Welcome to the grand finale of the Better Judge a Mead interview series. This six-part series has featured National Homebrewer of the Year talking with some of the best thinkers and drinkers in the world of mead and mead judging. In this video, Josh talks with friend of the show, the always outspoken and fast-talking Dr. Kristen England. Kris is a homebrewer turned pro brewer and distiller at Bent Brewstillery, a high-level beer and mead judge, and also the Education Direction for the BJCP. He has organized many a homebrew and mead competition – and when it comes to talking about judging and competitions, dude is blunt and no-holds-barred.
In the hour and a half discussion, he talks with Josh about:
– Misunderstood Parts of Judging
– Entry Description vs Quality of Mead
– Common Flaws in Mead
– Judging as a Two-Way Street
– Contradictory Scoresheets
– Entering Comps for Feedback vs Enter to Win
… and much more.
At the end, they taste a mead that often gets dismissed by many mead geeks – Chaucer’s Mead – and give their thoughts on it.
A quick note for all you BJCP judges out there. Watching and giving feedback on this video interview can earn you non-judging points. Check out this link for more information.
I want to give a HUGE thank you to Josh Holbrook for hosting this series and moderating these deep discussions about mead. Truth be told, this series wasn’t even on my radar when Josh approached me with about 80% of the work already done and wanted to know I wanted to team up to present the video. He did this in hopes of helping people become wiser and better-informed mead judges, more informed mead makers. We hope this series will continue to be a useful resource for quite some time to come. Again – big shout-out to Josh and to all of his guests. I’ve learned a LOT and already put some of it to good use this past week when judging a flight of meads for Valkyries Horn competition.
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