Poll: Beer Competition Ethics

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Is it ethical to submit a beer to a competition using someone else's recipe?

  • No, it is not ethical-- figure out your own recipe!

  • Yes, it is ethical-- brewing is a performance, while the recipe is just the score.

  • Meh-- you think too much.


Results are only viewable after voting.

SavageSteve

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What are your thoughts about submitting a beer to a competition that was made using someone else's recipe?

For me, it doesn't seem right, but I'm interested in what others feel about this. I've never entered a competition before, so maybe I'm way off base here. I hope I'm not opening a can of worms here.

-Steve
 
I'm not sure it's truly unethical, but I personally probably wouldn't do it. I'd like feedback on my OWN recipe, not just my ability to follow the script...
 
We could all brew the same recipe and we would end up with very different beers.

When I brew a recipe, no matter where it came from, it is my unique beer because I used my water, methods, equipment, time, temperatures, etc.
 
If you used your own water and equipment and procedures then you have something that is uniquely yours. I rarely ever create a recipe exactly I find it since I usually substitute something, either way though it is your beer that you made.

Anyway I'd be proud to have someone brew my recipe and enter it into a competition. I'm sure most people here feel that way.
 
Do we all honestly think that after CENTURIES of brewing that there really is a true UNIQUE brew that still exists? As has been stated, if you gave 5 people the same recipe, I dare say even the same ingredients you will get 5 different brews.
 
Yea, who cares. To submit a beer to a comp, you have to brew to style anyways. Honestly, how many different recipes are there for a Bavarian Hefeweizen?

McDole won the SA Longshot comp with a clone of Russian River's Pliny. Many people have won comps with recipes from Brewing Classic Styles. Brewing (and winning) is much less about the recipe than the process.
 
In my opinion, submitting a brew of someone else's recipe is fine; you wouldn't be penalised for entering someone else's recipe in a cooking competition would you? There's a lot of skill in brewing; it's easy to get something that's drinkable, but to get an excellent brew takes practice, fine tuning, and skill.
 
I voted B......anyways, the only truly original recipes out there are for beers that have their own style outside of the guidelines. All others a just a variation on a theme.
 
I think that the process of making beer has more to do with the recipe that is used.

If the AB brewers gave everyone on HBT the exact 5 gallon recipe for Bud, and we all brewed it, very few people would have a beer that AB would actually call a Bud. That is due to the process and not the recipe.
 
Brewing is a process.

I'd go even farther than kilted and say that 3 brewers following the same recipe, using the same ingredients - water, malt, yeast, hops - brewing side by side (somehow unaware they're all using the same recipe) then taking home and fermenting would produce 3 different beers.

Timing, temps (mash and ferment), carbonation (volumes and natty vs forced), Time (hop additions, mash, sparge), time on the yeast, techniques (fly/batch sparge, racking style, aeration) and equipment - from electronically controlled all stainless blingman to heatstick and buckets, crush of grain all change the final product.

It may speak to my Noobness as a brewer but there are two beers I've repeated - BM's centennial and LilSparky's Nut brown - both were subtlely different each time (I have no temp control set up yet which is probably a large part of it).

Hell, there's talk here of different years of commercial beer's special releases being vastly different year to year. If the pros produce a different process each time...
 
Two extremely good homebrewers could make the same recipe and have it turn out exactly the same. More likely, if you had ten people brew a recipe, you'd have ten beers. OSU Fermentation Sciences made a Bière de Garde wort with HoV and 23 people took some home to ferment. Results? I've tasted four of them, and they aren't the same beer.

You brew it, it's your beer.
 
Isn't the reason they sell pre-made kits is because even with the same kit it will always turn out different. Even if I do it at home myself. just a two or three minute difference in adding the hops or boiling the work makes a complete different beer.
 
Personally I only enter my recipes, although, that's all I brew. My first brew was O'Flannagains Standard Stout, the rest have been my recipes. It's more enjoyable to me to come up with a recipe and brew it from scratch.
 
Not unethical to enter your beer in a competition that is someone else's recipe. There are really just so many way to make the varied styles of beer and still be in the style . In the thousands of years beer has been around how can we say our beer is our own recipe? someone somewhere has made it before
 
I think that if you relabled a bottle of Revvy's brown and called it your own... that would be bad. If you used his recipe, maybe subbed out hops for a slightly different flavor, then that would be acceptable.

I'd still have to send him a sixxer of whatever won -- just because.
 
I think that if you relabled a bottle of Revvy's brown and called it your own... that would be bad. If you used his recipe, maybe subbed out hops for a slightly different flavor, then that would be acceptable.

I'd still have to send him a sixxer of whatever won -- just because.

The recipe or the beer? I think he'd disagree with you if you said beer. But he would take your beer.
 
I'm enjoying reading everyone's opinions-- more views to think about. Keep 'em coming (unless we've run out of unique opinions ;) ).

-Steve
 
100 Blonde Ales are entered to a competition -- I bet 20 or 30 of those have nearly identical recipes -- and the scores for those beers will range from 20 to 45 -- all based on the brewer's attention to detail and process.

I would have no problem submitting a beer that was based on someone else's recipe.
 
Yeah, I could only dream of brewing one of Jamil's recipes and have it taste like his! Or any number of the great brewers who frequent this place.

Wanna start a fight? Just ask which method or equipment is best (doesn't matter which process or piece of equipment you are asking about).
 
I think it's impossible to follow a recipe to a T: even if you try to use most ingredients from someone else's recipe...there's always going to be some difference in water content, malt profile, hop acids, etc. That plus I'm always having to substitute hops....I kind of like trying out a recipe, but then tweaking it if I prefer other things. Brewing is like cooking: there's so much process and quality of ingredients used....that a measure of the brewer (or cook) should be their ability and not their source of recipe. Afterall, the more experience I get, the more I know what recipes I'll like and which ones I'd like to alter. That's part of getting experience and becoming a better brewer.
 
I stated that, although I don't think there's anything unethical about it, I would not enter someone else's recipe in a comp. Here's my reasoning: My motivation for entering a comp would be to get feedback on my performance as a brewer designing a beer. Everyone has to follow guidelines to brew a style, but the guidelines are very general when you think about the variables in the brewing process.

If your goal is to just create a great beer, there's absolutely no reason not to use a proven recipe, and apply your brewing skills toward focusing on the brewing process to maximize the strengths of the recipe and minimize defects.

I am still trying to get a handle on ingredients and their effects on the finished beer - my focus is on designing the grain bill, hopping schedule etc. to create the flavor I have in mind.

There's nothing new under the sun - some beers are more unique than others, but all are variations on a theme. It's the experience of taking an idea and turning it into a product that most interests me.
 
PoB-- that entire post is my thinking as well!

In my mind, I see a competition as 50% skill (how well I can master the process of brewing beer no matter what recipe) and 50% creativity (how well I can design a recipe that tastes "good").

Sure, there are only so many sufficiently unique recipe variations that we can create, but for me, there's a difference between copying someone else's recipe, even with my own tweaks and spin on it, and creating my own recipe that may or may not be just like someone else's. One is done intentionally, the other is not.

But that's just me. I hope nobody thinks that I look down on people who use someone else's recipes-- in fact, I really want to try many of the recipes I've seen here on HBT. I just wouldn't feel good about myself if I submitted them for a competition. Or maybe not... I've yet to do either, so my opinion may change!

I think that, ultimately, brewing a beer that is technically done well (skill) and that tastes good (creativity) is why we're all in this obsession, and that's all I want to do.

-Steve
 
Just for argument's sake. For those that must create their own recipe, do you require yourself to make your own equipment? Source your own ingredients?
 
Just for argument's sake. For those that must create their own recipe, do you require yourself to make your own equipment? Source your own ingredients?

No. Do all musicians make their own instruments? Do all photographers make their own cameras or their own prints (some masters do not, in fact, always make their own prints).

At this point in human evolution, everyone is building upon the work of others before them.

-Steve
 
Nor do all musicians write their own music.

Like the London Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven. Nobody would knock them for not writing their own music, but one can still be impressed by their performance!

There are many ways to define and grok this argument-- no one person is right, and I appreciate the diverse opinions.

-Steve
 
I agree. I'm just throwing it out there. I think a good chunk of brewers are happy being top knotch sous chefs and they should not be discouaged from competition. Both you and POB were right to make that clear.
 
I think I'd like to give the author credit, even if it's just by way of an allegorical mention in the beer's name. There's a finite number of recipes, and an infinite variation of process.
 
Like the London Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven. Nobody would knock them for not writing their own music, but one can still be impressed by their performance!

There are many ways to define and grok this argument-- no one person is right, and I appreciate the diverse opinions.

-Steve


Oh great! Now I'm the fookin' Sex Pistols of homebrew.....Thanks! :(

;);)
 
We could all brew the same recipe and we would end up with very different beers.

When I brew a recipe, no matter where it came from, it is my unique beer because I used my water, methods, equipment, time, temperatures, etc.

+1
The anniversary beer brews and swaps are good examples of this. I got to try 3 other Russian Imperial Stouts in addition to my own. They were all easily different beers despite using the same recipe. And the one from Brewpastor was far and away superior to my own.

Brewing is a craft and a recipe is just the starting point. So much else is required to make a good beer.

Craig
 
In my mind, I see a competition as 50% skill (how well I can master the process of brewing beer no matter what recipe) and 50% creativity (how well I can design a recipe that tastes "good").
-Steve

It may be 50/50 for all brewers, but i think the top places are decided much more strongly by brewing than recipe. If everyone brewed with the same recipe, the top beers would be no harder to determine than an open recipe competition. Ofcourse there would be fewer "what were they thinking" beers. :)

And BTW I nearly always create my own recipe as i find that to be a good portion of the fun in brewing.

Craig
 
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