Competition ethics question

Would you enter a clone beer into a Pro Am competition?

no.

When(and if) I get to that point, I want to know how my creations stack up, not someone else's.

I'm W/ Yankee on this one. If your in it to win it. It has to be yours

I think so too. I just made a beer that is a total winner and there are just a lot of Pro Am comps going on right now. I'll figure it out.

Yes. The brewer makes the beer. You can give a great recipe to poor brewer and you will get a crappy beer.

+1 on yes. But i would not enter the Sam Adams Summer Clone in the Sam Adams brewery comp.

Beerrific said:

Yes. The brewer makes the beer. You can give a great recipe to poor brewer and you will get a crappy beer.

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I'd have to agree with beerific on this one. I'm on AG batch #26 and I've yet to "create" an original beer. I don't feel that I've exactly copied someone elses recipe either.

I read thru a lot of recipes and use a lot of peoples ideas (including clones)
to get me into the ballpark of a beer that I know I like. I invariably change ingredients or processes to reflect what I have on hand, or what I think might improve the recipe to reflect my tastes.

If I come up with a batch that I feel is truly outstanding I wouldn't hesitate to enter it into a competition. And feel proud that I "made" it.

IMO, recipes are just recipes it's fairly easy to make good ones. I think it's all about the process. Several brewers could brew the same recipe and they all would taste/look/smell at least a little different. Heck, even the same brewer brewing the same recipe twice sometimes doesn't taste/look/smell exactly the same.

Just look at how different people's efficiencies are...and their attenuation. And that's just for starters (hey, there's another...yeast care).

DanVader said:

I'm on AG batch #26 and I've yet to "create" an original beer.

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I have a feeling you have created 26 original beers.

Even if it's a clone, and even if you had the exact ingredients (which you probably don't), your process, equipment and environment make it "your" beer. If it makes you feel better just call it by its style, for example American Pale Ale rather than a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Clone... IMHO.. If you feel it worthy, go for it!!!!

boydak said:

+1 on yes. But i would not enter the Sam Adams Summer Clone in the Sam Adams brewery comp.

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Why?

If comps are about brewing to style, who better to know what that style should be than the Originator.

I see competitions as not about whether or not a brewer can come up with a tastey recipe but as whether or not the brewer can brew a good beer intentionally.

The winner of last year (or two years ago, depending on how you track time...)'s Longshot competition was a Pliny clone. Which is good, because I can't get Pliny in Buffalo, so I need to find me one of those six packs (guy in my club says it's a little maltier, a little less hoppy, but good overall).

Personally, I don't like the idea of clone beers, but that's in a 'just me' way, not a 'psh I'm better than you' one.

You brewed it. If you like it, enter it. I wouldn't enter a bottle of the original that I soaked the label off of (though it'd be kinda funny), but you did your own mash, boil, primary, possibly secondary, etc... there are enough variables in there that it's your beer. Which is a longwinded way of saying +1 to Beerrific and hamiltont

carnevoodoo said:

Would you enter a clone beer into a Pro Am competition?

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Let's just look at competition period.

Beer is judged against a style and therefor compared against the best commercial beer of that style.

So try to clone the best example. *shrug*

It worked for Mike McDole with the Longshot Pliny Clone. Is it even a clone if you have the exact recipe?

mmb said:

Is it even a clone if you have the exact recipe?

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Ayup, tis'.

To make that exact beer you must duplicate the brewery and brewery process to remove it from "clonedomness".

Oh, I forgot to add: it's only unethical if the rules state 'no clone beers.' Even then it'd be impossible to catch (unless it was like the gold in AWOG's fruit beer category, an apricot pale ale called Client Number 9... hmm); I mean 'oh you say that tastes a lot like ___? I was just brewing to style.' Which would of course be unethical, which is what you asked

Bottom line is the award is for the beer YOU brewed, not the ingredient list.

It depends. If your clone came out tasting, smelling, and looking like the original beer...congratulations, you made a clone. That's great, but I wouldn't enter it in a competition. However, if you modified the recipe in some way, or maybe just missed mash temp and came up with a completely different beer, then go for it. The beer you made is unique, and if it's good enough for a competition you'll probably be making it again with the same "mistakes".

It's been discussed before - everything's been done before. If i come up with a Czech pils recipe on my own, but because of the simplicity of it it turns out to match 10 other recipes on this site alone, does one still call it a clone? Then the discussion turns to "intent".

Either way, IMO, regardless where you get the recipe, i would say entering ANY recipe into a comp is 100% ethical (provided the lack of explicit rules, as mentioned before), because the process is so dynamic and a beer's recipe is only about 40% of the finished product.