newguy
To err is human, to arrr is pirate
- Joined
- 8/11/06
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I just want to add something regarding the publishing of scores. I'm a National BJCP judge and have judged in more comps than I can remember.
Sometimes a category gets so many entries it isn't feasible for one panel of judges to evaluate them all. For instance, my club's last two comps had >30 entries in the American Pale Ale category alone. It had to be split so that the APAs, American Ambers, and American Browns all had to be judged separately, but simultaneously. When all judges had finished judging their individual subcategory, they all got together with their table's top beers to decide an overall 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
It's possible that one set of judges are very generous with scores and it's also likewise possible that another set is rather stingy with their scores. Imagine a situation where all judges unanimously agree that beer X is the winner, followed by Y, and Z is the overall 3rd place beer. It's entirely possible that Z had the highest score if it was originally judged by the generous judges. In cases like this, publishing the scores would only lead to some very confused people and likely some very hot tempers.
I know you're probably thinking "don't they rescore the beers to give the 1st place the highest score?" No. Why? It's not a matter of rescoring only the top 3 beers - you'd actually have to alter the scores of all beers, from all judges. Why? Again, after rescoring the top 3, it's possible that beers that didn't place actually scored higher than the top 3. Another reason they're not rescored is that after judging 10+ beers and having a mini-BOS round to determine the overall top 3, you're damn tired. All you want to do is finish and either go home, eat, or move on to the next round. Not publishing scores helps to "protect" your judges from the tiresome job of ensuring consistent scores amongst judges with widely varying experience, preferences, and backgrounds.
Edit: As others have said, enter your beer into multiple competitions and look for trends in the comments/evaluations. Scores are rather irrelevant (but I admit that high scores are nice).
My $.02, such as it is.
Sometimes a category gets so many entries it isn't feasible for one panel of judges to evaluate them all. For instance, my club's last two comps had >30 entries in the American Pale Ale category alone. It had to be split so that the APAs, American Ambers, and American Browns all had to be judged separately, but simultaneously. When all judges had finished judging their individual subcategory, they all got together with their table's top beers to decide an overall 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
It's possible that one set of judges are very generous with scores and it's also likewise possible that another set is rather stingy with their scores. Imagine a situation where all judges unanimously agree that beer X is the winner, followed by Y, and Z is the overall 3rd place beer. It's entirely possible that Z had the highest score if it was originally judged by the generous judges. In cases like this, publishing the scores would only lead to some very confused people and likely some very hot tempers.
I know you're probably thinking "don't they rescore the beers to give the 1st place the highest score?" No. Why? It's not a matter of rescoring only the top 3 beers - you'd actually have to alter the scores of all beers, from all judges. Why? Again, after rescoring the top 3, it's possible that beers that didn't place actually scored higher than the top 3. Another reason they're not rescored is that after judging 10+ beers and having a mini-BOS round to determine the overall top 3, you're damn tired. All you want to do is finish and either go home, eat, or move on to the next round. Not publishing scores helps to "protect" your judges from the tiresome job of ensuring consistent scores amongst judges with widely varying experience, preferences, and backgrounds.
Edit: As others have said, enter your beer into multiple competitions and look for trends in the comments/evaluations. Scores are rather irrelevant (but I admit that high scores are nice).
My $.02, such as it is.
