Blended Beer. Cheating or not?

My club had a discussion on a topic that is intriguing and I wanted to get a concensus of people in this forum.

The topic was Blending for purposes of making a killer brew that win's awards in BJCP contests.

Do you think that blended beers should be allowed to win categories other than blended beer or do you feel that blending is cheating?

Blending your homebrew with intentions to improve a batch of beer is not a bad thing and I am sure is done somewhat frequently. However, blending to enter contests and winning is another topic. If a brewer brews a beer to style and wins, is s/he a better brewer than someone who missed the mark, blends with another beer, and wins the category with the blended creation?

Who do you consider to be the better brewer?

Which beer is better?

You have to know that the best brewer does not always win.

Not cheating but it does seem to put the purists at a potential disadvantage. One of my buddies is a Newcastle fan, and from what I've read it's basically a blend, but I'm sure there are people who can make an equally good brew, in both style guidelines and overall taste, without blending. I've never blended anything, but I think it would be useful for nailing down what characteristics you want but then it could be modified in the next batch.
With competitions being so subjective to the judges interpretation, I don't know why people would go to the extra effort. Plus then it's like your single batch isn't standing on it's on merit. Seems like a hollow victory.

Orangevango said:

Which beer is better?

You have to know that the best brewer does not always win.

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Good point.

I assume you voted no on the pole, why?

Just trying to gather information from others' opines.

The point of making beer at all is to make something that tastes as amazing as possible. How you get there is of no consequence. You could argue that entering comps with prehopped extract kits is cheating because you didn't have to mash accurately or worry about IBU. I don't think it's true, but it's the same type of argument.

Bobby_M said:

The point of making beer at all is to make something that tastes as amazing as possible. How you get there is of no consequence. You could argue that entering comps with prehopped extract kits is cheating because you didn't have to mash accurately or worry about IBU. I don't think it's true, but it's the same type of argument.

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I disagree. The purpose of making beer to drink is to make something that tastes great to you. On the other hand, brewing a beer for competition is a test of the brewer's ability to make a beer that matches pre-defined criteria. Before he begins to brew, he (she) has a specific taste, color, ABV in mind, and uses skill to match those criteria.

Blending beer to reach a BJCP guideline is like shanking your tee shot onto another fairway and deciding to play that hole instead.

Blending beer to reach a BJCP guideline is like shanking your tee shot onto another fairway and deciding to play that hole instead.

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Commercial breweries blend ALL THE TIME to hit their marks. Some wineries don't actually make any wine at all, and just create blends others' wines to make their own creation, which BTW win awards in prestigious wine competitions. Are they cheating?

weirdboy said:

Commercial breweries blend ALL THE TIME to hit their marks. Are they cheating?

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They're not necessarily entering a lot of competitions though, they're blending to make sure they ship a uniform product every week.

DrDirt said:

They're not necessarily entering a lot of competitions though, they're blending to make sure they ship a uniform product every week.

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So what? They are targeting a specific style of beer. Hell, they are targeting a specific beer! How is that different from targeting a certain style for BJCP? And you better believe those beers get entered in competitions.

So, lets say you and I are both trying to brew an APA and Yours turns out exactly the way you want and mine turns out like an IPA. I realize I goofed, and I pour some maltier beer in to mellow it out after the fact. We're both equally skilled brewers? Even though you made the style you originally intended and I didnt?

DrDirt said:

So, lets say you and I are both trying to brew an APA and Yours turns out exactly the way you want and mine turns out like an IPA. I realize I goofed, and I pour some maltier beer in to mellow it out after the fact. We're both equally skilled brewers? Even though you made the style you originally intended and I didnt?

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BJCP competitions have got nothing to do with skill. There is nothing in the BJCP guidelines about brewing skill. They are about making your beer achieve a particular profile. You can make the best APA in the world, but if it doesn't fit neatly into the BJCP style guidelines, you are **** out of luck. I don't see anything wrong with blending, so long as you brewed all the beers.

DrDirt said:

I disagree. The purpose of making beer to drink is to make something that tastes great to you. On the other hand, brewing a beer for competition is a test of the brewer's ability to make a beer that matches pre-defined criteria. Before he begins to brew, he (she) has a specific taste, color, ABV in mind, and uses skill to match those criteria.

Blending beer to reach a BJCP guideline is like shanking your tee shot onto another fairway and deciding to play that hole instead.

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I think you mistake the point of the BJCP. They don't care how you got there. They don't say "you have to mash X ingredients, use X yeast, and ferment for X time to make this beer". If you look at the guidelines for each style, they cover a pretty wide range. Blending can be an art in itself. If that makes the best beer, then so be it.

Check out the appearance for a Dry Stout

Appearance: Jet black to deep brown with garnet highlights in color. Can be opaque (if not, it should be clear).

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how freaking vague is that? The guidelines are full of stuff like that. Some styles range from 30-60 IBUs etc. There are also other styles that rely on blending for the final taste. Gueuze is one example.

I could see the argument that blending homebrew with commercial beer could be "illegal". As long as its all homebrew, I don't see a problem with it.

I think, generally, people are not too sure of what the BJCP is all about, and how beer is judged. I highly recommend perusing the BJCP Exam Center. Check out the study guide, judges guide manual and even the practice exam.

You're right. It certainly doesn't take any knowledge of brewing, mashing, yeast, hops, fermentation and malts to make a beer that meets pre-determined criteria, and tastes/smells/looks the way you intended before you began heating strike water.

"BJCP competitions have got nothing to do with skill" ...and i assume that the really good brewers who routinely win these competitions are just exceptionally lucky.

Lets look at it this way: a lot of beers are made by following a set of instructions without variation, where these instructions are meant to produce a particular product.

Toilet seats are made the same way.

Some beers are made by tasting and blending batches to produce a particular final product.

Wine is made the same way.

Do you want to elevate beer making to the level of wine making or restrict it to the level of toilet seat making? A lot of good beer is made in factories; and home brewers are free to limit themselves to a factory type process if they wish.

As long as you don't keg...

The competition awards the best beer that meets the guidelines. That's all. Most of the time, that will be a beer crafted by a skilled brewer, but not all the time. If blending a beer makes it better, there is no reason for it not to score higher. It's all about the beer in front of the judge.

"BJCP competitions have got nothing to do with skill" ...and i assume that the really good brewers who routinely win these competitions are just exceptionally lucky.

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Let me put this another way: BJCP competition rules don't care whether the brewer who made the beer is highly skilled. There are people who have posted on HBT about winning Best of Show on their first batch of beer. Do you think these are skilled brewers? Just because skilled brewers tend to perform better as a group than unskilled brewers doesn't mean anything. The person who wins first place did so because they submitted a beer the judges liked better.

The same can be said of poker. A skilled poker player will generally perform better than an unskilled player over the long haul, but anyone can win, and the rules don't care about who is a better player.

"Toilet seats are made the same way." - so are space shuttles. This is a non sequitor.

IMHO, the BJCP guidelines are extablished to define a style, with specific criteria. This way, brewers can take aim at creating a beer with those characteristics. By using knowlegde of mash temps, hops profiles, yeast strains, etc, etc, we try to brew a beer that meets the static BJCP guidelines. Let me be clear, we often make very good beer that does not meet BJCP style guidelines, the purpose of brewing is to make beer you like to drink.

However, in a competition the purpose is to make a beer that tastes good and also meets certain criteria. Some brewers pick a style, APA for example, and create a recipe, brew it, tweak it, re-brew it and contunially refine their recipe to make the best APA possible within BJCP guidelines.
Other brewers may make something thats close to correct and then blend it with another beer to meet the criteria. In either case, it's good beer! The difference, IMHO, is that the first person has a tried and true recipe, thats repeatable, that doesn't require the variables of blending (unless called for in the BJCP). He aimed at a specific target (BJCP) before starting the brew, and achieved his goal without having to make corrections to the brew by blending. Both methods achieve the same result, but once again IMHO, the first brewer exhibits more forethought, knowledge and skill.
Now, if the brewer plans ahead to blend, it's more acceptable. Some irish stouts, for example, require a portion of the wort to be seperated and soured, and then blended back in. Those circumstances, to me, are very different from accidentally making a brew that's different than the intended style, and then using blending to change it.
OP asked for opinions, that's what I gave.
Clearly I've stepped on the toes of a few folks who blend beers for competition. oops.

BTW, wine is blended due to differing soil conditions, weather, varietals, and climates from whence the grapes come. In the case of beer, we all have access to the same raw materials.

I would think it would take more skill to brew two beers that blend together to be a great APA than to just brew a great APA to begin with.

It is most certainly not cheating. Is it cheating to blend sours together? Hell no, that is traditional. Why not any other beer, as long as all the threads are your own brewed beer.

weirdboy said:

The same can be said of poker. A skilled poker player will generally perform better than an unskilled player over the long haul, but anyone can win, and the rules don't care about who is a better player.

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One hand of poker is anyone's game, 1000 hands of poker and the better player will almost without a doubt have the largest pile of chips in front of them.

DrDirt said:

BTW, wine is blended due to differing soil conditions, weather, varietals, and climates from whence the grapes come. In the case of beer, we all have access to the same raw materials.

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This is so close to true. However, you and I would have to work from the same bag of grain, the same plant of hops and the same vial of yeast. Oh, and the same water.

I sincerely doubt BJCP cares about blending. Newcastle is listed as a commercial example of Northern English Brown. If they gave you crap about blending, this would make your case.

I think the article by Gordon Strong on "How to Compete" (or something like that) in Zymurgy is the reason why I think homebrew competitions are a load of bunk. Brew what you want to brew. It's not the beer you brewed and you most certainly can't replicate it if you can't brew it in the first place. He and anyone else who do it for competitions are CHEATERS. If one is really that concerned with making a beer to an exact BJCP style (and blending is the way they accomplish it) then I find it pathetic that they go to that extent to win an award.

As far as blended lambics and British stock ales, they are historically accurate (if that's your thing). That would be acceptable if you compete.

Sections 17a-17c in the 2008 BJCP suggest blending is necessary for the style and is becoming a lost art.

Bull****. Complete bull****.

Taking two ****ty beers and blending them together doesn't magically transform them into something magical. But, if you know that this batch has just not quite enough bitterness, and you've got another batch that's maybe just a bit too bitter, and you work to get the proportions just right... ****, dude, that's an art all by itself. Wineries do this all the time. Major breweries do this all the time, that's what they do when they're constantly sampling the different batches.

If someone makes a batch that's not quite perfect... and they know HOW to fix it, that's 100% OK with me.

brewmasterjjfad said:

Sections 17a-17c in the 2008 BJCP suggest blending is necessary for the style and is becoming a lost art.

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i agree, if you play to "Style" then you should only blend the beers where it is "neccessary for the style." Don't go all Gordon Strong.

the_bird said:

Bull****. Complete bull****.

Taking two ****ty beers and blending them together doesn't magically transform them into something magical. But, if you know that this batch has just not quite enough bitterness, and you've got another batch that's maybe just a bit too bitter, and you work to get the proportions just right... ****, dude, that's an art all by itself. Wineries do this all the time. Major breweries do this all the time, that's what they do when they're constantly sampling the different batches.

If someone makes a batch that's not quite perfect... and they know HOW to fix it, that's 100% OK with me.

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I am just thinking of brewing for competitions here (not for one's own enjoyment). I could care less what Gordon Strong and the others do for their own buzz. The fact is that it is not the beer they brewed. It's the beer they blended. It might be semantical, but competitions are an exercise in pedantic semantics. And if a style doesn't call for blending (and the brewer (blender) chooses to blend), it IS cheating. Comparing this to wineries is a bogus argument. It is the historic style to blend wines (either grapes or from different barrels) just like many "Styles" of beer.

Again, you can argue all day about which EXACT series of steps is "real" brewing while any deviation from that series is hackery and cheating. If you draw the line at blending, why? Maybe I'm cheating because I buy premalted and kilned malts while real brewers malt their own. Oh wait, no, the guy that grows the barley and malts it is the real brewer.. Nevermind, I just found out that he buys his fertilizer. What a hack.

If you can assembled ingredients in a manor that resembles brewing and deliver it to someone who thinks it is an amazing beer, you're the man. If that someone is a judge and that beer fits the style you entered it as, you win. If it was a blend that made it that way, you're not only a good brewer, but you're a good quality control tech too.

Bobby_M said:

If you can assembled ingredients in a manor that resembles brewing and deliver it to someone who thinks it is an amazing beer, you're the man. If that someone is a judge and that beer fits the style you entered it as, you win. If it was a blend that made it that way, you're not only a good brewer, but you're a good quality control tech too.

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Well-said as always, Bobby. A lot of brewers wouldn't even know that their beer NEEDED to be "fixed" by blending, much less have the skill to do so effectively.

Bobby_M said:

Again, you can argue all day about which EXACT series of steps is "real" brewing while any deviation from that series is hackery and cheating. If you draw the line at blending, why?

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I guess because I see the style guide as an historic, rigid guideline.

Then you need to study the history of the guidelines, because you are wrong

Bobby_M said:

. . . Oh wait, no, the guy that grows the barley and malts it is the real brewer.. Nevermind, I just found out that he buys his fertilizer. What a hack.

If you can assembled ingredients in a manor that resembles brewing and deliver it to someone who thinks it is an amazing beer, you're the man. . .

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I don't know Bobby. You're going to one extreme. The other would be pouring a commercial beer into an unmarked bottle and sending it off to a competition. Heck, if you’re the guy who decided which one from your local beer mart was best, you deserve to win.

I think, inside, we all know what it takes to brew a good beer. And that doesn’t mean, “I F’ed it up, but if I blend it with this other stuff it might be OK.” If you F it up, you start over!

AnOldUR said:

I don't know Bobby. You're going to one extreme. The other would be pouring a commercial beer into an unmarked bottle and sending it off to a competition. Heck, if you’re the guy who decided which one from your local beer mart was best, you deserve to win.

I think, inside, we all know what it takes to brew a good beer. And that doesn’t mean, “I F’ed it up, but if I blend it with this other stuff it might be OK.” If you F it up, you start over!

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If that's the case, why isn't adding maltodextrine or lactose cheating? How about adding irish moss, gelatin or filtering? Those are all CHEATING by those standards.

There are a lot of posts about people "messing up" a beer and blending into another. What if it isn't a mistake? What if you brew 2 proper beers, and decide to blend them is that ok? At the end of the day this is a stupid argument, because it would be an unenforcable rule in competition. Also, the better brewer makes the better beer. Period.

AnOldUR said:

I think, inside, we all know what it takes to brew a good beer. And that doesn’t mean, “I F’ed it up, but if I blend it with this other stuff it might be OK.”

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I'd like to believe that if the end result of blending is a beer that is just "OK," you aren't (or shouldn't be) winning the competition. If you are, there's a bigger issue at play.

I'd wager that the a good number of "bad beers" are caused by a flaw in the processs leading to an infection, or a something like bad/stale ingredients. Those kinds of flaws aren't going to be fixed with blending.

What might be fixed are beers where the core issue is recipe-based or maybe something like attenuation. Maybe you don't have enough finishing hops, in which case you need to brew a non-flawed beer that has just enough "extra' to make up the difference. A beer that's underattenuated, to fix that you've got to be able to brew a beer that'll match flavor-wise that dries out a lot more. Those kinds of adjustments show a helluva lot of skill.

In any case, being against "blending" because it's not listed as acceptable in the style guidelines is just... wrong. The guidelines themselves are designed to be pretty fluid, and aren't all that old; the very concept of style guidelines comes from Michael Jackson through Papa Charlie. Multiple times, you read Papazian tell you - these are not designed to be absolute. They're "guidelines," not "rules."

If someone blended two beers together that produced a better beer than mine, he made a better beer.

Right. Blending two beers that you made to accentuate some quality is just as much brewing as mixing extract and water. The post about lactose is spot on. You brew a milk stout and it ferments a little dryer than you were hoping for. Do you start over or try a little more lactose? Is that cheating? What about dry hopping to add more nose to an IPA? What about blending in a hop tea for more bitterness?

It just seems like some are putting more emphasis on coming up with a great beer via preplanned steps vs. potentially modifying the process along the way (which is where I put blending). Granted, it's a last ditch effort to get what you want, but it's an equally valid brewing technique.

You have to go pretty far to cheat in a comp like tearing the label for Sienna Nevada for instance.

AnOldUR said:

I don't know Bobby. You're going to one extreme. The other would be pouring a commercial beer into an unmarked bottle and sending it off to a competition. Heck, if you’re the guy who decided which one from your local beer mart was best, you deserve to win.

I think, inside, we all know what it takes to brew a good beer. And that doesn’t mean, “I F’ed it up, but if I blend it with this other stuff it might be OK.” If you F it up, you start over!

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I agree that I went off the deep end for drama but the point is, if there is a scale that ranges from brewing hack cheater to ultimate bad brewing muthaFer, I highly doubt anyone would put beer blending to the far left. I think brewing two good AG beers made with home toasted grain and homegrown hops, and perhaps later blending them is far more noble and badass than mixing a can of coopers into some tap water in the fermenter even if that beer was intially "better" than one of the two blended beers.

weremichael said:

I guess because I see the style guide as an historic, rigid guideline.

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Then you need to learn more about the BJCP. The guidelines are constantly changing. They were just revised in 2008 (From the old 2004 version). Styles are a constantly evolving thing, especially as people start to brew them more, and brew more deviations of them. The lines can get pretty hazy too. Its pretty common to enter a IPA thats on the low end of the style into APA. That way it really stands out. You will find the line between Porter/robust porter isn't exactly a line in the sand either. Duvel, the classic Belgian Golden Strong probably wouldn't do good in a comp as a BGS. Why? Our vision, and commercial examples of the style have changed. Look at Oktoberfest. Most commercial examples are just big Helles beers.

Blend away, as long as you are not adding a commercial who cares.

Like others have mentioned, only someone extremely lucky or talented could make a blend worthy of winning.

Extract brews place well in many competitions and technically they were mashed/sparged by someone other than the person entering the competition.

If you make a great beer, who cares how you did it. Just hopefully you know how so you can repeat it.

Everyone except the very first person to ever brew in all of history has 'deviated from the rules' and thankfully people continue to do so or we would not have all these wonderful styles!

It isn't cheating because it isn't against the rules. In effect calling someone a cheater when they haven't broken the rules seems bad form.