Did I enter my beer into the wrong category?

So I brewed a robust porter and then added coffee and vanilla beans in the secondary. I recently shipped it off to 2 beer comp and entered it into the 12B Robust Porter category without even thinking twice. I was wondering if I should have entered it into the specialty category? Not sure why I didn't think about it before, just curious as I plan to enter it again into a few comps soon and want to make sure I picked the proper or best category for it.

thanks

 

I would first look at the finished beer and determine how strong is the impact of vanilla and coffee (mostly the vanilla, since coffee is OK in porters). Judges do not know how you produced the beer, they only see the finished product.

 

Natural ice apparently won the cream ale category at GABF so you might be ok.

 

This is a conversation I have with the "Overlord" of our brew club. He kept sending in great beers to competitions but never winning anything. I told him that you have to brew to a style but he just never got it. Finally he was asked to be a beer judge for a local competition. They handed him a written profile from the BJCP guide lines. When he tasted the beers he was looking at the profile and seeing how close each beer got to it and made a decision for each sample. By the time he was done he finally understood why he never wins anything! He likes making "HIS" beer the way he likes it, and that's a great thing since he makes really good beer. If you're entering a competition you must brew to style. Look up the profile of the beer you're brewing at the BJCP website. Formulate a recipe that will meet those requirements. Although most of us don't care if the beer is a little cloudy I can tell you if two beers taste the same and one is clear, it will win most of the time. Except for wheat beers of course. Might not seem fair but it's just the way it is. For all beers that don't meet certain style requirements then you must put it in the specialty catagory and that's a tough one to win since it's all subjective.

 

thanks for the advice. i have no idea why i didn't think about it, but we'll see how it does and what the judges say but i think for the future comps that i plan to enter this beer i'm going to go the specialty category right b/c as you say tootal you need to brew to a style and pretty sure vanilla isn't in the BJCP guidelines for porters! oh well live and learn, i'm looking forward to non-biased feedback the most.

 

Honest, I would have done the same thing I think. I do understand the beer must match the style, but I think I would have made the same judgement call (hate to call it a mistake). I hope that even if you don't place that you get great feedback on the beer. I did enter my sweet stout in the stout category and that stout had toasted coconut. It is hard to read the handwriting of the judges (they all seem to write crazy poor), but I didn't notice any feedback about it not being the right brew for the category.

 

It sounds like a great beer! Depending on how big the competition is and how many entrants are in that catagory you still have a chance.
Good luck!

 

yeah i'm hopeful it does good, i have only entered one other BJCP comp so I'm looking for good feedback. My homebrew club great about that too but I'm curious to see what total strangers think. The first comp is Feb 8th so I'll have to wait patiently to see.

 

if you can detect either, it shoulda been in 21A. you should still hopefully get solid feedback on the beer, but may lose a bit of the comments to the additives.

 

Yea, if you can taste the coffee or the vanilla (particularly the vanilla) it won't score well, as those flavors are out of place anywhere but SHV or Specialty. If you have some left, you can submit to the next competition in 21A and see how it does.