Common mistakes new beer judges make in their first year
New judges bring enthusiasm and fresh palates. They also make the same handful of mistakes, year after year. Most are easy to fix once you know them. Here are the common ones and what to do instead.
Hunting for faults that are not there
New judges are often anxious to prove their palate, so they find faults everywhere. A slightly fruity English ale becomes 'acetaldehyde', a trace of malt sweetness becomes 'diacetyl'. A false positive on a scoresheet can send a brewer chasing a problem that does not exist.
Describe what you perceive in plain words first, with an intensity. Only name a fault if you are confident. 'Low green apple note' is honest. 'Acetaldehyde from early packaging' is a diagnosis you may not be able to support. Our guide on ranking off-flavour severity helps put faults in proportion.
Scoring to personal taste
A judge who dislikes smoked beer marks every Rauchbier down. A judge who loves hoppy beer forgives a too-bitter helles. Both are judging preference, not style. The fix is mechanical: read the style description before each beer and score against it, line by line. Write your personal opinion, if you must, as one clearly labelled sentence at the end.
Writing vague comments
'Good beer, a bit thin' is the classic new-judge note. It tells the brewer almost nothing. Use intensity words (low, moderate, high), name the type of malt or hop character and connect comments to the style. A sheet that reads 'Body is light for an oatmeal stout, which should be medium-full and silky; consider more oats or a higher mash temperature' is the standard to aim for.
Losing control of the scale
New judges often cluster all their scores in a narrow band, say 26 to 32, because they are nervous about extremes. Others swing wildly. On the BJCP scale, 30 to 37 is very good and 38 to 44 excellent. Great beers deserve 40s and badly faulted ones deserve the teens.
Calibrate with your experienced partner over the first few beers, as our guide to how beer judges score describes. Check that your comments and scores tell the same story.
Wrecking your palate before the flight
Small habits ruin a session. A spicy breakfast, strong coffee, mint toothpaste, perfume, aftershave or scented hand cream all interfere with tasting. So does arriving tired, hungry or unwell.
Eat something plain, skip the fragrance and drink water. In India, where the morning might start with a masala dosa and filter coffee, give yourself at least an hour before judging. Bring your own water bottle and plain crackers.
Drinking instead of tasting and smelling too late
A flight of ten beers at 50 to 60 ml each adds up to roughly a pint. Across a full day of flights it becomes much more. Judges who swallow every sip score worse in the afternoon. Use the spittoon. Taste a small amount, hold it, spit and make your notes. Your scores and your health will both be better for it. Never drive home after judging.
The most volatile aromas disappear within a minute or two of pouring. New judges often look at colour and head first and lose the aroma. Smell first, quickly and in short sniffs, then look. Return to the aroma as the beer warms, because some notes, such as DMS or diacetyl, can become clearer.
Long, deep sniffs fatigue the nose quickly. Short sniffs with a break between them keep it working.
Ignoring mouthfeel and carbonation
Mouthfeel carries only 5 points on the BJCP sheet, so new judges tend to rush it. That is a mistake. Body, carbonation, warmth from alcohol, astringency and creaminess all tell the brewer something specific about their process.
An overcarbonated bottle points to bottling before fermentation finished, too much priming sugar or a wild yeast infection. A thin body in a stout may point to a low mash temperature. Astringency, a dry puckering feel like strong black tea, often comes from over-sparging or very hot sparge water extracting tannins from the grain husks.
Take ten seconds on each beer to roll it around the mouth before you swallow or spit. Ask four questions: how full is the body, how lively is the carbonation, is there any warmth and is there any harshness? Writing a short answer to each one makes your mouthfeel comments far more useful than 'medium body, OK'.
Learning in isolation
The biggest mistake is judging alone, never comparing notes. Judges improve by tasting alongside experienced partners, reading their sheets and finding out which compounds they personally miss. Spiked sample sessions, where a known off-flavour is added to a clean beer, are the fastest way to learn your thresholds. Our guide on training new sensory panellists describes how breweries do this.
Your first step: after your next flight, ask your senior partner to read one of your sheets and tell you the single thing that would make it more useful. Fix that one thing at the next competition.
Common questions
What is the most common mistake new beer judges make?
Naming faults that are not there. Describe what you perceive first and only name a fault when you are confident.
How should new judges prepare on the day?
Avoid spicy food, strong coffee, mint and fragrance before judging. Arrive rested, bring water and crackers and use the spittoon.
Should judges swallow the beer?
No. Spitting keeps your palate sharper and your scores more consistent across a long session. Never drive after judging.
How can a new judge improve fastest?
Taste alongside experienced judges, ask for feedback on your sheets and practise with spiked off-flavour samples.
