Yeah, the issue with a scale like that is that frankly anything below an 82 probably shouldn't even be marketed for sale. Unless he's giving 82s to Boone's Strawberry Farm stuff, which I'm guessing he deigns to be below him to even rate.
The homebrew judging scale gives you a lot more room, because there are some things that will be submitted to a homebrew competition that are just flat out awful. It's a 50-point scale:
- Outstanding (45 - 50): World-class example of style.
- Excellent (38 - 44): Exemplifies style well, requires minor fine-tuning.
- Very Good (30 - 37): Generally within style parameters, some minor flaws.
- Good (21 - 29): Misses the mark on style and/or minor flaws.
- Fair (14 - 20): Off flavors/aromas or major style deficiencies. Unpleasant.
- Problematic (00 - 13): Major off flavors and aromas dominate. Hard to drink.
Unless it's absolutely atrocious, judges are usually asked not to give anything 13 or below, because it's borderline cruel--although I'd argue it's borderline cruel to submit that to a judging lol.
But you VERY rarely see anything 45 or higher. In fact, seeing anything above 40 means you've made a superb beer. I've placed in competitions or advanced to the second round in a national competition with scores in the high 30s. If you can get into the 30s at all, it means that it's a beer those judges would probably happily drink multiple pints of.
What was interesting is that I did an experiment with another brewer where I brewed one large batch of a beer, and then we split it into two fermenters. I have fermentation temp control capability, and he did not. The goal was to identify using one single variable (temp control) and determine how important it was. We submitted to multiple guys from the homebrew club, some of whom were certified judges. The control (mine) had scores of 39, 40, 35, and 41. The non-controlled (his) from the same judges in order had scores of 32, 29, 26, and 36. I suspect they were judging a bit leniently, but it was stark to see how much a single variable changed it.