Wood Category

[hoptualBrew]

I'm not too sure how homebrew competitions and recognition goes for wood aged beers. Are entries docked points for being in a category such as "Old Ale" 19A, when it should have been in "Wood-Aged Beer" 22C? For example, two Old Ales submitted, one aged in a bourbon barrel for exquisite complexity and one unaged but yet still an amazing beer. Would the judges dock points & state it should be entered as a Wood-Aged beer?

Reason I am bringing this up is that when browsing BeerAdvocate & RateBeer in the past, Wood and Barrel-aged beers always top out the categories for the most part. I think this to be unfair since beers aged in spirit barrels or on spirit infused wood are completely different animals than their original versions.

 

[Homercidal]

There is a wood aged category for a reason. The straight-up categories will not be brewed to style if they contain wood flavors.

You would be competing against an unknown style of beer in the wood category, but that's how it goes.

As far as Ratebeer, etc. Those beers are generally more expensive and stronger than a lot of other beers. People who drink them give them high marks because they are more expensive and exclusive (IMO). That is not to say there aren't some very good "normal" beers, but they don't get noticed because they aren't "special". (like some high priced exotic cars have a crappy ride and break down often and are very expensive to fix, but they are exotic because they are expensive, go fast, and handle like crazy.)