A BoS of a Time

Most of the time, judging homebrew is a tiring crapshoot. Usually, you wind up with a mixed bag of bad beers, great beers, meh beers, cramped handwriting and small glasses. Let’s not even talk about those monotonous flights of Cream Ales some poor pair of judges suffers through. How many times can you write “smells of corn, light hops”? The judging sweet spot lies in the mythical “Best of Show” round.

Most judges get to try their hand at a mini-“Best of Show.” These panels confuse entrants who see their high-scoring beer placed below lower-scoring beers. To keep palates fresh, multiple judging teams must tackle styles larger than 12 entries. To even out judges’ different scoring attitudes, the table’s senior judges take each team’s best entries, quickly reevaluate them and determine first, second and third, regardless of initial score. At first, the process looks wonky, but it evens out discrepancies between stringent and generous judges.

After the judges complete the final style, the real fun begins. The organizers scramble, gathering up the remaining bottles of the first-place finishers. They secure these bottles before unleashing the stewarding hordes to swoop in on the losing entries. The mob scene proves stewarding has its advantages.

Faced with a daunting yet insanely fun task, four or five experienced judges and brewers grab chairs and enough glasses to run a tavern for a night. As if by the magical incantation of “Allakhazam,” each class winner (20 or more, usually) pops up in front of the “esteemed” team. Every glass gets a label (it’s hard to keep track after a boisterous tasting) and a healthy dollop of beer.

With beers flying quickly, the judges have scant moments to sniff, swirl, swallow and form an opinion. All fancy language goes into the dump bucket replaced by the judging equivalent of monosyllabic utterances: “Good malt”; “Strange smell”; “Too old?” or my favorite, “Ugh, no.” Dispensing with language all together, judges use self-developed system of checks, minuses, stars, and up and down arrows to mark if they like the beer. In short, they use whatever they can to remember their way through the beer-studded field.

Now comes the insane part. Not unlike the brutally quick decision-making exhibited by judges at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, the order now is to winnow the field. Entries get excised quickly as each judge offers up a beer they liked less. They disappear from the competition with gruesome, Stalin-esque efficiency.

Slowly but surely, the numbers dwindle until a handful remains. Usually, panels eliminate nearly the whole field in 15 minutes of discussion. Along the way, every judge sacrifices beers they like but know won’t win. But when it comes down to those last few, tactics change. Gone is the verbal mincing; the inevitable sipping, smelling and pondering increases. The discussion turns serious, new samples poured and a vote commences. After each judge ranks the survivors, they add the numbers looking to see clear patterns of like/dislike. If all goes according to plan, a winner is crowned. If not, stand back—this could take a while.

When I judged the BoS for the LA County Fair this year, it was smooth as glass until we got to the last three entries. One entry was clearly third place, but the remaining two had the judges divided. Twenty minutes of teasing apart every detail; three votes, countless tastes and finally assigning and averaging a full BJCP 50-point score for each entry decided it. Final tally: 163 points (40.75 average) to 161 (40.25). William Frost’s Barleywine by two points! If it gets any closer than that, I don’t want to know.

WT FROST’S LA COUNTY FAIR BEST OF SHOW BARLEYWINE
For 5.0 gallons at 1.096, 143 IBU, 13.5 SRM (75-percent efficiency, 90-minute boil)

Malt / Grain
16.0 lb. domestic two-row malt
1.0 lb. Caramunich
1.0 lb. Caravienne

Hops
2.0 oz. Magnum (Pellets) | 60 minutes
2.0 oz. Columbus (Pellets) | 10 minutes

Yeast
Safale S-04 (Ferment at 73F)
Champagne Yeast (added 10 days) ■