Beer Competitions

How long before any of you entered your beers into a competition?

Secondly... do the beers have to beer all grain or can they be extract?

 

They can be all grain, extract, whatever you want! I think I entered my first competition beer after a year of brewing, but I'm not sure.

 

I entered my first competition about 6 months after I started, I did not do well, but the feedback was invaluable.

 

I entered my second and third batches to a local competition, not sanctioned, but had experienced people judging. Didn't win, but talking with the judges, they said they could have had a couple more of each, so I was happy with it.

 

Good deal. I'm really looking for feedback that isn't from some of my alcoholic friends who will drink anything that isn't bud or miller.

A guy in our local group is a sanctioned judge so I may ask him to sample a few too.

Might as well just send in a few bottles to a comp and see what happens.

 

I joined a homebrew club that has a club wide competition at each meeting (once a month). We normally have 20 to 25 beers, most are focused on the style selected as the theme for the night, a pitcher is filled for each beer and passed around for everyone to take samples of. Each member fills out a bjcp score sheet, the numbers are tallied, the outliers are dropped, and standard deviation factored in. All in all scores I think are much higher than normal competitions (averaging in the 30s), but you still get an idea of how your beer fares, and you get tasting notes from about 30 people.

It's a nice layoff back intro into competitive brewing and judging. So if you want something like that, look around for a club in your area.

 

It took me a few years to work up the nerve. I entered a few beers in a local copy and got 2nd in two catagories and best big beer so was very happy with that. I mostly was looking for feedback so even if you haven't been doing it very long and you just want feedback I say go for it.

 

One of my questions is I have done a Black IPA. How will that be classified? If you look at the classes an AIPA the color will be way off... but the flavors etc will be on.

 

I think a Black IPA would fit best in category 23 - specialty beers.

As for me, I entered my 3rd brew, an all extract chocolate espresso stout, for fun and got a cumulative score of 30! The feedback was great to have and I was definitely happy with my score for it being my 3rd beer. I recommend doing it for the feedback if nothing else.

 

AS far as I know, the BJCP has not officially described a Black IPA. When I judged that category in a competition, we went off of the Brewers Association for that same beer.

In a nutshell it has to be hoppy, like a good American IPA, but black with only a hint of roast malt bitterness.

NOT to be confused with a Stout with lots of hops. You really want the roast character to be subdued.

And remember, at this time the BJCP hasn't got an official category for it, so there is some style discretion for the judges.

 

Ah, yes, I think we did Cat 23 with description of Black IPA or similar when judging.