Flabby malt character, dad lagers and notes of wet cardboard are all in a day’s work for these brew pros. Can a humble hop fan keep up?

There’s a big difference between enthusiast and expert, and when it comes to beer (and pretty much everything else in life, TBH), I fall squarely in the former category. But when you write about a certain subject a fair amount, people start assuming you know your shit, and inevitably you almost start believing them.

So it was with a curious mix of journalistic hubris and imposter syndrome that I headed to North Harbour Stadium for the first day of judging in the New World Beer & Cider Awards this week, to find out if I could keep up with the hallowed ranks of the 28-strong judging panel – or at least the nine “junior judges” who joined them – as they worked their way through dozens of beers. 

Admittedly, I stayed for only a fraction of that total, but it was long enough for me to deduce a number of key traits needed to successfully perform this important role.

1. You must be willing to eschew garlic and chilli

The night before, at least – apparently they can give off a scent through the pores that can throw off the judges. This may sound like a simple task, but I forgot until I was part way through my dinner of a garlic-laden frittata topped with a glug of chilli sauce. Whoops. I couldn’t even douse myself in perfume the next morning to disguise the garlicky stench I can only presume was oozing from me – that is also banned. 

2. You need stamina

Unlike those wine-tasting wimps, beer judges don’t spit – bitterness receptors are at the back of the tongue so swallowing the stuff is essential. Each judge was expected to assess 50 beers on the day I attended, a number the judging table I joined felt was “extremely reasonable” – last year it was more like 70 or 80. The general consensus was that by the end of the day you don’t feel drunk, exactly, but fatigue certainly sets in. “I wouldn’t drive,” as table captain Emma Bell, a brewer at Double Vision, put it. 

I joined Bell and senior judges Hamish Ward of Isthmus Brewing and Jody Scott of Peckham Cider, as well as junior judge Charlotte Feehan of Abandoned Brewery, to assess the merits of the first beers of the day – five lagers. At 9am, all judges were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but surely by the end of the day their spirits dip and the beers judged are at a disadvantage? Not necessarily, they said. “In the middle of the day you can flag a bit,” said Feehan, who was judging for the third year in a row (though her first year was a Covid-curtailed affair). “But by the end of it your palate can be really finely attuned.”

3. You must have a way with words

Just as important as the scores (each judge scores each beer on colour and appearance, aroma, mouthfeel, flavour, balance and drinkability, with the total adding up to 100) are the comments. While not quite reaching the creative heights of The Spinoff’s Shanti Mathias, who is prone to comparing beverages to glacial streams, the judges’ comments I was privy to at North Harbour Stadium had a certain poeticism. Watching over Bell’s shoulder as she typed, I noted approvingly her repeated use of the word “flabby”. “Flabby malt character,” she wrote for one beer. “Dusty, flabby aroma,” for another. “When I first started judging I would just say words that came into my head – and it turned out they were actual words that other people were using too,” Bell revealed. “A lot of judging is like that.”

That comment is an insight into the fact these awards are less hardcore, for want of a better term, than the likes of the Brewers’ Guild’s New Zealand Beer Awards. They’re consumer-focused and open to both international and New Zealand brands, including the big breweries, which is reflected in the the most popular styles entered: this year there are 120 or so hazy beers, making it the biggest class by quite a way. Less weight is placed on special qualifications for judges, too, which opens judging up to a wider range of people working in the beer industry. Feehan does have qualifications – she’s a certified Cicerone and has just completed the new WSET level 2 beer course – but appreciates the fact it’s not essential. “For some people getting the qualifications is just not practical, they don’t have the time.”

This results in a more diverse judging lineup, and looking around the room, it’s not as dude-heavy as you might expect. Six of the nine junior judges this year are women, including two recipients of a scholarship that New World partnered on with the New Zealand branch of the Pink Boots Society, an organisation that supports women working in beer. 

So while it had chill vibes, the whole judging set-up was, unsurprisingly, a lot more professional than the taste tests we do – still as rigorously as possible, might I add – at The Spinoff. The New World Beer & Cider Awards has a nifty computer system where each judge inputs their scores and comments. The Spinoff has me typing furiously while everyone talks at the same time. The New World Beer & Cider Awards has 18 stewards serving the beers, 1,600 glasses and a dedicated glass-washing team. The Spinoff has whoever I can convince to help out (thanks Tina and Gabi), one glass per judge with a Post-It note with their name on it that will definitely fall off, and a terrifying bucket into which we tip the leftovers, then inevitably joke about making someone drink it once the tasting is complete (no one ever has).

4. You’ve got to know your faults

I’m not talking about your own personal failings here – though a bit of humility never goes astray – but technical faults in the beers you’re judging. This is where the bog-standard beer guzzler (read: me) may struggle, no matter how good they are at assessing a brew’s vibes.

Recognising faults is something that can be learned, however, and for me, that first glimmer of understanding of why a beer I usually like suddenly tastes kinda gross was thrilling. There were faults aplenty in the lagers being judged when I joined the tasting – sad news for those lagers and my taste buds, but great news for my educational journey. Oxidation – where a beer has been exposed to oxygen at some stage – was a key culprit. Often it happens at the point the beer is put into bottles or cans, or if those (filled) bottles or cans have been sitting around a while and haven’t been stored at cold temperatures. “Once you start tasting oxidation it’ll ruin your life,” Feehan said. It may have been hyperbole but the comment resonated with me, as someone whose day can be derailed if it starts with a bad coffee or ends with a bad beer.

Broadly, oxidation can result in a beer tasting stale, or like wet cardboard. I’ve spent way too many hours in the past few days pondering what wet cardboard might taste like, which culminated in some strange looks in the office when I held a bit of cardboard under the kitchen tap, then gave the sodden scrap a good sniff (I resisted the urge to have a nibble). It smelled like… nothing? Colleagues took a whiff and suggested wet cardboard might also be interpreted as tasting “woody” or like “wet dog”. 

Other descriptors used for oxidised beers are metallic and having a harsh bitterness, both of which I’ve certainly tasted before. Bell was really speaking my language when she said an oxidised lager tastes a bit like “a dad lager” – like the sort of beer your dad might have drunk in the 90s. I feel the dad lager is probably a close relative of what Calum Henderson coined “carpetbier”.

Another common fault is diacetyl, a fermentation flaw that results in a beer smelling like acetone or nail polish remover and tasting like buttery popcorn, but in a bad way. I got a strong whiff of nail polish remover on one of the beers and was delighted when a judge confirmed this particular beer was diacetyl-ed up the wazoo (I’m paraphrasing here). 

Lightstrike is another common issue, caused by a beer being exposed to light. For obvious reasons, it’s more common in bottles than cans, and in clear or green glass bottles than brown. Lightstruck beer is often described as “skunked”, as it gives a beer a skunk-like aroma. For those of us who don’t live in cartoons and/or America, a more helpful odour reference point might be marijuana. 

5. You must be willing to be overruled

Any beer scored at 84-85 or above goes through to the next round of judging the following day, where the table captains join the panel chair and deputy chair, beer writer Michael Donaldson and brewer Kelly Ryan respectively, to decide on the top 30. Before the judging began, Donaldson told the room that if a beer came out at only 82 or so, but the table felt it deserved another look, they should feel free to bump it up. Inevitably there is some vigorous discussion and always a disagreement or two, and Donaldson and Ryan are floating about the room ready to adjudicate or provide another opinion.

Table captains have the final say on the overall score that is submitted, and while the junior judges’ scores don’t officially count, the captain can choose to take them into account if she wishes. Bell said she was always willing to be talked around by her tablemates and change her initial score, especially if she was the outlier, but I can only presume she would hold her ground when it came to flabbiness. 

The winners of the 2024 New World Beer & Cider Awards will be announced in May.