Judging Beer

It was in the shadow of George Ferris’s massive wheel at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, that one of the earliest beer-judging disputes brewed. More than 20 brewers vied for the top prize, with Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser and an offering from the Pabst Brewing Company splitting several awards. The competition ended in controversy, with the Pabst beer narrowly besting Budweiser. Fast forward a century, and Pabst Blue Ribbon is still milking that slender victory.

With countless accolades slapped on the sides of six-packs, consumers are wise to learn about a competition’s methods before they plunk down money for an “award-winning” beer.

Beer, by its very nature, is an inherently subjective commodity, and quality can’t be determined by simply hooking up a pint to a machine. To bring order to the chaotic world of judging beer, there are two main approaches: let everyone pick their favorite, or establish some ground rules. Because the fickle results of popularity contests change frequently and provide drinkers with little concrete information, the structured competitions tend to be the more respected.

Style guidelines distinguish meaningful competitions from your local county fair by removing a large degree of the subjectivity from the evaluation of beer. Two of the most highly regarded competitions are the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup, both run by the Brewers Association. These events deserve respect for the sheer number of entries (2,400 for the GABF, 2,200 for the WBC) and the use of strict style guidelines by professional judges in a blind process. The Brewers Association’s 2007 guidelines recognize a mind-blowing 125 different styles, with painstaking descriptions of each category of beer. The downside for non-conformist brewers in these competitions is that style selection is critical. Enter your beer in the wrong category and an otherwise flawless beer may come home empty-handed.

But even when judges follow style guidelines, consumers can’t blindly rely on the results. For example, The Great International Beer Festival, held annually in Rhode Island, oddly promotes itself as America’s largest international beer festival, although it judged only 14 imported entries from 6 countries last year. While the competition might otherwise be strong, it’s hardly a cage match between the world’s greatest beers.

Consumers also need to be discerning about contests sponsored by private organizations. Of these events, perhaps the best known is the World Beer Championship run by the Beverage Testing Institute in Chicago. BTI’s medal-based competition is run a bit differently from other events, with less weight placed on adherence to style and more on a brewer’s creativity within a certain category. In a laudable twist, the institute’s respectable panel of judges tastes products throughout the year instead of packing all of the judging into less than a week of sessions.

The way an organization awards medals can also be a telling aspect of how consumers should value the honor when choosing a beer. The BTI contest employs the familiar 100-point scale to score beers and awards platinum (96-100), gold (90-95), silver (86-89) and bronze medals (80-84). Beers that fall below 80 points receive a “not recommended” finding. Of the 1,650 beers in BTI’s database, only 53 have been rated below 80 points and would fail to snag at least a bronze medal. The BTI event reminds me a little of a correspondence school, where you mail a check for 50 bucks and they send you back a medical degree.

No competition is perfect though. In past years, both the GABF and the WBC have given out medals in categories with as few as 3 or 5 entries, in contrast to the vast majority of categories which have more than 20 competitors. In such cases, winning a bronze medal in a contest of only three brands is not as impressive as the title may imply.

Keep in mind a medal doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll like the beer, and many great beers never win anything; but with a little exploration, you may discover that some medal winners you’ve never tried rightly deserve their accolades. When faced with a beer boasting its accomplishments, remember to first check the age and whereabouts of the win. Was it a county fair in 1989 or the WBC in 2006? Has the beer won GABF medals twice in recent years? Repeat GABF winners in craft-beer styles are usually sure-fire good choices. Things certainly have come a long way from the sordid days of the blue-ribbon controversy, but consumers can (and should) do their part to keep breweries from boasting about 100-year-old victories. ■