{"id":19331,"date":"2017-10-11T17:24:55","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T04:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=19331"},"modified":"2023-07-18T19:05:38","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T07:05:38","slug":"medals-and-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/10\/11\/medals-and-math\/","title":{"rendered":"Medals and math \u2014 batting averages at the beer awards"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mural<\/a>
Friendly competition? (Detail from the mural at Garage Project, the new Champion Brewery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The latest round of the Brewers Guild of New Zealand Awards<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> were announced this weekend and this year they’ve given us\u00a0more data than usual to play with. For the first time, the Guild has released information on what was\u00a0entered<\/em>, as opposed to just telling us who\u00a0won<\/em>, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m the kind of nerd who watches the Olympics\u00a0and wants a per-capita column on the medal tally. Raw results are one thing, but I’m curious well you did\u00a0relative to how hard you tried<\/em>. And now, after an\u00a0hour or so of strangely-enjoyable data entry and spreadsheeting,<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> I know.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Brace yourselves for a deep dive into the numbers. With damn near a thousand beers from a hundred contestants, there’s obviously a lot going on, but I think the patterns are easy enough to get a handle on. I came up with two slightly-different ways of working out what a brewery’s ‘batting average’<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> at the awards might be:<\/p>\n