30th July Homebrew Tasting (W.J. Kavanaghs)

[Shane Phelan]

I had considered proposing a critique night, like that beer club in London, where you are literally not allowed to say anything positive about the beer. You are only allowed to point out perceived flaws and the less flaws that are identified, the better the beer.

A less aggressive approach might be to make all the beers anonymous, take everyone's comments and reveal who brewed what at the end of the night.

What I might do the next time is hand out little slips of paper to all the tasters and get everyone to write down a few comments which I can put together in a write-up later in the week. It seems fairer than me taking the notes and comments of those sitting nearest to me.

Does any of that sound useful vonHolt?

Personally I don't like saying anything negative about a persons beer unless I know what the problem is and how to fix it.   

[JoeyD]

I havent been in attendance yet but I know that Im a fan of criticism because no beer is perfect.  However constructive criticism is what I want, and also pointing out the strong points before commenting on the negative keeps it all civil and less intimidating for people to come along.  Pointing out a weakness in the beer, but more importantly how to improve it would benefit everyone.

[vonHolt]

That sounds like a great idea, plus it will reduce the amount of work you have to do and also hopefully we'll get a lot more comments, if everyone participates.

[Shane Phelan]

Yeah I think the comments will be a lot more honest if its anonymous and to add to what Joey is pointing out, it might be worth having a rule that you cant give a negative comment unless you can propose a method of addressing the flaw/issue you have found?

[Bubbles]

Lads, any volunteers to do a write-up on this? I know someone usually takes notes at the CB meets?

[Dr Jacoby]

Someone usually does a write up too 

[Shane Phelan]

Its so big that it doesn't look like a write up, just an essay!

[Bubbles]

That was some turnout alright. I have faith in you Shiny. I'm sure it'll be excellent as always... 

You could get DrJ to "ghost-write" it for you..? 

[Shane Phelan]

Joke was lost there...Its already up and awaiting proof reading!!

"Capital Brewers July Meet"

[Bubbles]

Ahh... I missed that eh.. joke... 

I'll get a read of that and schedule it for tomorrow. Cheers lads.

[Bubbles]

wow! that article was a heroic effort! Scheduled for tomorrow morning.

[Shane Phelan]

As I said, apologies! 

[Bubbles]

I don't think you need to be apologising to your readers for the length of the article, it's excellent. Must have taken you ages. I like that snazzy slideshow thingy.

[Shane Phelan]

It took me 3 evenings to write, then I lost 30% of it due to some error on wordpress. I only recovered from that initial rage recently to finish it off! Dunkel the elder encouraged me to finish it. 

[Shane Phelan]

I did not know! 

Edit, where do I find these? I'm looking around in the post and don't see them...