I am going to participate in my first contest(BJCP)

I have a few questions for you.

First some data about it. It's going to be a small BJCP contest(only people from the university can participate) and it will be in one month. Sadly I was told about it only 4 days ago so I couldn't brew something special for it(I usually left my beer for 5 weeks in the primary). I made an English bitter of low ABV which I think it can be ready in a month(Am I right? 3.3 ABV%), I also have an IPA(I mixed American and English hops for this one, would I be penalized for this in the contest? BJCP guidelines sounds very strict) and a beer close to a Saison but with a large % of wheat and using an English yeast(is it too crazy to present it as a Saison for the contest?, it has too much ABV% and IBU for a wheat beer, I simulated the citrus flavour adding some lemon peels to it).

What do you think? should I forget about the contest? compete only with the bitter and/or IPA? or with the three beers?

The contest is very cheap, 2 dollars for every beer you inscribe, so money is not an issue.

I think contest are a great way to get honest and valuable feedback on your beer and process, so even if you dont place you can still get a lot of the comp. At $2 an entry i say enter everything you can.

Cheers and good luck,

You might try entering the saison as another category...maybe category 23 (specialty beer) would be appropriate. To be honest it doesn't really sound like a saison to me, as the yeast character is really important to that style, and I don't think an English ale yeast is going to give you a similar result.


As to the IPA, I don't think you would necessarily be penalized for anything, it is more about how well your beer matches the description. If the dominant aromas and hop flavors are citrusy/piney, then I don't think it is a given that you would be scored lower for having earthy/floral hop aromas & flavors in there as well.

Thanks for the input. If I inscribe my "Saison" under specialty beer, what do I have to say about it? how can judges judge a specialty beer?

When you enter the beer, there should be a place where you can describe any special ingredients or processes.

Here is the relevant section of the rules from the competition we just held yesterday:

For entries in category 23 (Specialty/Experimental/Historical), the brewer must specify the experimental nature of the beer (e.g., type of special ingredients used, process utilized or historical style being brewed), or why the beer doesn't fit an established style. The brewer may specify an underlying beer style. For historical styles or unusual ingredients/techniques that may not be known to all beer judges, the brewer should provide descriptions of the styles, ingredients and/or techniques as an aid to the judges.

Click to expand...

So in our registration form, there were "base style" and "special ingredients" fields, as well as a "comments" field. Both of those fields were then printed out on the score sheets & flight summary sheets that the judges used when judging the beers. It is particularly important to describe the beer in the appropriate fields on the form(s), or else the judges don't really have a frame of reference by which to assign scores.