Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Past, present, and upcoming competitions, as well as award winners!
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jacinthebox
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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by jacinthebox » Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:38 pm

Yeah...hard to make adjustments when comments/scores swing from each judge. Seems to be more subjective based on the judge's taste/likes rather than against a style guideline. The use of the term Oxidized seems to be a favorite...could it just be the flavor of hops or do we all have issues with D.O. in our beers?
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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by BBrianBoogie » Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:44 pm

The saison I won silver with last year had "oxidized colour". It was made with red wheat, hence the hue, and had been in bottle for 3 weeks.

The point about not judging to style is an important one. Judging is not the same thing as sitting around drinking with your friends.

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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by Brewnoser » Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:52 pm

I’ve seen some judge sheets. Any BJCP judge who was at the tables these were filled out would be up for disciplinary action.

I think I will ask them to refrain from using the BJCP Sheets as this is everything that is wrong about assessment and judging of beer. Anonymous hackers that demonstrate a lack of beer knowledge and flavour and aroma perception and description making uninformed comment when someone paid good money for it.

I bet Gahan would be among the first to complain if they didn’t like judge comment on their beer.
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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by chalmers » Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:23 pm

I offered my services as a judge and/or guidance in how to run it. They did respond positively, and let me know they understood last year’s sheets were abysmal and would do better.
They then let me know the judging would be on a Wednesday, which was a no-go from me (esp because I was working in Montreal that day). Said they would reach out to other folks in the hopes of improving it overall, doesn’t sound like that happened.
Anyone feel like DMing me the judge’s names so I can reach out? Or did they not put them on the sheets? How many judges drank each beer? Wondering if every judge drank every beer? Sigh...

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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by ConanTroutman » Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:43 pm

chalmers wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:23 pm
I offered my services as a judge and/or guidance in how to run it. They did respond positively, and let me know they understood last year’s sheets were abysmal and would do better.
They then let me know the judging would be on a Wednesday, which was a no-go from me (esp because I was working in Montreal that day). Said they would reach out to other folks in the hopes of improving it overall, doesn’t sound like that happened.
Anyone feel like DMing me the judge’s names so I can reach out? Or did they not put them on the sheets? How many judges drank each beer? Wondering if every judge drank every beer? Sigh...
No names on mine, 12 sheets in total.

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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by Woody » Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:08 pm

I remained silent last year for obvious reasons but always agreed with the comments on here. Scoring was deplorable. My Dunkel that won last year had a big difference in score. I felt guilty speaking out as the brewing experience with Gahan and Team was very positive for me. When I read a score sheet by any BJCP certified judge whether I agree or not you can tell effort by the notes and feedback. I try to look at them so I can learn something as we all do. The mark has been missed in this comp 2 years in a row and missed hard. I couldn't have scored worst if I tried.

I entered my 3 entries into Brew Slam this year along with another 3 and can't wait for the score sheets. Also a recipe I brewed for the 2015 Brewnoser advent my imperial stout called Grain Reaper was entered for my stout entry. "Brewnoser" aka Jeff himself scored it a 41 and the only difference this year was using 1318 yeast which can be driven higher in fermentation temp. Some comments on it included "so much head , very boozey but ok, thin head, fusel, missing malt character. Scores were 16.5 to 30. I personally can't wait for my brew slam sheets. And even though I use vacuum sealed or nitro flushed hops in a closed transfer environment my IPA's are oxidized. I purge the vessel and lines. Mini rant over and is anyone available for a beer?? I'm stressed out ha ha ha. I'll just say I appreciate our BJCP judges on here. You all have a tough job but you have my respect and this comp makes me appreciate you all that much more.

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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by Naboo » Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:31 pm

chalmers wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:23 pm
Anyone feel like DMing me the judge’s names so I can reach out? Or did they not put them on the sheets? How many judges drank each beer? Wondering if every judge drank every beer? Sigh...
No judges names on the sheets but I had 6 returned for one beer and 7 for the other. It does appear all judges sampled every beer and my understanding is they were all judged on the same day. There was an instagram post Gahan put out saying the judges were professional brewers from the island. If the beer I drank in PEI that weekend was anything to go by it shouldn't surprise me they don't know how to judge to style.
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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by BBrianBoogie » Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:52 pm

No names on any either. Except mine, and the name of the beer, in the same handwriting as the judge on every sheet. I think it should go without saying that beers should be judged blind.

There's so many inconsistencies to the sheets.
If there's enough DMS on a 2 year old sour beer to rate it 2/12 on aroma, and 2/10 on overall impression, it's suspicious that 5 other judges made no mention of it. There are many more examples of these types of things throughout the sheets.

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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by ConanTroutman » Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:58 pm

BBrianBoogie wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:52 pm
No names on any either. Except mine, and the name of the beer, in the same handwriting as the judge on every sheet. I think it should go without saying that beers should be judged blind.

There's so many inconsistencies to the sheets.
If there's enough DMS on a 2 year old sour beer to rate it 2/12 on aroma, and 2/10 on overall impression, it's suspicious that 5 other judges made no mention of it. There are many more examples of these types of things throughout the sheets.
I had a 1.5 year old sour with diacetyl listed 🤔

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Woody
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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by Woody » Thu Nov 14, 2019 4:13 pm

LiverDance wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:20 pm
This is why I didn't enter this contest. Until they take the judging as serious as we take making our beer then i'm out. It's really embarrassing for them and disappointing for those who entered. I doubt anyone will find anything that will help them become a better brewer from the comments which is mostly what we all seek when entering these contests.
Well said Brian. I never thought about it that way. I kept looking at the cash prizes. :cheers:

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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by GCR » Thu Nov 14, 2019 4:36 pm

I was enticed by the cash prizes - I didnt brew specifically for the comp, but I had a recent beer alteady brewed that qualified, so I figured why not?

I read a few posts on here before I decided that were critical of the judging in previous years, so my expectations were pretty low in terms of getting detailed feedback - and I dont believe I saw anywhere that it was marketed as a BJCP-sanctioned event.



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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by GAM » Thu Nov 14, 2019 6:27 pm

Woody wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:08 pm
. I purge the vessel and lines. Mini rant over and is anyone available for a beer??
Yep. The advent exchange (I think your in). Bring a "sub-standard beer" and you will be judged.

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Woody
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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by Woody » Thu Nov 14, 2019 8:56 pm

Yep. The advent exchange (I think your in). Bring a "sub-standard beer" and you will be judged.

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Cheers Sandman! Maybe another year. X)

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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by Hopaddict » Fri Nov 15, 2019 12:18 am

chalmers wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:23 pm
How many judges drank each beer? Wondering if every judge drank every beer?
Naboo wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:31 pm
It does appear all judges sampled every beer and my understanding is they were all judged on the same day.
I was at the event at the Gahan house on Saturday and asked some questions about how things were judged. They did each category of beer on a separate day, so they did all the judging over three days. Based on the sheets I got back, I don't believe each judge tried every beer, but I'm not sure how it was done. I had multiple entries, and each received a different number of sheets for feedback. The number of sheets varied from 3 - 11.

I entered last year and while the feedback wasn't great this year, I do I think it was better then last year 🤷‍♂️, so hopefully they continue to improve. It would be really great if they took you up on your offer to help out next year chalmers. I think they want to run a good competition, and are learning each year as they go. Everyone here probably brewed a couple batches that were rough around the edges when they were getting started :lol:

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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by chalmers » Sat Nov 16, 2019 1:09 am

Thanks for the info, guys. I don’t know if it will help for me to reach out to them again, but I would encourage those of you who entered to do so, if enough folks let them know that the scoresheets are pretty much useless and encourage them to read the BJCP or BA competition guidelines.

I hope it goes without saying that I definitely don’t feel I need to be part of a comp for it to be successful, it really just takes one person who is passionate and detail oriented to pull it off. We’ve had a few other comps in the region that have gone great, that I had nothing to do with. 60 entries, that could be done in 1 day by 12 judges. Fewer entries per judge, which does mean fewer scoresheets per beer, but more useful feedback and better score agreement (making more sense of the numbers).
And the fact that it wasn’t a blind tasting is troubling. Sigh.

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Re: Maritime Home Brew Challenge

Post by oceanic_brew » Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:41 am

Wow, I had to check multiple times to make sure I wasn’t reading last years posts.

It’s sad to think that perhaps someone that’s not connected on here, and who may have entered their first competition, might assume this is the norm.


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