The Judges’ Roster
It’s a rare month when Chris Swersey, competition manager, isn’t working towards the beer judging. During the summer months, he and his wife Mary Wright guide whitewater rafting and fishing trips on the Salmon River in Idaho. But, even during breaks between trips, he’s always on the lookout for qualified judges for the GABF competition.
“The one scheduling piece I’ve kept close to me, without it becoming so big that I have to delegate it, is the judge database and scheduling the judges,” he says. “It’s a year-round job managing the list, especially reviewing new applications and overseas recruiting.”
The competition requires the services of over 100 judges, drawn principally from the ranks of professional brewers, but also industry suppliers, consultants and writers. The main requirement is an intimate understanding of the brewing process and the parameters of style. But a good judge must also be able to advocate for a beer and work with colleagues to reach a panel consensus.
Swersey explains, “Part of my job is making sure I’m putting people on that panel who really, really care about beer; two, have closely-held beliefs about what beer means to them; and three, can talk about beer and describe what they’re feeling and tasting and seeing and smelling passionately and do it in a diplomatic way.”
Most importantly, a judge needs to provide clear written feedback for brewers. “That’s the way than entering can bring value to a brewery, even if they don’t win,” Swersey explains. “We don’t promise a full, comprehensive analysis; what we do promise is a world-class tasting by very trained palates and some manner of feedback. The brewer will get six or seven very different narratives about one beer.”
There is a waiting list of two to three years for new judges.
In the Spring
Breweries begin deciding in May if they will attend the GABF; and, if so, which beers to bring. A booth serving beer on the conference center floor entails a fee; so do beers entered for evaluation in the judging, and these do not come cheap. There are also strategic decisions. Breweries can enter as many beers as they like for the competition, but only the first eight beers listed on the entry form are eligible for consideration when it comes to tallying points towards Brewery of the Year.
The brewer has other strategic challenges. Go for glory in a huge category such as IPA (well over 100 entrants) or try for a medal in a smaller, emergent category? The minimum number of entries for a stand-alone category is six, which makes the odds of winning a medal much greater in small categories, even though the judges reserve the right not to grant all medals.
Given the importance of beer style, the brewer is also faced with the decision of under which category a beer should be listed. Does the beer match the profile of a robust porter or a brown porter? A given beer can only be entered in a single category, but beers have been known to migrate from one competition category to another in different years, searching for a stylistic home.
Once these decisions are made, competition beers travel to Colorado by a different route from that of the kegs and cases destined for the festival floor. It is the brewery’s job, not the festival’s, to get the judging beers to Denver.
“The breweries are responsible for getting their own beer to us,” explains Nancy Johnson, event director of the Brewers Association. “But what’s interesting is that, for instance, the northern California Brewers Guild may contact all their members and say ‘Hey, we’re sending a refrigerated truck to Denver. If you want your judged beers on it, you need to have them here by this time, and we’ll split the cost.’ It can save a lot.”
Mid-Summer
By early July (between rafting trips), Swersey knows from registration forms how the competition is shaping up: how many total entries are going to come in, and what the numbers are likely to be in different stylistic categories. He’s looking for a magic number that will drive the rest of his calculations: the number of tables at the judging.
“After the deadline, we have a good idea how many beers are in each category, and we map out the competition based on that,” he says. “We’re able to figure out how many tables we’re going to need. For example, this year we’re going to need 19 tables, as it turns out. That’s enough to evaluate all the beers registered in the competition over a period of two and a half days.”
This year, 2,920 beers were registered, or nearly 600 per session.
There are six judges seated at each table. Each group of six judges can evaluate a specified number of beers in a given half-day session of judging. Given that formula, Swersey can start to plan which styles will be judged during which sessions.
And that information is critical to the next two lieutenants in this campaign: Danny Williams, who has to deliver the beer, and Kris Latham, who has to deliver the staff.
