"Scott T. Jensen" > wrote in message
...

> You don't care about beer contests. That's fine. It doesn't mean this
> discussion is worthless though. There are many people who do care or at
> least would like to know who places well in such contests. I'd just like
to
> know of a contest(s) that uses secretly store-bought beers as the beers
that
> will be judged.

I'm just pointing out that I don't see how using store-bought beer (and what
are you going to do about the huge number of draught-only beers in that
scenario?) is really going to make any difference. It's still a subjective
contest in an artificial environment that simply states a certain beer
measures up best against certain criteria. And, knowing how judging often
plays out - the biggest or bitterest beer wins 90 percent of the time - I
find the results even more worthless.

Are you actually making purchasing decisions based on judgements at beer
contests? That's what I'm saying is daft. Sure, everyone finds out about
beers they might not have otherwise via these contests, but I've seen enough
cases where an award winning beer isn't any better than a lot of similar
beers out there.

I'll try stuff out of curiosity, because I respect the brewery, because of
its reputation, because of friends' recommendations, etc. Winning a contest
is pretty low on the list. But maybe that's just me.

-Steve