On Beer Judging

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I had the opportunity to steward at Chicago Beer Society's 20th annual Spooky Brew beer competition this past weekend and had a great time.  There were so many good entries and I was fortunate enough to get to sample many of them.  The winner was Ray Gonzalez who made a wonderful, slightly fruity kolsch that beat out two-time Samuel Adams Longshot winner Rodney Kibzey's Blackened Hops - which scores a respectable 95th percentile on RateBeer.  

But Black IPAs aren't a style category in BJCP competitions.  They must be entered in the infamous catch-all Category 23, "Specialty Beer".  During our lunch break I got a chance to sit down with some national ranked judges and talk to them about what makes a good beer.  Their response was that, in beer judging at least,  a good beer isn't one that tastes the best, but one that meets the specific guidelines the best.  Yes, that seems obvious, but it's a shame.  So many great beers don't get the recognition they deserve because they don't fit exactly what the style guidelines say.  

I'm not saying that style guidelines are totally useless and judging should be a free-for-all.  That gets you into other troubles (Exhibit A: 11 of RateBeer's top 15 beers are barley-wines or imperial stouts).  A better approach, as is the case in most situations where there are two less than perfect choices, is compromise (Exhibit B: The Great Compromise).  Let there be room in the judging process for stylistic interpretation and innovation.  Let's say I brew a Northern German Altbier, as it stands right now I will lose points if it tastes stronger than 5.2%ABV.  But perhaps that is exactly what makes the beer work with the rest of the recipe.  It's still a Northern German Altbier, just stronger.  Of course care must be taken and anything too far out would still have to be reflected in the score, but such a rigid system is unnecessary.  In the end, great beers will win and sub-par beers will not, but when it comes down to which great beer gets to go to the best of show round, a nod to the creativity and innovative capacity of the brewer would create a much more interesting competition.