My only qualification in terms of judging beers is the fact that I drink them. In other words I have absolutely NO IDEA what I’m doing when I taste a beer. I’ve read beer reviews, I know how they’re judged (I think), but when I hear “notes of raisin, fig, with a vague ester sweetness of stone fruits and a sting of alcohol on the exhale” it means almost nothing to me. I just can’t detect those individual smells and tastes (yet) like those that judge beer professionally can. I don’t think my palette or nose is advanced enough to really sort through everything I’m smelling or tasting.
Ok, enough self depreciation. The beauty of the human body is that the nose and palette can be trained. It is my goal to try as many different beers from as many different breweries, both local and commercial, as possible in order to try and develop these senses as deeply as possible. Without proper training and guidance I can only train myself so much of course, but even to start discerning different flavors and smells would be a step in the right direction. When I drink beer it tastes like beer, and when I smell beer it smells like beer, so this seems like a good place to start.
I will judge my beers off of three general categories; aroma, flavor and overall impressions. I will also score my beers on a scale from 0-100. This score will be based off of the standard BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Certification) components, which are:
Aroma (on a scale of 0-12)
Appearance (scale of 0-3)
Flavor (scale of 0-20)
Mouthfeel (scale of 0-5),
and lastly Overall Impression (scale of 0-10)
These will be added up to produce a final score. Now the math majors in the room may be saying “Hey, that only adds up to 50!” In order to satiate the number savvy among you, I will double the total so it is out of 100 because, well, let’s face it – scores out of 100 just make so much more sense to our brains thanks to years and years and years of receiving grades based on this scale.
So there it is! Beer tastings and reviews from one of the most unqualified people on earth to be giving them! Take these reviews and ratings with a massive grain of salt (maybe a salt quarry?) as I am certainly not qualified to be making them. This is just supposed to be a fun little challenge for me! Feel free to contact me about my reviews saying you vehemently disagree and that this website is trash and so am I. Destructive criticism is welcome.
Below are links to the Beer Judge Certification Style Guidelines and Beer Score Sheet that are used for competitively judging beer. These are the documents I based my scores on above.
Hops and Husk 