BJCP: "It's Tough But Fair"

I passed the BJCP Tasting Exam last August and have been slowly immersing myself in the process of evaluating beer objectively.  When people unfamiliar with craft beer talk to you about being a beer judge, the reactions are pretty typical of what you might expect.  People think you get paid to drink beer or that judging is an excuse to over indulge.  The truth is that being a beer judge is actually pretty challenging.  For the uninitiated, I thought I'd share some information about the BJCP, and maybe provide some insight for those of you thinking about judging beers, too.

The Process

The BJCP has gone through some changes recently and the process of becoming a part of the BJCP has been steamlined significantly.  Becoming a judge is a three part process, but continuing education and experience is an essential component.

Entrance Exam

This online assessment consists of 200 questions that have to be answered in one hour (over 3 questions/minute!) and covers the BJCP Style Guidelines and other beer and brewing topics that are essential knowledge for a judge.  I studied for the test for a solid week, spending time each night after work reading through the style guidelines and thinking about/tasting beers in different styles.  I was able to pass the first time, but it was a lot of questions in a short period of time.  Having the style guidelines around as a reference was helpful, but going into the test without any preparation would have been disastrous.

Tasting Exam

After passing the Entrance Exam you're eligible to sit for the Tasting Exam.  The exam involves tasting 6 different beers and evaluating them as you would in a beer competition.  You have 15 minutes to judge each beer, a process that involves the application of sensory skills to the beer and ends with those interpretations being communicated on the judging sheet.  You're told the beer style, just as you would be in a real competition, but everything else is on your own.  Beers can be doctored to make them taste different or can be miscategorized.  You're not allowed any notes or aids during tasting.  Passing scores on the Tasting Exam play a part (along with Experience Points) in determining your BJCP rank.

Experience Points

When you participate in a beer competition as a judge, proctor or organizer you earn experience points which help you advance through the ranks of the BJCP.  This makes sense, as the most capable judges are the most seasoned and practiced.  Here's how the rankings shake out:

Rank	Tasting Exam Score	Experience Points
Apprentice	Less than 60%	N/A
Recognized	60-69%	N/A
Certified	70-79%	5
National	80-89%	20
Master	90% or above	40

There are additional rankings associated with Grand Master and the levels of Grand Master that one obtains with additional experience and service to the BJCP.

Judging table at AFC

So what's it like to judge beer in a competition?  I judged the first round of the San Diego section of the NHC last week.  I also judged the America's Finest City Homebrew Competition earlier in the year.  A month before you get an email from competition organizers asking you to participate and inquiring about your style preferences.  Before the competition date you are told what style you'll be judging.  Everyone meets at a certain place (in this case an Episcopal Church) at a certain time.  There's a bunch of socializing, talking and some homebrew sharing.  Then they serve a meal and go through the procedures related to judging appropriately.  You spend the next hour(s) drinking beer with a partner, writing down individual thoughts and impressions and then discussing your results with that person.  It's a pretty enlightening experience, as you basically bounce your thoughts and opinions off of another person/palate.  Beers that score well are set aside for a mini Best Of Show (BOS).  The most experienced judges in a style category drink and compare all of the selected beers, making a final decision about which is best.  And that's it.  You're hand is cramped from writing.  Your mouth is dry from eating saltines to cleanse your palate between beers, and your knowledge base has been expanded.

One of the best things about beer judging is the chance to meet people who have a similar passion for beer and brewing.  I learned a lot from the judges that I worked with both times and I look forward to judging more.  It's interesting to think about the role of labels and categorization in something like beer that has so many variations and is so dependent on individual taste.  On the one hand, it's impossible to compare beers and learn more about them without guidelines to follow.  On the other hand, many of the most interesting and exciting beers are those that ignore (or explode) the superficial parameters we use to categorize them.  Philosophical concerns aside, it's all part of the process of enhancing one's knowledge and finding new ways to enjoy something that has innumerable variations.  Judging beer properly is challenging.  I suppose that's why the BJCP website features the slogan: "It's Tough But Fair."

There's a wealth of additional information to be found on the BJCP's website.  It's valuable for those interested in being part of the BJCP or for those just interested in learning how to evaluate beer:

http://www.bjcp.org/index.php

The Lurker Chocolate Peanut Butter Coffee Porter

With coffee as the required ingredient for the next homebrew competition, I started doing some research and thinking about the type of beer I wanted to make and how to add the coffee.  I like the taste of coffee when it's not overly bitter, but I rarely drink it because I don't like caffeine.  In the spirit of the competition, I first thought I wanted to brew something without dark malts and really showcase the coffee without the intrusion  of roasted malt flavor.  After trying some different commercial examples (Mikkeller Spontankoppi, Ballast Point Victory At Sea, Kona Pipeline Porter, Haandbryggeriet Coffee Porter among others) I pretty much embraced something that was already intuitively known: darker beers lend themselves better to coffee additions.  In the end, I chose to brew something that incorporated other ingredients I've been wanting to use for a while, in addition to the coffee.

During San Diego Beer Week last November, I had a chance to try Karl Strauss' Peanut Butter Cup Porter and was amazed at how much peanut butter flavor came through in the final product.  They used powdered peanut butter when making it, which keeps undesirable oil out of the beer without compromising the peanut butter flavor.  They also incorporated cocoa nibs into the brew, the rawest and strongest form of chocolate flavoring.  I decided to try the same thing on a homebrew scale, using PB2 and also including cocoa nibs.  The addition of coffee would add another (hopefully desirable) element to an already complexly flavored beer.  All three flavors should make for something pretty ridiculously decadent-more calories than any reasonable person needs to consume at any one time-so I named it The Lurker because it should stay with you for a while, no matter how much Insanity you do.

Karl Strauss' version was a Brown Porter.  I decided to brew a Robust Porter and came up with the following recipe:

The Lurker Chocolate Peanut Butter Coffee Porter

Malts and Grains 9.00 pounds American Pale Malt (2-Row) 60.4% of grist 1.80 pounds Belgian Caravienne Malt 12.1% of grist 1.20 pounds German Melanoidin Malt 8.1% of grist 0.60 pounds American Wheat Malt 4% of grist 1.20 pounds Flaked Oats 8.1% of grist 0.60 pounds American Chocolate Malt 4% of grist 0.10 pounds American Black Patent 0.7% of grist 0.40 pounds German Carafa III De-Husked Malt 2.7% of grist 14.90 pounds Total Grain Weight (Water Amounts) 100% of grist Adjuncts 1.00 pounds Lactose (Milk Sugar) 1.00 pounds PB2 1.00 pounds PB2 - Chocolate Non-Fermentables 4 oz Cacao Nibs 16 oz Cold Pressed Coffee Hops 1.00 ounces Magnum 14.2% Pellets  Type: Bittering and Aroma Use: First Wort 14.2 AAUs 0.75 ounces Fuggle 5.6% Pellets @ 20 minutes  Type: Flavor Use: Boil 4.2 AAUs 1.75 ounces Total Hop Weight 18.4 AAUs Boil Total Boil Time: 60 minutes Yeast Name: Dry English Ale Manufacturer: White Labs Product ID: WLP007 Type: Ale Flocculation: High Attenuation: 75% Temperature Range: 65–70°F Amount: 500 ml

I brewed 7.5 gallons last Wednesday.  I mashed at 152 degrees F for an hour and had a rolling 60 minute boil.  The lactose was added with about 20 minutes left in the boil and should contribute some sweetness and body.  Two gallons were used to make Dregs beers (DREGS #9 and DREGS #10), and the other 5.5 gallons was innoculated with 500 ml of WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast and placed lovingly in the fermentation chamber.  I'll be adding the cocoa nibs and PB2/PB2-Chocolate in secondary in two separate additions, allowing at least a week (maybe more) of contact time for both.  I anticipate a restarting of fermentation with the addition of the PB2.  I'm not sure how many gravity points two pounds of PB2 will contribute, but the final beer should be pretty big.  The original gravity after chilling was 1.058.

As for the coffee, I want it to take a prominent role in the flavor, but not be overly bitter.  I'm going to cold press decaffeinated French Roast coffee (not sure what brand yet) and add sixteen ounces to the bucket at bottling.  I'm hoping that the coffee flavor will shine in the final beer.

Recipe Refinement | Special Competition Ingredient

3 Fountains IPA/Grassmarket IPA Split Batch

10 gallon IPA split batch coming out of the chiller

Recipe refinement is a glaring weakness of mine.  I rarely repeat brew a beer and I'm not exactly sure why.  Maybe it's because I always have an idea for something different and my brewing schedule can't keep up (it's getting harder and harder to find time to brew these days).  Or maybe it's because I usually want to drink something that I can't find anywhere else and the perfect pale ale, porter, IPA stout etc. has already been done beautifully by so many others.  In any case, I admit I don't have a whole lot of reference when it comes to the influence of individual ingredients.  Sure, I've played with hops and different yeasts and grains as well as some unorthodox ingredients, but comparative knowledge eludes me somewhat.  I have the capability of making 10 gallon batches, but it's only happened a few times.  So a few weeks ago I set out to brew an IPA with the influence of yeast in mind.  I had a lot of success making Chad Y's 100% Brett B Baltic Porter and I wanted another clean-fermented Brett beer to drink.  I've also been keeping up with Modern Times progress toward opening locally and have been following the Mad Fermentationist's brewing experiments as a Modern Times consultant.  So, I copied the malt bill for the Modern Times Super 100% Brett IPA test batch and adjusted the hops to my preferences.  I brewed 10 gallons worth of wort and pitched a massive starter of Brett B Trois in one 5 gallon carboy and Edinburgh Ale Yeast in the other.  I have no illusions about breaking new ground, as I know beers like this have been made before with plenty of success, but I am interested to see the difference between the two.  After 8 days of fermentation, the Brett IPA was at 1.012 while the beer inoculated with Edinburgh was at 1.018.  Both of them are being dry hopped aggressively as I write this, and I plan to put both on tap, adding a picnic tap to my kegerator exclusively for sour beers in the process.  3 Fountains 100% Brett IPA pays homage to the origin of Brett B Trois, cultured from Drie Fonteinen.  Grassmarket IPA references the historic grassmarket square in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Homebrew Competition

The longer that I brew the more people I meet and become close to who brew as well.  Over the years we've had quite a few different competitions amongst local brewers, operating at levels of seriousness varying between drunken party and near BJCP level judging.  All have been fun and educational-a great way to meet up with like-minded folks and brew something to talk about.  This time around we focused on BJCP Category 21 - Spice, Herb or Vegetable Beer.  Everyone interested in participating submitted two chosen ingredients, and one select ingredient was chosen in a drawing.

Scott: Coffee, Honey

Danny: Squash, Grains of Paradise

Cracker: Maple Syrup, Watermelon

Eric: Coconut, Vanilla

Sisco: Chocolate, Nutmeg

Lewy: Popcorn, Powdered Peanut Butter

Jeff: Cilantro, Jalapenos

Sean: Kids Cereal     

So coffee is the featured ingredient.  It doesn't have to be present in any particular way, but must be used at some point in the beer.  I'm thinking either cold-pressed (to cut down on bitterness and because it's nicely concentrated) or cracked beans.  Either way the coffee would be introduced in secondary and I'm planning to go decaf because caffeine makes me shake.  Recipe to follow. 

Red Dwarf | More Blending in the Future

Brewing with friends is fun

Last weekend, I woke up early for a triple brew session with Lewy and Eric.  My all grain system is gravity dependent and pieced together over the course of the last ten years.  In effect, it's not the most conveniently compact or mobile.  So I found myself loading cinder blocks (for brew pot height) into the back of my car at 6AM last Saturday morning.  My wife Erin, sitting on the couch in a warm robe with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand looked at me like I was crazy, and at that moment, I think she may have been right.  But by the time I got to Lewy's house and fired up the kettle it was time to brew, and all regrets related to comfortable beds and sleeping in vanished.  It was a beautiful sight, seeing three different systems cranking out beers that were completely unique and individualized.  Lewy made two separate 5 gallon batches.  One, a pale ale with hop additions on the fly and another an experimental batch meant to be fermented with wine and beer yeasts.  Eric brewed a dark Vanilla Bourbon Imperial Stout using the brand new stainless steel false bottoms he fabricated for both of our coolers (thanks man!).  I made another Flanders Red.

Custom SS false bottom

In October I brewed my third Flanders Red and named it Red Giant.  It followed recommendations from Wild Brews and other sources and ended up as follows:

6.5#        German Vienna
1#            Crystal 20
1#            Belgian Caravienne
1#            Aromatic
2.1#        Flaked Wheat

1.5 oz.     aged Perle hops (120)

I made Red Giant so I could start getting beers together for future blending after finding success the first time.    In fact, Red Giant was pitched on the conglomerated yeast cake left over from the first blending session (5 different yeast cakes with many different strains, dregs, bugs and oak cubes in each).  I left Red Giant on the yeast cake for an extended time in an attempt to coax extra funk into it.

Red Dwarf wort

Last weekend I brewed Red Dwarf which followed Red Giant's recipe exactly.  Prior to brewing Red Dwarf, I simply racked Red Giant into a fresh carboy, and then pitched Red Dwarf onto the cake again.  The difference between the two will be in the yeast contact time and the secondary additives.  I plan to leave Red Dwarf on the yeast cake for about 6 weeks, before transferring to secondary on top of roughly 7 pounds of tart cherries.  I also decided to mash Red Dwarf at a higher temperature (154ºF instead of 151ºF) to leave some additional complex dextrins in the wort for the bugs to eat away at.

I'm hoping that the similarities and differences in the two will make them good for blending with one another and that Lewy and others will have Flanders Reds of their own to throw into the mix.

Next up I'll be brewing 10 gallons of IPA and fermenting one with traditional ale yeast and the other exclusively with Brett Drie.  Recipe to follow.      

Thoughts scattered along a winding road... | Protectorate Jack IPA

Every beer has its place...

Matt Brynildson is the brewmaster at Firestone Walker.  He also makes amazing beers.  Firestone is responsible for a large portion of the impetus which compelled me to start brewing.  In college at UC Santa Barbara, Firestone was one of the only real craft breweries that could claim to be local.  On road trips up Highway 101 to Northern California to camp in Big Sur or visit friends, you'd drive past Firestone, sitting alone in what felt like the middle of nowhere adjacent to the Gaviota Coast in Buellton, CA.  I was never old enough during times that I drove by, so a stop there wasn't feasible.  However, I drank plenty of Firestone in college and always savored it.  When you and a roomate hustle together some money to buy beer, it's hard to turn away from the $4.99 thirty pack of Keystone Light (even with the "specially lined can" there would always be 1-4 beers that were undrinkable somehow) and instead spend $5.99 for a twelve pack of Double Barrel Ale, but it happened often enough.  Apparently I had my priorities more in line than I realized at the time.

If I was to try and characterize the evolution of my beer palette, Firestone would be first or second along with Sierra Nevada and Nectar Ales as the most influential beers at a time when I was especially impressionable (incidentally, Firestone now owns and brews Nectar Ales).  At NHC 2011 I had a chance to listen to a very articulate and entertaining Brynildson talk candidly about hops and generously share Double Jack and other outstanding beers with the audience.  His talk and a realization of his role as Firestone's archetype sort of snapped in line a lot of previously disjointed and seemingly unconnected thoughts about how I became a homebrewer.  Since then, I've been drinking a lot of his beers and I like almost everything.

Protectorate Jack

He shares a recipe and procedures for brewing Union Jack IPA in Mitch Steele's tome on hop-centric beers, IPA, and I decided to brew it as closely as possible to his specifications.  Union Jack is light and crisp with ample aroma from two separate dry hopping additions.  Even though Centennial and Cascade make up the bulk of the additions, there are small portions of Simcoe and Amarillo added into each dry hopping, making the nose that much more complex.  The recipe calls for London Ale yeast, which should provide a rounder, fruitier taste, and plenty of two row along with some light crystal and Munich malts.  I added a small dextrose addition to mine to dry it out and further accentuate the hops.  I named my version Protectorate Jack IPA after Oliver Cromwell's short lived era of rule as Lord Protector of the United Kingdom when the Protectorate Jack flag flew in place of the Union Jack.  Cromwell is a controversial figure, being the only one to rule England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland concurrently, but also maligned by many of his contemporaries and plenty of British historians.  He was one of a few historical figures to be posthumously executed.  I hope my beer is judged less harshly.  History aside, I'm excited to try and recreate what I think is one of the best West Coast IPAs around and maybe check in with a younger version of myself.  Perhaps I can understand his mindset a little more clearly, since the process that started me on this winding road seems to be slowly curving its way around toward full circle.  Check the recipe below:

Protectorate Jack IPA

Cheese Making | Lewy's Blackout IPA

The more that I brew, the more I become enthralled by the transformation that takes place during fermentation.  One good way to look at the steps involved in making a beer is simply the process of catering to the needs of a microscopic dynamo.  Proper temperature, pitching rate, oxygenation, time, darkness, food source and a myriad of other variables combine to make yeast (and the other organisms that ferment wort) do so in a way that speaks to our taste.  In a BN Sunday Session interview (begin listening at 47:00) with the owner and brewer of Cantillon, Jean Van Roy, he makes a telling statement about his role as brewer, saying, "The beer doesn't need a brewer...I'm not a brew master.  A master dominates the product, a master controls the product.  I can't do it...the beer is a partner."  His words make a lot of sense to me, as letting go of control is an essential part of brewing complex beers.  An artisanal product requires contact and connection with its producer, but will languish when that producer attempts to impose complete control.

Beer is just one of many products that are "alive" and influenced by yeast and bacteria.  Beer, wine, pickled foods, breads, cured meats and cheeses are just a few examples.  I've made bread for years, in traditional ways and using a bread maker, and have started to do so with more frequency.  Bread making is a craft that provides almost undelayed satisfaction.  You can bake a loaf of bread and eat it within a few hours or a day.  This makes it easy to experiment and easy to enjoy.  It also makes mistakes much more bearable.  But, there's something exciting about products that have to ripen and change over time.  It forces the producer to let go and have faith in the process and requires the embrace of uncontrollable variables.  It's one reason why I tend to gravitate toward beers that need aging and blending and other processes that require the influence of time to be effective.  It's also the reason why I started making cheese.

Cheese Making

Cooking curds

Partially pressed Jack cheese

Cheese and beer have a lot of similarities.  You can make a simple, enjoyable beer with basic, approachable processes, and plenty of room for error.  You can do the same with cheese and related products, making yogurt and cultured buttermilk and other simple dairy-based products that can be made and consumed quickly.  But the big, complex flavors you find in aged and bacterially influenced beers and cheeses requires patience and faith in the above-referenced uncontrollable processes.  So after making yogurt and getting a feel for the process, I made what will become my first hard cheese.  It's a Jack cheese made using a recipe provided by a cheesemaker named Brad Sinko and reproduced in Mary Karlin's excellent book Artisan Cheese Making at Home.  I made a few mistakes, pressing it in the wrong size mold, and struggling to maintain some of the temperature variables while cooking the ingredients, but the process was enlightening.  I was also able to use some of the left over whey to make bread.  The Jack will age in my fermentation chamber for the next two months while time conspires with the unknowable to make it into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Blackout IPA

Lewy's Blackout IPA

I also found time to make a beer.  In the course of close to 10 years and nearly 120 batches of beer, I've never reproduced a beer made by another homebrewer without altering it in some way to suit my tastes.  I decided to recreate an outstanding Cascadian Dark Ale made by my friend Lewy, following the recipe he provided as strictly as possible.  Blackout IPA is dark and hoppy, but different than most other similar beers I have experience with.  Lewy uses Glacier hops as the primary aroma component, making the beer unique and enjoyable.  He was nice enough to give me hops for the beer from his immense cache.  Read Lewy's original post here.  I hope my version can do it justice.  

Carnelian Red Rye IPA | DREGS #8

My hobbies are starting to rub up against one another, in a bad way.  I like to run.  For fun, 5Ks, half marathons, triathlons.  In the back of my mind, I always felt like brewing (and the subsequent drinking and consuming of calories) gave me a reason to exercise.  From an opposing perspective, exercising with intention seemed to provide me with license to imbibe.  Lately, it feels like the two are less complimentary than they have been in the past.  When I should be running, I find myself drinking a beer.  When I want to brew, I don't because I won't have time to run.  Maybe it's the holidays, but often I don't seem to have energy to do either.  Every time I find motivation, something interferes and prevents my good intentions from being realized.

Carnelian Gemstones

Yesterday, I got a decent run in right after work.  5 miles through a canyon nearby with no one else around.  I didn't feel tired or distracted or out of sync.  Then last night I brewed for the first time in over a month.  I used rye for the third brew session in a row and made a beer that I hope will be reminiscent of Alpine Nelson, but with more caramel malt character.  Carnelian Red Rye IPA uses sizable portions of Nelson hops in the flavor and aroma additions and in dry hop additions as well.  There's plenty of rye in the malt bill along with American 2-row and a variety of Caramel Malts rounding out the malt profile.  I used rice hulls for the first time to offset the gumminess of the rye and avoid a stuck sparge.  Safale US-05 yeast provides the magic.  It came out a nice deep red color (hence the name, Carnelian).  Check the recipe below:

Carnelian Red Rye IPA

I had a bottle of Oude Gueuze Tilquin á L'Ancienne that I'd been wanting to drink.  Gueuzerie Tilquin blends gueuze the traditional way, using worts from a variety of Belgian producers like Cantillon and Boon.  It's a beautiful beer in my opinion.  It's very tart and aromatic.  There's heavy citrus notes in the taste and the finish is wonderfully dry.  It's funky, but not in your face.  I decided to make a dregs beer using the yeast dregs, so I made an extra gallon of wort when brewing Carnelian RedRye IPA.  I admit, the profile of the base beer doesn't exactly scream wild fermentation, but I guess that's sort of the point with dregs beers.  You get to combine ingredients and processes that aren't "supposed" to play well together.

DREGS #8: Gueuzerie Tilquin - Oude Gueze Tilquin á L'Ancienne

Next, I'll be brewing Lewy's Blackout IPA.  It'll be the first time I've replicated one of his recipes exactly and it's a personal favorite of mine.  Can't wait...