Australian Amateur Brewing Championship

[BrenosBrews]

Again a well organised and well run comp, congrads to all the organisers, stewards and judges
Of course its easy to say.."Hey I came first at State but last at AABC", even leaving the subjective nature of judging aside, remember you were up against pre-qualified beers, they were judged as worthy, be happy.
K

Interesting side note to this; both Craig Webber & Brendan O'Sullivan, champion brewer & runner up respectivly, also got last place in other categories. Both amazing brewers but goes to show the quality your up against. I judged Farmhouse & Wild and Brendan's Berliner Weiss was truly fantastic. I think it was 2nd for peoples choice at club night too.

 

[Brewtus]

As not many on the forum know my name and I don't post so much these days, I will put my hand up as winner of Cat 4 Amber and Dark lager.

I did not go to the comp but I will take Dr Ks word for it and congratulate all the judges, stewards and organizers for a well run event. After Stagger's effort last year running the comp in Canberra, it is good to see him as Brewer of the Year 2010.

Well done to all the other winners, place getters and everyone who entered should be proud.

For the record, I rehydrated my yeast for this one.

 

[brendo]

As not many on the forum know my name and I don't post so much these days, I will put my hand up as winner of Cat 4 Amber and Dark lager.

I did not go to the comp but I will take Dr Ks word for it and congratulate all the judges, stewards and organizers for a well run event. After Stagger's effort last year running the comp in Canberra, it is good to see him as Brewer of the Year 2010.

Well done to all the other winners, place getters and everyone who entered should be proud.

For the record, I rehydrated my yeast for this one.

Well done mate - I judged that Cat... top work!!

 

[DanRayner]

OK, so what happened to SA, bottom of the pile.
Looks like only about 2/3 of our qualified brewers entered beers.
Well, look out next year we have some work to do to take the trophies on our own dung heap! :beerbang:

Well done to all that did well and to all that qualified to enter.

Cheers
Nige

Ok, I can't help it, I was not going to post this but when I saw Nige's post I thought this might encourage SA (plus it's quite hilarious to boot!). This was posted on CBC's forum from one of our more nerdy members:

For the record, Champion State scores normalised by state population (points per million inhabitants):

winner: act 103.4
2nd: sa 6.09
3rd: wa 5.25
4th: vic 3.62
5th: qld 3.33
6th: nsw 1.94

So don't feel bad Nige, SA actually came 2nd (per capita)!!

Gold

 

[jayse]

Interesting, does lessen the blow for us but goes to make act look even better again.

 

[DanRayner]

Interesting, does lessen the blow for us but goes to make act look even better again.

Why I wasn't going to post it - it is a bit silly

 

[Brewtus]

Well done mate - I judged that Cat... top work!!

Thank you.

 

[dr K]

Why I wasn't going to post it - it is a bit silly

Silly..its ridiculous, a quick calculation to adjust the skew shows that taking the half life of Ibanarium 136 into account along with a fair guess at the male/female ratio in Australia at the last census and published information regarding preferred or trusted media then ACT is pretty much line ball with Qld.

K

 

[Brewtus]

If only we could get brewing into the Commonwealth Games. We could have far more silly stats on how damn clever we all are.

 

[brendanos]

Interesting side note to this; both Craig Webber & Brendan O'Sullivan, champion brewer & runner up respectivly, also got last place in other categories. Both amazing brewers but goes to show the quality your up against. I judged Farmhouse & Wild and Brendan's Berliner Weiss was truly fantastic. I think it was 2nd for peoples choice at club night too.

They were different batches - 3 & 6 I think? It's equally as humbling to come last as it is to come first. Both are important messages! I hope the judges were just calling me out on entering an imperial oak aged coffee chocolate porter as a RIS & didn't just find it horrible I tried a brilliant french oaked strong lager and & choc expresso oatmeal stout.

Will PM about the Brett APA!

 

[Stagger]

They were different batches - 3 & 6 I think? It's equally as humbling to come last as it is to come first. Both are important messages! I hope the judges were just calling me out on entering an imperial oak aged coffee chocolate porter as a RIS & didn't just find it horrible I tried a brilliant french oaked strong lager and & choc expresso oatmeal stout.

Will PM about the Brett APA!

My two last place beer were entered in the wrong style, funny how a Double shot espresso stout tastes nothing like a fruit beer. As Forest said in the movie SHIT HAPPENS

 

[DanRayner]

My two last place beer were entered in the wrong style, funny how a Double shot espresso stout tastes nothing like a fruit beer. As Forest said in the movie SHIT HAPPENS

I love the dichotomy of low/high-scoring beers in comps. My ESB (was entered incorrectly and it) scored abysmally - still, I honestly thought it was a pretty average beer in the first place. And in the ACTABC I got the highest-scoring beer for my RIS@136pts and the lowest in the comp with an-over-the-top-diacetyl irish red ale scoring 58pts!

Love it

 

[brendanos]

My two last place beer were entered in the wrong style, funny how a Double shot espresso stout tastes nothing like a fruit beer. As Forest said in the movie SHIT HAPPENS

That was a particularly challenging (confusing?) first beer of the flight! Enjoyable nonetheless.

 

[bradsbrew]

I'm waiting for my scoresheets to come back to find out why a specialty beer that picked up a silver and a score of 43 from a professional brewer at state level scores a total of 65 at nationals? :huh:

Cheers

 

[Stuster]

I hope the judges were just calling me out on entering an imperial oak aged coffee chocolate porter as a RIS & didn't just find it horrible

I'm pretty sure I know which beer was yours, and it was just a style issue. Really nice beer. :chug:

Let me know if you, or anybody else in the strong stouts, wants an explanation of my notes after you get your sheets back. The writing might be clear but I'm not sure my brain was by the end of that flight. :icon_drunk:

 

[manticle]

Just a curiosity but if something is totally out of style but not horrible or infected, do the judges in most comps generally question if there's been a style/pouring/labelling mix-up or just accept as is?

I can understand trying to work it out could be problematic but I've heard about it happening a few times. Only entered one comp myself but interested in trying more and possibly helping steward a couple.

 

[brendo]

I'm waiting for my scoresheets to come back to find out why a specialty beer that picked up a silver and a score of 43 from a professional brewer at state level scores a total of 65 at nationals? :huh:

Cheers

Shit happens... however you should look forward to your sheets - Randy Mosher judged that Cat and I am sure there will be some great insights...

 

[Stuster]

Just a curiosity but if something is totally out of style but not horrible or infected, do the judges in most comps generally question if there's been a style/pouring/labelling mix-up or just accept as is?

I can understand trying to work it out could be problematic but I've heard about it happening a few times. Only entered one comp myself but interested in trying more and possibly helping steward a couple.

If seems like a completely different style (say if you get a blonde ale in a stout category) then the judges would ask the stewards to check with the organiser/chief steward to make sure there hasn't been a mix-up with the bottles or anything like that. This happened in the recent NSW comp and I checked the bottle, the numbers in my spreadsheet and the number on the bottle. All checked out and the bottle had been labelled as that style by the entrant, so in that case the judges just carried on with feedback suggesting it was out of style.

With beers that are not so obvious, you may only really decide that the beer is not in style after going through the process. In that case, you may want to check, but mostly it's just giving feedback to the entrant on how you think the beer is not like the guidelines for that style. This is one where a discussion between the judges at the end can be very useful and hopefully help to give good feedback to the entrant. Of course, it is pretty easy as an entrant to put the wrong label on the wrong beer. I've certainly come close to entering beers like that before and it was only because I spotted the cap labels at the last minute and swapped the labels that I didn't.

 

[HoppingMad]

Just a curiosity but if something is totally out of style but not horrible or infected, do the judges in most comps generally question if there's been a style/pouring/labelling mix-up or just accept as is?

I can understand trying to work it out could be problematic but I've heard about it happening a few times. Only entered one comp myself but interested in trying more and possibly helping steward a couple.

A related question was asked of Gordon Strong at the conference last weekend, (Gordon is the president of BJCP from the US). The question put to Gordon was along the lines of "If you had a beer in a category you're judging that does not fit the style properly (being out on the fringes), but is a well brewed beer without flaws, how do you mark it and does it fail outright for not being in style?"

Gordon replied that as a general rule a beer not brewed to style would never receive 40 points or higher from a judge, nor would it fail. If the beer was good and without flaws then often beers not fitting styles can still receive around 30 points, as the judging process is there to encourage good beer all the same.

Doesn't answer the question regarding remedying mix-ups but gives you an insight into how the marking is done if the beer stays in the wrong category.

Hopper.

 

[Brewtus]

Well done mate - I judged that Cat... top work!!

I looked at the results and assume it was you that won Cat 5. Well done!