sure if the last 10 were driven by a love of beer, the camaraderie of the class, or ritual/inertia. It didn’t matter as the people who were there are all good guys (Sammy was the last girl).

For the last class, John served us a few more doctored beers and we took a 1/4 length practice exam that lasted about 45 minutes. To doctor a beer, you simply pick up something lightly flavored (Miller Light) then add stuff to it to change the flavor, pour, serve, laugh inside if you’re the one doing the serving.

Here’s what I remember we had:

• Acetaldehyde - Budweiser from a tall can, a supposed hallmark of this brewery/beer is a slight presence of acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is an organic compound formed by plants naturally in their metabolism. It is widely believed that this compound is responsible for hangovers. Acetaldehyde is most commonly perceived as “green apples” (unripe), as well as grassy and/or acetic (vinegary/cidery). While I didn’t notice the “green apple” character, I did pick up a cidery note in the beer.
• Sweet - An overly sweet beer is a flaw. Beer, by it’s very nature, is a balancing act between sweet malt flavors and bitter hop flavors. To doctor the Miller Light, John added Splenda. No noticeable aroma but man, was this a sweet beer. Because Splenda is not real sugar, it didn’t taste sugar sweet. Had a weird character.
• Sherry - John added sherry to the beer. Sherry notes in the aroma and flavor are a result of oxidation. Out of all the oxidized characteristics, sherry is the “good” kind and is appropriate for barleywines and other aged beers. I had never had sherry before and the aroma reminded me of celery while the flavor was like walnuts, not the actual nut but the membrane within the nut that you have to pick out when you crack them yourself.
• Lightstruck - I didn’t even need to taste this beer to recognize this flaw.  A lightstruck beer is one that has been left in the sun. The sunlight reacts with the alpha acids in hops and the result is a skunky aroma. If you’ve ever had Heineken and noticed it’s been skunky in the aroma, it’s been lightstruck. This mostly happens with beers in clear and green bottles. Brown bottled beer offers the second most protection from this (canned beer the most protected) but eventually, even brown beers will get lightstruck. The example beer was Becks.
• Nuttiness - Appropriate in some beers but a flaw in most others, nuttiness was achieved by adding almond extract to Miller Light. We all thought the aroma was of Maraschino Cherries, the flavor was also fruity, but Larry eventually picked out it was almond. He was a big fan of Italian syrups and noticed it after some time.

After some discussion, we were handed a 1/4 length exam that we had 45 minutes to take. I didn’t finish all the questions and taking this test made me realize how rusty I am. The thing about the BJCP is that the test is very rigorous. It is brute force memorization and regurgitation. Once you actually become a judge, things are actually much easier as you are provided (or you bring your own) BJCP style guideline during each competition. I swear, I think it’s easier to become a real estate agent.

At the end of the test, John gave us test taking advice. He noted what judges are looking for in your answers and what to expect when you take the test. Hand cramps, expect hand cramps from all the writing you’ll have to be doing. Bring a watch or some sort of timer to gauge how long you are taking. Study, study, study. Take the practice exams. The goal of your first BJCP exam is to pass the damn thing. You can always retake the exam to improve your scores. The good thing about retaking the exam is that you don’t have to take the whole thing, you can choose what part (written or tasting) you would like to take. I will be taking the tasting portion again as, truth be told, I haven’t been studying.

To finish off the evening, a few folks brought in some homebrews that we got to taste. The guys from Suds or Duds brought in an IPA that had wonderful grapefruit/citrus aroma and was aggressively bitter. Another homebrewer brought in his Christmas beer which he spiced with mulling spices and had a little bit of apple juice in primary. It was a pretty good beer. While I’m not huge on mulling spices, the spice level in this beer was just right; enough to be noticeable but not enough to be overwhelming. Great job guys!

As I said in the beginning, now that Beer School is over, it’s kind of bittersweet. On one hand, it’s a lot of information to take in every class. We drank well over 100 beers during the 11 or so weeks the class was in session. You spend any extended amount of time devoted to something as regular as this and you get used to it, it becomes part of your routine and something to look forward to. On the other hand, some classes ran long and many a late night was had. These classes are not some drinkfest either, we have to consciously and deliberately evaluate these beers and discuss them. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this in the past but it can get mentally draining. Some days, all you want to do is just drink a beer and enjoy it for what it is without having to fill out a scoresheet or go beyond, “Man, this is one good beer!” for your description.

John usually hosts these classes once a year but I hear he might be expanding to twice a year, which is good. Even if you don’t want to be a judge, this class is a great way to sample a very wide variety of beers as well as how to appreciate them on levels outside of flavor. Chances are good that if John has another class, I’ll be attending. Maybe I’ll be helping pour the next time but I think I learned more this time around than the first time. Well, maybe not learned, but things definitely made much more sense.

Procrastination Finally on Tap at Russian River Brewing Company

Got a tweet from Rob at Pfiff! that RRBC has finally tapped Procrastination. I received confirmation in my email as well. For a while, I thought this was a late RRBC April Fool’s joke. In fact, it still could be, at which case you can color me a fool. It’s easy to do as I’m a huge mark.

A trademark of RRBC is the naming of their Belgian-style ales with the “tion” suffix. With this naming convention, you get cool names like Perdition, Damnation and Sanctification. The bad thing is that, unless you’re a regular at RRBC, you have no idea what kind of beer each of those are. The names have vague connections at best.

That being said, a running joke at the brewpub was to have “Procrastination, coming soon” on the chalkboard. I fell for it initally before I “got it”. Call me dense sometimes, or an April Fool. Either way wouldn’t be too far off.

Anyway, in time for the company’s 5th Anniversary (at the pub, 12 years overall) this weekend, Procrastination will be on tap. It is a Belgian-herb beer brewed with locally grown Sonoma County herbs. It weights in at 9.3% ABV and 72 IBUs. It will be available only at the Brewpub. RRBC is also having a huge party this weekend, April 4th. Unfortunately for us, RRBC is a good 1.5/2 hour drive away and we are triple booked anyway for Saturday. If anyone goes this weekend, let me know how it goes, I’d love to hear about it.

Last week I regaled you all with a captivating tale woven around the strands of excitement that make up a BJCP judge’s life. There was some tragedy (8 mostly OK beers in a row), comedy (they all seemed the same despite being different styles) and action (I wrote fast and furiously). Tonight was much of the same, except for the surprise ending. Have I got you hooked? Probably not but bear with me anyway.

First of all, a big THANK YOU to Firehouse brewmaster Steve Donohue for allowing us to take control of the banquet room upstairs and have our World Cup preliminary judging there. As always, Steve doesn’t have to be so kind to us homebrewers and BJCP judges but he is and we are thankful. Nothing wrong with the clubhouse at John’s place but being able to judge beer at a brewpub is a pretty sweet deal.

Steve has some interesting things in the works, actually. Tomorrow (or today as it were), he will be brewing up a Baltic Porter. Baltic Porters are interesting beers in that they are porters brewed with a lager yeast. He also has a couple of wood-aged beers in the works and is ramping up his sour ale program. Keep an eye out for this guy, he’s bring the sexy back to the south bay. In fact, the best way to keep up with him would be through his twitter accounts. Follow him.

This week we polished off the Belgian Strong category and all its sub-categories. This week, we had and ample number of judges. My crewed rolled 3 deep while the other group had 4 judges. We still stewarded own beers but having gone through this last week, everything ran much smoother this time around.

Personally, the biggest difference from this week and last week was the quality of beers. I don’t believe we passed anything forward last week but this time, we passed 3 (out of beers onto the next round. The beers in this week’s flight were of much higher quality, color was generally good while the flavors, spot on in some instances, were mostly ballpark. With a little bit of tweaking, a lot of these beers will be on their way to becoming something special. I can say that for my group, a Belgian Dark Strong moved forward, as did a Tripel and Belgian Golden Strong. The difference between second and third beers we passed forward was .33 points. Small margins of error. I hope these guys do well in the competition on Friday.

Being a BJCP judge means having to constantly keep up with your beer styles. Admittedly a big part of that is becoming very familiar with how each of the styles tastes like. In order to do that, one has got to drink, it’s that simple. One of the beers I had tonight I really enjoyed. I liked a lot of what was going on. At the very end, I had scored this beer relatively high. There was a 12-13 point spread and we needed to close the gap to being within 7 points. After a little bit of discussion, I adjusted my scores to reflect more accurately what this beer is and I realized I had been perceiving something wrong as something desirable. Even while judging, I still managed to learn something new. Isn’t that the goal every day?

In any event, the World Cup Finals are being held at Trumer Pils in Berkeley. Having just wrapped up a Pre-lim round, I think it’ll be fun to see how everything turns out. As much as I would’ve wanted to go, there’s the Firkin Festival happening at Triple Rock. Decisions, decisions.

I was supposed to go to Beer School tonight. Didn’t happen for a number of reasons. Sammy needed to get some stuff taken care of before her Pacific Northwest roadtrip and my back was acting up again. The plan for Beer School tonight was to go through smoked, wood-aged, fruit, spiced/herb/vegetal, and specialty beers as well as some doctored beers and closing with a shortened practice exam. Exciting, I know. I’ll just have to go over these beers at another time.

Last night, I was able to judge a preliminary round of beers for the 2009 World Cup homebrew competition. We were originally were supposed to judge this round at BJCP Grand Master 2 judge John Watson’s place but I was able to convince Steve from Firehouse Brewery in Sunnyvale to let us judge there. Some of the judges who showed up had never been to Firehouse in the past and they got a treat when Steve game them a quick tour of his brewery.

Since this was a last minute thing, not too many judges showed up. It happens. Altogether there were 6 of us divided up into two groups of 3. Each group was given a flight of 8 beers to judge. In many competitions, there will be a number of judges available as well as stewards to assist with the flow of the competition. With such a low turnout, we ended up having to get the entries ourselves. It’s tragic, I know.

Actually, the number of judges who showed up was pretty low. Usually John (who’d be the event organizer) would be responsible for handling all the paperwork as well as stewarding for the handful of judges who do show up. He ended up judging. Firehouse brewmaster Steve ended up joining the second panel as well. Travis from www.sudsorduds.com, who showed up to help out in some capacity, ended up judging as well. To make sure everything was balanced John, Travis and I were on one panel while Steve (brewmaster), Steve (another judge) and Matthew were on the second panel.

For those new to beer judging, here’s how beer judging goes: we get a small sample of beer (about 3 oz or so) and we note how it looks, how it smells, how it tastes and how the mouthfeel is. The last category, named Overall Impression, is kind of a “catch all” for things that didn’t fit in the other categories. Personally, I use this category to list the ways the brewer can improve their beers. At least I try to anyway.

The category we judged last night was the Belgian Strong category. Normally this is a beer style that many judges are into, for good reason: Belgian Strong ales are wonderfully complex and tasty beers. Personally, I was looking forward to judging this round because of that reason. Also, I’ve always wanted to brew this style and getting to see how other homebrewers tackle these beer styles is interesting to me.

Unfortunately, the flight of beers I got didn’t have any standout examples. There were a few mistakes common to many of the samples I judged. In many cases. these beers lacked the malt complexity we were looking for in both the aroma and flavor. In many others, the color was incorrect as some weren’t dark enough while others were too dark for their respective styles. Lastly, carbonation and head retention were issues as well. Most samples were under carbonated and lacked a thick, moussey head that would leave a the trademarked “Belgian lace” on the glass edges. The other judging group had a few good examples that we were able to sample.

Whenever I tell people I’m a beer judge, an actual beer judge, people are always, “Awww man, that’s such a cool gig!”. While I think it is cool to be a beer judge, I have to tell people that it’s not all roses. For every good beer I get to taste there’s four, five, eight bad beers I have to get through. Sometimes we get perks, like being fed, while other times you get situations like last night which was a bare bones sort of affair. In any event, it doesn’t matter to me whether we have dozens of judges or half a dozen. It’s all about the beer and helping out fellow homebrewers.

This week’s Beer School post will actually end up being a combination of last week’s and this week’s classes. I wish I could say that I was too busy to write up the post. In a way I was but the truth of the matter was that I was stumped for words. I couldn’t just start writing about Belgian ales and not expect a short novella to be the result. I needed sometime to gather my thoughts, to be concise. Now that I have twice the material, let’s see how I do?

Week 8 saw the class tackling Belgian and French Ales, no small task, let me assure you. Belgian Ales are some of the most complex beers in the world and part of that is because they take advantage of one ingredient that most breweries try and minimize: yeast. Next to water, yeast is probably the most misunderstood of all the ingredients of beer. Many people know hops, they add bitterness, blah, blah, blah. Just as many know malt, they add sweetness, color, blah, blah, blah. Water holds everything together (gross oversimplification, I know) and yeasts eat the sugar to turn into carbon dioxide and alcohol (the big payoff, cha-ching!)

If you’ve ever had a hefeweizen (and by now, who hasn’t?), yeast play a vital role in the flavor of that beer. Depending on many factors (fermentation temperature, yeasts strain, etc.), the yeasts can impart their own flavor to the beer. This results in hefeweizens that exhibit banana fruit esters, clove phenolics or both. Most of the time, it’s both, just the balance varies. Well, how does this affect Belgian ales?

A lot.

For the beers in the Belgian and French Ale category, yeast-derived characteristics play a huge part in the overall flavor profiles of these beers. Yeast will add both fruity and spicy phenolic character to these beers in addition to the already present malt and hop flavors and characteristics. While all very similar overall, their differences have to deal with the proportions of those characteristics.

• Category 16a: Witbier - Witbiers are wheat beers that should be light, refreshing, moderately sweet with yeast-derived citrus flavors while the spiciness is from the actual use of spices, i.e. corriander. Low bitterness. Low hop character and flavor.
• Category 16b: Belgian Pale Ale - A fruity, copper colored beer with medium malt sweetness and easy drinking. Unlike their American and European cousins, these are low hopped.
• Category 16c: Saison - Out of all the beers, probably the most flavorful. These will exhibit the most yeast character. Fruit notes are citrus in nature while the phenols are peppery (peppercorn peppery). Easily the most hoppy of the group as well.
  
• Category 16d: Biere de Garde - These Belgian ales will be the most malty of the category. Fruity yeast character will be the most prevalent, followed by the spicy character. Even then, everything takes a backseat to the malt character.
  
• Category 16e: Belgian Specialty Ale - This style is the catch-all for the other Belgian style ales that don’t particularly belong in the above. Think along the lines of black ales such as New Belgium’s 1554.
  

While the yeast-derived flavors were the running thread for most of Category 16, the subsequent beer category will have an entirely different thread running through it. Catgory 17: Sour Ales, is aptly named because all those beers are sour to one level or another. Here’s how the category breakes down:

• Category 17a: Berliner Weisse - Out of the sour ales, the only one that isn’t Belgian, it’s German. Berliner Weisse beers are known for their mouth-watering and refreshing tartness. Lactic tartness is the star of the show for this beer with a grainy, wheat flavor playing second fiddle while hop characteristics work very quietly behind-the-scenes.
• Category 17b: Flanders Red Ale - Complex fruit characteristics (oranges, black cherries, currants) are complimented by an equal level of malt sweetness. These beers should have a medium level of lactic acid sourness/tartness.
• Category 17c: Flanders Brown/Oud Bruin - These beers will have a complex malt character that is dominant to all other flavor characterisics. Dark fruit chatacters will abound but are secondary to the malt. This will also be the least sour/tart of the beers in this style.
  
• Category 17d: Straight (Unblended) Lambic - Straight lambics are some of the most outrageous beers ever made. These beers were extreme before there was even such a term. Lambics will be predominantly sour (lactic acid) balanced by and equal number of microbiota-derived character that can only be described as horseblanket, hay, goatey and barnyardy. Any fruit is in support of these two, hops are non-existent.
  
• Category 17e: Gueuze - Pronounded “gooze”, this beer style is actual a blend of 1, 2 and 3 year old lambics. The result is a beer that is more balanced than a straight lambic as the sour and barnyard characters are in balance.
• Category 17f: Fruit Lambics - For a long time, lambics were the only style of beer available. Much of that was attributed to a lack of microbiological knowledge. In essense, this style is defined by the Straight Lambic that is either balanced or slightly subordinate to whatever fruit is going to be in it.

So there you go, Weeks 8 and 9 wrapped up fairly easily and concisely. Unlike past weeks, I actually sent out a few tweets during class letting you know what beers we were drinking. I won’t be doing that all the time but enough to keep things interesting.

This week at Beer School, we covered the Amber Hybrid beers and the Belgian Strong categories. Amber Hybrids are considered hybrids not because they use different ingredients or anything like that but because of how they’re made. The Northern German and Dusseldorf Altbiers are both ales. Unlike their other ale bretheren, these altbiers are fermented at the cooler end of the ale fermentation temperature spectrum (around 55ºF) and then lagered (stored at much cooler temperatures, roughly 40ºF). The California Common is the reverse in that the beer uses a lager yeast that ferments at a warmer temperature (58º - 68ºF) but isn’t lagered. As a result of this hybrid style of brewing, you get beers that have restrained ale characteristics while retaining clean lager characteristics as well.

By contrast, the Belgian Strong ales have huge ale characteristics (lots of fruit) tempered by yeast flavors and aromas (peppery, spicy, fruity). The Belgian Strong ales are starting to gain a foothold in the American palette with their complex flavors, aromas and unique characteristics. Made up of the Blond Ale, the Dubbel, the Tripel, Golden Strong and Dark Strong, these beers range in color from pale gold to copper-brown while the yeasty characteristics often evoke comparisons to fruits such as pears, apples, oranges, lemons, figs, plums, raisins and dates. With such a wide variety of characteristics, you can imagine how popular and appealing these beers are.

• 7A. Northern German Altbier
• 7B. California Common Beer
• 7C. Düsseldorf Altbier
• 18A. Belgian Blond Ale
• 18B. Belgian Dubbel
• 18C. Belgian Tripel
• 18D. Belgian Golden Strong Ale
• 18E. Belgian Dark Strong Ale

This week I learned a few more things I didn’t know about these particular styles. Regarding the altbiers, it’s hard to say if we’re really getting accurate representations of the style here in the United States. Altbiers are not a popular style and U.S. versions seem to be interpretations of the style. The California Common, by comparison, is anything but common. Once known as steam beers, Anchor Steam has since trademarked steam beer resulting in an almost monopoly on the style. As a result, the name California Common was coined to represent those beers with steam-like characteristics just so we could brew them at home. This was one style where the type of hop used plays a huge part in the flavor profile. California Common is essentially a showcase for Northern Brewer hops.

I thought I knew what Belgian strong beer but this week I learned that I don’t about them as much as I think I do. The Belgian Strong ales are fun in the sense that they can be dangerously drinkable while being deceptively strong in alcohol. I’m still working on separating “clove phenolics and spiciness” from “hop spiciness”. At this point, it’s all about nuances, really. Picking up, or failing to pick up, certain style characteristics was the difference in scoring brackets. The surprising event of the evening was the first Belgian Dark Strong ale we had was a blend of multiple Longshot winners and participants. I thought this was one of the most flavorful beers of the evening and it was because it was blended together.

For the most part, this week’s class was tame, despite the higher gravity Belgian ales we had in the latter half. As good as these beers are, I’m looking forward to the funky, Belgian beer class.

It’s the final day of SF Beer Week and it’s pouring cats and dogs. The big event of the day is the Celebrator party happening in Oakland later on in the evening. I briefly considered going but opted against it instead. To survive SF Beer Week, Sammy and I have been moderating our drinking and events by going to an event one day and not going the following day. I didn’t plan on this but I was sick for one day, had nothing planned on another and had a non-beer event to go to on another. In the end, my liver thanked me for the respite.

I had initially planned for Sunday to be an “off day” to allow me to rest and catch up on my blogging but after some consideration, Sammy and I headed over to the Englander in San Leandro to help out www.beerbybart.com friends Gail and Steve run their Beer Judging 101 event. As with many SF Beer Week events, their BJCP 101 and 102 classes sold out close to the last day. Having never been to the Englander, I was amazed by the large selection of beers they had on tap and vowed (fist shaking to the sky) that I would be back. I had a job to do that day and enjoying the Englander wasn’t part of the job description.

Grand Master-level BJCP judge Dave Teckam would be leading the class. He has a very casual demeanor and is a wealth of beer information. If anything, his demeanor helped to set a relaxed atmosphere in the class that fostered discussion. It really was like a beer school in that Dave stood in front of the group with a pointer stick in hand and his white boards behind him chalk full of beer information while workshop attendees were seated in tables according to rows.

Having been given very little instruction as to what our roles would be, Gail and Brian set about marking cups and pouring beers while Sammy and I doled them out to the workshop attendees. Eventually, we pre-counted the necessary number of cups, marked them when applicable and handed them out. It was a smooth going operation, if I must say so myself. Sammy was a huge help in organizing how things worked out. Having done our fair share of events ourselves, we’re familiar with figuring the flow of things.

I did my best to listen to what Dave had to say during the 101 class but having to work, I missed out a lot on what he said. In the pieces and parts I did catch, I admired his ability to explain things as well as foster discussion from the class. Public speaking is definitely a learned skill and being knowledgeable about your topic helps determine your comfort level. While I learned some new things regarding beer and beer tasting, I think I may have learned a bit more about public speaking.

The big surprise of the 101 event was the final pairing. I admit that I didn’t see the beers being poured but I noticed a difference between them. They were both big beers, malty but one was decidedly more hoppy than the other. The big reveal was that the final pairing was the same beer, 5 years apart. One beer was a 2004 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot while the other was the 2009 Bigfoot. This revelation elicited a collective, “Whoa!” from the class. I did a mini-Bigfoot vertical a few weeks ago at the homebrew shop but I knew what I was getting into then. When you do a blind tasting like this, the big reveal has a bigger effect.

Dave believes that 5 years is the optimal age for a Bigfoot. Any longer and you start to see a degradation in flavors. The 2004 had a noticeable alcohol note with a complex malty flavor while being mellower and exhibiting slight sherry and oxidation notes. The 2009, by comparison, was bright, hoppy and robust in its flavors. Of course this was because it was the fresher beer. Dave said the best way to age your beer would be to keep them out of light and in a place that is consistent at 50º-55° F, much like a wine. Now inspired to age beers, I will have to back to BevMo and pick up a case of 2009 Bigfoot. Which reminds me, I found it miraculous that Dave, Gail and Brian were able to find enough 2004 Bigfoot for the class. It’s not like you can hit up your local Safeway or BevMo and ask for it. They must’ve called in some favors to pull that off. In the end, I think the reaction of the class was worth it.

The 201 class was a little more in-depth with the knowledge. You didn’t need to have signed up for the 101 class to attend but I think having a slight background helped out. Even then, Dave approached it all as if you didn’t know. Sammy and I stayed long enough to taste some sour beers but we had to cut out. The NBA All-Star game was going to be on that night and I wanted to catch it with some friends.

On the way home through the rain, Sammy and I discussed on how much we got out of the experience. We both agreed that it was totally worth while to have helped out Gail, Brian and Dave. It further inspired me to improve my own BJCP judging abilities to move up a rank. If anything, being a more informed, more skilled judge should help me educate and hopefully turn people on the wonderful world of craft beer. Even in our short time within the craft beer community, we have been shown a warmth and acceptance I had not anticipated. I’m hoping to be able to share that with more of my friends in the future as well as give back to the community that has already given me so much.

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.

This past Wednesday marks the third week Sammy and I have been going the BJCP study group held at the More Beer! store in Los Altos headed up by BJCP Grand Master John Watson. I managed to convince Sammy to join me this time around although it didn’t take much convincing on her part. She has always expressed an interest in learning more about beer and this class presented the perfect opportunity for her to do so. I just need a reason to study so I can retake the test and hopefully move up a rank.

For those who don’t know, the BJCP is an amateur organization of people who undergo a strict testing and evaluation process in order to judge beer. Mainly on a homebrew level although the professional level is not uncommon. BJCP stands for Beer Judge Certification Program and it’s core beliefs can be summed up in these three points:

1. Promote Beer Literacy
2. Promote the appreciation of real beer
3. Recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills

It was about this time last year that I took the BJCP class the first time. Other than the similar timeframe and the material being covered, there is almost nothing similar between the two classes. The group we have now is much larger than last time around. I attribute this to the ever increasing world of craft beers and the people who are discovering them. This group also is a little more “chatty” in that they are more free and willing to offer their opinions on beer than the last class I was in. It helps that there are multiple BJCP judges in the class to begin with as well as the majority of people are homebrewers.

Another thing that is different is that inbetween beers, we spend time reading outloud the BJCP specifications for the next style of beer we will be judging. The first time through, there was a lot of dead time between beers and if you wanted to read up on the next style, it was all on you. It’s very helpful that everyone is into sharing and reading outloud and that the other homebrewers interject anecdotal stories here and there to support whatever style we’re on. Sammy seems to learn more from the anecdotal stuff than from the actual study guide.

Unlike last time, I will not be doing a complete write up of all the beers we tasted. Instead, I’ll just give a brief list of the styles we covered and what I took away from it. This post is more catch-up as 3 sessions have already gone by.

If you are interested in reading about what beers we tried specifically for each style, leave a comment or shoot me and email and I will go back and amend this post to show what we drank for each style, in case you wanted to play along at home. : )

Week 1:

This, by far, is the worst session of all the sessions. We covered the American Lite Lager, Standard Lager, Premium Lager, and Munich Helles before switching gears a little and then tasting examples of a German Pilsner and Bohemian Pilsner.

While the European Pilsners were very good, I spent a good chunk just trying to get through this first day. The American Lager family is not my favorite group of beer styles. I find them to be shadows of their European counterparts and “subtly” flavored.

On the plus side, I am now more familiar with how pils malt tastes like. I just don’t drink enoug Pilsners to really familiarize myself but it’s all starting to click together now.

Week 2:

Finally, more flavorful beers. This week we covered the following beer styles: Vienna Lagers, Oktoberfest, Dark American Lagers, Munich Dunkel, Schwartzbier, Maibock/Helles Bock, Traditional Bock, Doppelbock and Eisbock. That’s alot of beers to have to taste and scrutinize. In case I haven’t told you before, having to judge a beer takes a lot of the joy away from enjoying a beer. You tend to over analyze things and it take a mental toll on you as well.

Despite all that, I walked out of class today with a greater understanding of what Vienna and Munich malt tastes like as well as the nuances between the styles. In the case of the Schrwartzbier, I rediscovered this style and it would seem the way I though about this beer was incorrect. I used to think a Schwartzbier was a lager version of either the porter or stout when in fact, it’s much more delicate and subtly complex than either two.

Week 3:

Last night the group was able to delve into a set of beers many in the class was highly anticipating: the pale ales. We covered the following beer styles: Standard/Ordinary Bitter, Special/Best/Premium Bitter, Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale), American Pale Ale, American Amber Ale, English IPA, American IPA and finally, Imperial IPA. As you can imagine, we went through a lot of beers.

What was most interesting about this week’s class was that we had some homebrewed beers to try as well as commercial versions. As much as I enjoy drinking commercial versions, the true value of the class doesn’t appear until we begin to sample and judge homebrewed beers. Unless they’ve been stored in the most horrible of conditions, commercial examples tend to be in good shape and finding any flaws becomes difficult. You can nitpick them to death but sometimes, you’re just never sure as any flaws have been minimized greatly.

Having homebrew examples on the other hand, opens up into a completely different world of tasting. Because many homebrewers do not have professional equipment the flaws in their beers, if any, are more noticeable and soon the group is all on the same page. All of a sudden, we all know what “oxidized” tastes like. That’s a cool feeling when you look around the room and the proverbial “lightbulb” is lit above all of our heads.

Specifically talking about myself, I realize that I do not drink enough English beers to really call myself an expert on the subject matter, let alone knowledgeable. It’s one thing for me to read about the style characteristics and quite another to recognize them on my tongue or in my nose. American Pale ales and IPA I’m good with but I still have a lot of work to put in to understand English ales (German lagers, Scottish and Irish ales by extension).