Took the the BJCP tasting exam yesterday and think I was set up. One of the beers was a "KristallWeissebier", except it was presented as a "Weissebier" (15A) http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/Kristallweizen.html Now, I realize I should have known what it was...it was mentioned in the BJCP guidelines, but it seems fairly rare and does not seem to represent 99% of the style/sub-catagory. Besides the appearance, clove phenolics seemed to dominate with little or no banana and with a very thin body. This particular beer from Weihenstephaner is considered outstanding/world class by most. Am I fucked? I gave it a 29 , but think I pretty much nailed the other 5 beers.
Eh, Ive had the bottled weihenstephan kristallweizen and thought it was terrible, on tap was a different story out of curiosity what were the other 4?
I've had weihenstephan kristallweizen and thought it was ok but not the best of the style I've had. Not that there are a lot of examples of it available tho. Sounds like you probably passed anyway.
(5) 1 was a homebrew Bopils that tasted somewhere between a Vienna Lager and a Bopils 2 was The weihenstephaner kristallweizen 3 was a homebrew ESB that was probably closer to a special bitter 4 was an infected (purposely soured) dry stout 5 was an American IPA with lots of aroma, but little flavor 6 was a Belgian Dark Strong ale that was contract brewed by Unibroue (Trader Joes)
If you really nailed 5/6 beers, you should be fine. Krystalweiss is a somewhat unusual choice for an exam beer, but within the guidelines. The "big picture" is important, and one outlier shouldn't make the difference between pass and fail. Cheers, Mike (BJCP Exam Director)
A beer is judged according to the style that is stated. Judges are not permitted to make corrections or assumptions. You had no way to know that this wasn't simply a poorly executed Weissebier. This may have been a trick question, in which case, you probably nailed it! Generally, an obvious miscategorization is brought to the attention of the organizers, just to be sure that it wasn't an error in sorting (it happens). If it turns out the brewer, indeed, entered his RIS as a light lager, it will score poorly, even if it's the best RIS on the planet (most judges will note that in the 'overall impressions' section).
At least one of the beers in the tasting exam is deliberately out of style, e.g. I was given a 'bock' that was double bock strength and had hot alcohol. I did okay, not nailing, 3 of 4 beers in the old tasting exam and passed pretty easily, though I came down with the worst cold of my life 2 days later, so my nose was probably pretty impaired for the exam.
I think you did fine. if you reviewed the beer using good descriptors, giving specifics and intensities, if you reviewed the beer fully, and you offered good feedback on how to bring it into style based on what you encountered, then you can get up to 60% without regard to what the proctors thought. Ya can get almost half of the scoring accuracy score even if you're way off on all beers, so there's another 9%. And it sounds like your Perception skills are pretty good. ...I don't think I'd have given you that beer. There are multiple styles where there is a variation that doesn't fit the style that is mentioned, but I can't think of another where the tone seems to be that the variation is in-style, without any classic examples given. I mean, what feedback are you supposed to give? - "don't filter it next time; the suspended yeast will improve the perceived body too"
