Proctor
Yesterday, I proctored a BJCP exam down in Nashua.
That involved judging the same beers the examinees judged during their test, but using a judging form with a vastly expanded amount of writing real estate, so that the exam graders can have a baseline against which to assess the judging sheets provided by the examinees. That means that the commentary has to note every little bit of detail in the beer: aroma, flavor, appearance, mouthfeel, finish, EVERYTHING. You wind up picking apart the style guidelines piece by piece and comparing the beer almost line for line. sip for sip with the guidelines.
I think the result is a more comprehensively judged beer — it helps that there’s no need to focus on possible reasons for flaws, just needed to note the flaws — and a more rewarding judging experience. Especially when compared to the newer, box-oriented, writing-de-emphasized score sheets we used in the Longshot competition in June.
Good group of people, a crew of National types (3 of us), and we turned out to be almost entirely dialled-in on scoring for 3 out of the 4. For the last beer, 2 ofus gave it a 35, the other guy a 23. Whoa. More on that below, though.
Beers judged, with scores; then what they actually were.
- Bohemian Pilsner :: 37 :: Fresh Pilsner Urquell
- Belgian Dubbel :: 30 :: Homebrew entered as a Belgian Pale Ale a few weeks previously at another contest; it scored a 21 as a BPA.
- Oktoberfest :: 40 :: Dos Equis Amber
- American IPA :: 35 :: 4-year-old homebrewed IPA blended 5:1 with Smuttynose IPA. This is the one with the discrepancy.
No need to reconcile scores as a proctor, you just need to provide a comprehensive description, so that one is sure to have some variant responses by the examinees.
Fun time, and I hope to do it again, and even get more involved in the examination process (although I highly doubt I’ll ever screw around with taking it again!).
