Possibly, yes.
BTW: I'm not down with this accidental beer concept.
If you brewed a beer (using methods including possibly blending), EVALUATED IT TO A STYLE guideline and entered it, then there is no accident.
You can follow every recommendation under the sun to increase your chances of repeating a beer, but there is certainly no guarantee of it. Who is to say that your carefully brewed un-blended beer is not a one off? An accident.
Already explained this in a follow-up post. If you buy into the subjective comment, then beer rating and award-winning is nullified and all due to subjective interpretation. It's not to say the beer is bad, it's just you are not responsible for creating it.
Let's say I was brewing a Dortmunder, and for some reason, my hop utilization was better than I expected and it was too hoppy. The beer's ok, but not really in style or what I like, so I add some combination of my own Helles and Pilsener to nudge the beer into the proper values for the style in terms of FG, taste and IBU.
I've never seen anything that even implied that the brewer's original intent was the important part.
>"For the slight miss in IBU or gravity due to unknown, lets call them, imperfections in the hops (not well-recorded AA, let's say) or slight miss in mashing temp by 1-2 degrees (or the machine weighing the grains was inaccurate a little), I think are dismissible, but only a certain extent. If you want to take responsibility for a beer, you should have a lot of experience with that beer (in making it, knowledge about what goes in to it, exact amount of hops, etc etc.). I, personally wouldn't take it this far. I think it is enough to have a planned vision of what you are going to make and then act on that vision. If it does not turn out how you have seen it, keep working at it. Once you have it, master it. Only then can it be called your beer (unless, that is, you buy into the realm of the subjective and thence anyone can see the beer for whatever they want and it loses it's objective value and vision that you constructed it with. Think of a tarp with paint splattered on it randomly. Is this "art"? No. It is not. There is a purpose behind what an artist does and a certain objectivity in their creation that they have built it on and want people to see. People can claim to feel all sorts of percepts (e.g. emotions) it gives them, but these people completely miss the point). People that act (paint) without a purpose in mind are not making "art". I could keep going, but I don't feel it's as related. Another way to think of it is as a BMC drinker liking your beer because it's red and that is it. Does that make your beer good because it is red? Hell no. That is an amber ale brewed with: ______ ________ _______ etc. etc. You wonder why we hate BMC drinkers and don't like people who don't understand something for what it is.)."
Intent is looked at if you actually deserve the award. I can pour an old rasputin and a dopplebock together and submit it as my own, do you think I deserve an award? If the beer is good, that's nice and dandy (and maybe a good reference point for future brews), but you don't win. You didn't do anything. That's similar to covering a popular bands song, putting your own little spin on it (Additional bass line etc.) and claiming it your own.
What if I was to add to my recipe x# of grain, xOZ hops, & another yeast...but the manner in which I add them would be to first combine them separately then introduce the rest of the ingredients to which they also have been combined. Is that blending?
If that was your original goal, it should be fine under most circumstances.
The one problem with this point that you keep bringing up is that this thread has shown that most experienced brewers consider blending to be a part of the brewing process.
"Remember, the major goal of competitions
is to educate the entrants and
to help them improve their brewing.
The one problem with this point that you keep bringing up is that this thread has shown that most experienced brewers consider blending to be a part of the brewing process."
Most 'experienced brewers' that you speak of have the idea of blending in mind and (may) have the knowledge and background (experience) to do so. I'd digress to my argument that one (the person) should only get an award if they had experience with the beer and have worked at it from a vision they had, whether it be from past experienced, inspiration, ideas, etc. They have to work at it to call and know every step about what they are doing in order to claim responsibility for it.
A lot of this just ends up coming down to the beer getting the award and you just getting to hold on to it. I think a person getting the award relates more to a single brewery, as they have (in their mind) perfected a style and continue to make that single beer to the best of their abilities. Not everything can be calculated 100% accurately, but things like that are to be expected.