Peers and students, my opinions..

[dennis grace]

Hi there. Aquilanne here.

As evinced by Pug's earlier posting, and in Barat's recent response to him,
some folk seem to hold a different view of competition than I do.

Ideally, category A does not compete, nor is compared to, category B.
Ideally, an item from A would be judged on its own merit under criteria
appropriate for that category, as would an item from B. If the item from A
evinces a virtuosty earning a grade or score of 8 by its category standards,
and the item from B evinces virtuosity earning a score of 9 by its category
standards, it follows that the item from B would have simply displayed a
higher level of virtuosity--without ever having been compared to the item
from A.

I'm not familiar with the structure of Ansteorra's A&S Competitions, but I
would guess it has a structure similar to the one above. (Insight? Info?) If
so, then a brewing entry, or any other entry for that matter, wouldn't be
"judged against" anything (even within it's own category) except its own
level of virtuosity determined by its category standards. In Atenveldt,
extremely high scoring entries were designated Masterpieces and there were,
as well, designations for the highest ranking entries in each category (ie.
Lady of Brewing, Lord of Costuming, etc.).

So, is it really that different here?

 
>>   In the area of competitions, I plan on never entering one. On the
>>   other hand, I will, when I feel my skills are high enough, do displays,
>>   but I don't feel comfortable with the idea of saying this thing is
>>   better than that thing. Even at Steppes, mead was judged against
>>   calligrahy and sewing. These are not the same types of things to be
>>   able to judge against. They are things you can put together for people
>>   to look at and admire though.
>
>I agree.  I have in my 16 years in the SCA and 12 years of brewing only
>entered 5 competitions.  It is rather hard to judge beer against leather
>work.