SIBA North Judging: Possibly Slightly Less Unfit For Purpose Than Last Year

Last year at about this time I had a grumble about poor judging at the SIBA North event in Manchester. I had witnessed a woeful ignorance of off flavours from several judges. I also noticed that many judges preferred bland beer to tastier beer, marking them accordingly. It seemed many judges were treating the event as a jolly day out drinking beer at someone else’s expense.

This year’s North West event was held at Hawkshead Brewery’s beer hall at Staveley near Kendal, in my home county of Cumbria. The beer hall is considerably smaller than last year's Manchester venue. The number of Staveley judges was about a third of the number of Manchester judges. I noticed the absence of some of the clueless judges I’d made a mental note of the previous year.

The first of my three rounds was bottled pale ale. Or, at least I think it was; my scrawled note said “bpa”. Three of the eight beers showed the unmistakeable damp cardboard flavour of oxidisation – one of them was particularly bad. I kept schtum while my three fellow judges murmured their general approval of the beers. I thought about correcting my fellow judges but decided not to be the know-all dick of the table. Several times I heard the beers to be declared “balanced.”* Result: bad beer got reasonable marks.

My second round was speciality beers. I opted to judge this round as I’d previously witnessed reluctance by some judges to have a go at funny foreign styles at rocket fuel strengths as high as a jaw-dropping 7% abv. Two of my three fellow judges expressed disappointment at being allocated the “weird stuff”, as one of them described it.

The beers were entertaining. Fortunately none showed any off flavours. One, described as “spiced”, tasted like mildly alcoholic Coca Cola. Another was an extremely good dark raspberry fruit beer with a sour note. It was a marvellous beer: if you had told me it was from a very good Belgian brewery I would have believed you. Two of my fellow three judges took exception to it, screwing up their faces in disgust. They marked it very low.

My third round was bottled golden ales. One beer was hellishly bitter, other than that they were competent though unremarkable beers.

Not being a SIBA grandee, I didn't judge the final round.

All in all, my piss boiled less than last year – possibly because I didn't have to fork out £30 for a rail ticket**. But questions for SIBA remain: just what are people doing judging a round in which they are likely to encounter something outside their parochial tastes? Just why are people who don’t know common off flavours judging beer?

Many thanks to Jon and Becky of Stringers Beer for the lift to Stavely and to John and Lucy of Barngates Brewery for the lift home.

 * I am suspicious of the descriptor “balanced.” It is often used where the word “bland” would be more appropriate. I find its use is often indicative of entry-level beer appreciation.

** Yes, I know SIBA is a good cause and all that, but so is my never-ending overdraft.

A happy brewer: category prize-
winner Roger Humphries of Cumbrian Legendary Ales

SIBA Beer Judging – Not Fit For Purpose?

I recently judged at SIBA’s Great Northern Beer Competition at the Mercure Hotel in Manchester.

SIBA is an organisation I respect.

I have considerably more respect for SIBA than I do another beer organisation that possesses a pseudo-Marxist perspective on the beer market, is notoriously dogmatic and intransigent, and promotes the fallacy that all real ale is good beer and its corollary, all non-real ale is bad beer.

I judged at the same SIBA event two years ago. It was a dispiriting experience. I witnessed incidents of spectacular beer-judging cluelessness.

SIBA adopts the position that beer judging should reflect the preferences of the kind of people who consume its members’ beers. No particular credentials are required to be a SIBA judge other than being a beer drinker and being somehow connected with the trades of brewing or selling beers (with a few random “dignitaries” requiring smoke blowing up their arses.)

Two years ago, two particular incidents occurred which stick in my mind. In one round of judging there was a bloke in a faded Pink Floyd t-shirt and mullet who decided he was the table’s expert. He told us he’d been working at beer festivals for thirty years etcetera ad nauseam. He pronounced his verdict on every beer we encountered. I soon realised he was the taste equivalent of cloth-eared when he failed to mark down a beer that was strongly diacetyl.

The second incident was similar. In a later round a chap in a brewery polo shirt (it transpired he was an employee of the brewery) appointed himself as the table loudmouth. In a round of worthy-but-dull pale golden beers we encountered one with a vivid fruity flavour. Mr Loudmouth announced “that’s my kind of beer” (his exact words stick in my mind.) Unfortunately the flavour was the unmistakeable (to me) green apple tang of acetaldehyde.

In both cases I could see the more inexperienced judges re-assess their scores upwards after hearing the mistaken praise from the know-alls. There was one very nice couple on the second table who had won a “win a day judging beer” competition in a pub. I watched them do what a lot of inexperienced judges do – picking up clues from others before forming their opinions. They marked the acetaldehyde beer highly.

I didn't judge last year but this year I was persuaded to judge again by Jon Kyme of the wonderful Stringers Beer of Ulverston. It wasn’t without trepidation that I travelled to Manchester.

My trepidations and reservationswere warranted. I found myself on a table judging premium bitters (if I recall correctly.) We encountered four or five worthy but dull beers. No glaring faults but nothing very interesting. Two of the beers were more vivid,  possessing a hop character that suggested an American influence. They were both well-executed and intelligently conceived without being mouth-puckeringly bitter. A fellow judge declared “they smell, my customers wouldn’t drink them” and presented a histrionic grimace. Her body-language was as if she’d been offered a dog-shit sandwich. As the loudmouth of the table, more timid, inexperienced judges lapped it up and the beers scored badly. I was tempted to offer a spirited defence of the beers and a critique of her ability to judge beer, but I felt it not worth the risk of the red mist descending. I kept schtum.

In a later round I found myself once again on the same table as this Bet Lynch. Amongst the array of worthy but dull beers there was one that was strongly diacetyl. Junior Bet Lynch commented "Ooh, that’s nice, it’s kind of…” Her words tailed off and I filled in "butterscotch.” "Yes, that's it!" This time I had to explain that the flavour and aroma of butterscotch was undesirable. The existence of the unmistakeable oxidised flavour of damp cardboard in the finish confirmed to me this beer was fucked. Bet Lynch deferred to my superior wisdom. Wise.

I insisted the beer was off. Our runner took away the offending jug of beer and returned with a replacement. The runner told us that the brewer of the beer was helping behind the scenes and that he had spotted his own beer being returned. The brewer was told his beer was suspected of being off. We were told the brewer had responded “it’s supposed to be like that – malty.” Our second jug was similarly off. I gave it a rock-bottom score. I don’t suppose it scored highly with my fellow judges, but I might be wrong.

On my final table of the day I found myself judging with a large domineering chap who worked for a brewery, and a couple of his chums. Mr Bellicose chose to chunter audibly through his judging – "eeh, I couldn't drink six pints o' that" or "I could drink that all night" and scored the beers accordingly. The beers he favoured were the blandest; the beers he marked down had more flavour. "Well Mr Bellicose," I wanted to shout, "we don't give a fuck what you would choose to pour down your fat ignorant neck."

After the judging I was talking toWill France of the marvellous Port Street Beer House. He made similar observations about conspicuously bad judging. As manager of a trendy crafty beer catwalk outlet he knew his customers wouldn’t be too impressed by an insipid 3.8% session beer, just as Bet Lynch’s customers wouldn’t be impressed by a 6% hop-bomb. 

In one corner there are judges like Will and myself: familiar with a wide range of styles of beer, knowledgeable about common off-flavours, unperturbed by big flavours or high strength. In the other corner there is Bet Lynch and Mr Bellicose: their judging defined by narrow parameters of acceptability.

This raises a question: which kind of judge better serves SIBA’s desire to award prizes to the best beers by its members? Will France and I or Bet Lynch and Mr Bellicose?

It’s not hard is it?

The profusion of the the Bet Lynch and Mr Bellicose type of judge is letting down SIBA. SIBA’s policy of turning beer judging into a jolly for all-and-sundry is lowering the standard of judging and undermining the validity of its competitions. The results may well reflect the views of many ordinary drinkers, but ordinary drinkers aren't necessarily capable of making sound judgements.

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P.s. To whom it may concern in SIBA: biscuits for cheese are NOT suitable palate-cleansers. Sugars and fats of Hovis biscuits and TUCs have the opposite effect.

SIBA Journal Issue 70 Summer 2008

SIBA, the Society of Independent Brewers is getting its knickers in a twist on the question of its members "do you think there should be a limit to the size of brewery that can join SIBA?"

This needs a little explanation. The question is really "should the regional 'family' brewers be allowed to join SIBA?"

The Independent Family Brewers of Britain (IFBB) can be found here.

SIBA was created in 1980 by brewers too small to join the Brewers' Society. Years have passed and SIBA's membership is now in the hundreds and the organisation has the ear of the media and the government (probably more so than the IFBB.)

The "Family Brewers" are now knocking on the door of SIBA and SIBA can't make up its mind if it should let them in. This is a bit rich of the Family Brewers considering the contempt they had for SIBA in its early days.

The YES faction (yes to the capacity limit, that is) is put by Dave Maggs of West Berkshire Brewery:

"Their [the regional/family brewers] agenda is totally different to that of the small independents. Most have tied estates, which they naturally want to protect, whereas we are constantly looking for access to market. Some are PLCs and as such are a contradiction to a Society of Independent Brewers. A PLC by nature cannot be independent and will be driven by the demands if its shareholders, who are not all committed to our cause [of locally-produced craft beer]. PLCs will buy up pubs – tied or free – thus reducing our market options. I have certainly lost a great deal of outlets to my nearest PLC brewer. It's not that I hold a grudge, I just don't see how we can be in the same organisation."

Mr Maggs has hit the nail on the head – the family/regionals are owners of tied estates largely impenetrable to the products of independent local brewers. That the family/regionals also brew cask ales is an irrelevence. Many also brew foul mass-market licensed or contracted beers: coupled with their tied estates I believe they are part of the problem faced by small independent breweries. Welcoming them into SIBA would introduce internal conflicts like introducing lions to the society of gazelles.

The NO faction is represented by Carola Brown of Ballards, long-standing SIBA activist (and a founder member if I recall corrrectly):

"Our major competitors in the distant days of the 'Red Barrel' real ale desert were the regional brewers. But they were also the only brewers who kept real ale alive at all when the nationals didn't want to. Now they have abandoned the 'them and us' mentality, and recognise that SIBA is the industry organisation that has taken up the quality beer torch and not only kept the flame alive, but made it burn more and more brightly! I have my doubts about admitting to our ranks brewers brewers who keep their estates closed to guest beers, whilst selling into what remains of the free trade; but will excluding them change that situation?"

This strikes me as sentimentality-driven hogwash – "But they were also the only brewers who kept real ale alive at all when the nationals didn't want to." So what? It's 2008 now, not 1975 (also something CAMRA would do well to note.)

FWIW, as far as I can see access to market is the biggest single issue facing small brewers, beyond red-tape and all other issues. They have craft beer in common with the family/regionals but are inhibited by the existence of tied estates, brewing and-nonbrewing. 

My instinct would be to tell the family brewers to sod off. My more considered response would be a change to SIBA's constitution to say all pubs or estates owned by SIBA members should be commercially fully open (not just DDS) to all fellow members, including the family/regionals This would curb the unfair advantage of owning estates and encourage the growth of small brewers – that's the point of SIBA isn't it?

Would they still want to join? I doubt it.