HALIFAX, NS – The organizers of the Atlantic Canadian Beer Awards (ACBAs) have announced that its inaugural edition will be taking place next month in Halifax.
Open to entries from breweries in the four Atlantic provinces – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland – judging for the ACBAs will take place in Halifax on October 4th, with an awards ceremony and dinner to follow at The Stubborn Goat Gastropub on October 5th.
The awards event will be hosted by Master Cicerone Mirella Amato, who will also be holding a signing session for her book Beerology at Lion and Bright Cafe Wine Bar on October 6th.
The ACBAs are funded by the Atlantic Chapter of the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers, and sponsored by The Stubborn Goat Gastropub, Bar Stillwell, The Pub Magazine and The Chronicle Herald.
I was initially pleased to hear about the ACBAs. That is until I was informed about who would be doing the judging.
The use of non-professional BJCP judges at the CBAs has often had me questioning the results; mostly due to the fact that many individuals have never kept up their training or are subjected to regular testing. Now we hear that the ACBAs will be using not only inexperienced BJCP judges, but completely untrained journalist, bar owners and bar tenders – People with no training on beer styles, no training and testing on recognizing beer flaws and beer attributes. This is not a judging, this is case of personal preference from people who have never been trained to evaluate beer. Shocking really.
Jim – do you have a confirmed list of the judges? I haven’t seen it myself, so I’m curious to know who has been chosen.
No individual names, but organizers have stated that judging will be done by inexperienced BJCP, bartenders, bar owners and journalists – People with no credentials to evaluate beer. Further to this, the guy giving instructions to the “judges” is encouraging them to focus on the positive attributes and not any beer defects they find. This inaugural event already has credibility issues.