I was all excited for these to use in competition. I haven't found a competition yet that will accept them, though. If they don't say specifically "brown glass" then they are saying "12 oz", both of which knock these out.
I thought their best use would be to have a lighter, safer package for shipping beer.
the reason that they have rules to bottles in competition is so that no beer stands out in the blind tasting. Usually they allow for many different sizes of brown bottles in bjcp competition, I've entered pints, 22 ounces and 12 ouncers in contests.
One thing to consider doing, which I do, is that whenever you bottle a batch of beer, no matter what type of bottle you use, ALWAYS bottle at least 1 (if not two) six packs of standard 12 ounce brown bottles, with no markings on the shoulders (don't use sam adams or bud american ale bottles which have glass etchings on them) that way you always have a few bottles for entering contests.
I usually only enter 2 contests a year, so I always reserve 1 sixer of every beer I brew throughout the year for entries.
Then when it comes to late summer I put 1 bottle of each sixer in the fridge for a week, then I taste it and see if I feel it's contest worthy. If that's the case then I enter 2 bottles of each of them in the two contests I do.
THEN usually on the weekend that I know they are judging the first contest I enter, I put the last bottle of sixer in the fridge, just to make sure there's no late onset bottle gushing infection or something, and to get a feel for the beer at the point I know they are judging it.
Obviously I don't enter every beer I make in that year in contests, only the ones I think are stellar....and some of them have the luxury of haiving bottle conditioned for maybe a year, so some of those are really awesome. This year I entered 4 beers in one contest and 5 in another, and got honorable mentions for two of them.
The other beers I didn't enter, I stored a couple of each sixer and then drank the rest.
But that way whether or not you use aluminum or bombers or grolsh bottles, if you have at least one 6-er of regular beer bottles for each batch you can enter a couple contest.