Brew Style For Competition Help

[Cat Assistant Brewery]

Hey first time submitting to a contest and I need a little help figuring out the style. The ABV is too high to be an American Wheat beer and not sure if got enough fruit fall into fruit beer style. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Ingredient list below:

Fermentables:
Honey
Wheat DME
Strawberries

Hops:
Nelson Sauvin
Fuggles

Add on/misc:
Hibiscus

ABV: 8%-9.5%
IBU: 30
BU/GU: 0.44

 

[DonT]

Maybe 34B-Mixed Style Beer?

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Can you taste the strawberry and the hibiscus? Fruit beer doesn’t necessarily mean in your face flavor, and you need to declare a base style.

 

[Kickass]

22D Wheatwine? Seems like pretty good fit.

 

[Cat Assistant Brewery]

Can you taste the strawberry and the hibiscus? Fruit beer doesn’t necessarily mean in your face flavor, and you need to declare a base style.

I would say they are the dominate flavor. The honey is just a nice background sweetness and it got almost no hoppy flavor.

 

[Cat Assistant Brewery]

Maybe 34B-Mixed Style Beer?

I was leaning towards that but do I have declare what styles are mixed?

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I would say they [ strawberry and hibiscus ] are the dominate flavor.

Strawberry (fruit) + hibiscus (herb): take a look at category 29B. Fruit and Spice Beer

 

[AlexKay]

29B allows for subtle fruit and spice flavors. If you can’t taste the hops, declaring the base style as an American Wheat might not be the best idea. Maybe something nondescript, like a cream ale or a blonde?

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Take a look at 22D Wheatwine as an option for the base style.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Can you taste the strawberry and the hibiscus? Fruit beer doesn’t necessarily mean in your face flavor, and you need to declare a base style.

I would say they are the dominate flavor. The honey is just a nice background sweetness and it got almost no hoppy flavor.

Oh, are you sure it’s done? Honey shouldn’t leave residual sweetness. If you have the strawberry flavor then you should do well in a fruit beer category. Mind you I am not a beer judge, but many are here on the forum and hopefully one will drop some pearls of wisdom on us.

 

[Cat Assistant Brewery]

Oh, are you sure it’s done? Honey shouldn’t leave residual sweetness. If you have the strawberry flavor then you should do well in a fruit beer category. Mind you I am not a beer judge, but many are here on the forum and hopefully one will drop some pearls of wisdom on us.

Maybe not the honey giving it the sweetness but you can taste the honey notes in behind the other flavors.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Hey first time submitting to a contest and I need a little help figuring out the style.

Personally, when I read "I want to enter a beer into a competition but I don't know what category it fit in" type questions my first thought is that "this beer will not score well in a competition." For good or bad, competitions are very style driven. In my mind, the first steps to doing well in a competition are 1) find/create a recipe that is targeted at the specific descriptions of a style and then 2) execute the brewing of that batch of beer.

Yeah, there is a little bit of cross over with some styles. Maybe a lower ABV Dark Strong should go into the Dubbel category, or maybe the hops in a Czech Pils don't shine and it should go into a different pale lager category.

The handful of "flexible" categories for spiced, fruited, and barrel aged type stuff are a real crap shoot. You have to have a well executed base style and then you are at the mercy of the judges interpretation of the style. When you look at what beers actually win these categories it is often 4 year old aged mix fermentation fruited sours, or complex 14% ABV barrel aged beers.

It might be an incredible beer that you are really proud of. Just don't be too surprised if the competition feedback is more about how the beer did not fit the style parameters.

 

[Cat Assistant Brewery]

Personally, when I read "I want to enter a beer into a competition but I don't know what category it fit in" type questions my first thought is that "this beer will not score well in a competition." For good or bad, competitions are very style driven.

Well that gives me something to think on. I have other beers that better fit in to style guides. Are there competition that are less style driven and more "I had this really good idea but I want know if it is a good idea " Contest?

 

[DBhomebrew]

Well that gives me something to think on. I have other beers that better fit in to style guides. Are there competition that are less style driven and more "I had this really good idea but I want know if it is a good idea " Contest?

Local Homebrew Club's monthly meeting

 

[Oleson M.D.]

Hey first time submitting to a contest and I need a little help figuring out the style. The ABV is too high to be an American Wheat beer and not sure if got enough fruit fall into fruit beer style. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Ingredient list below:

Fermentables:
Honey
Wheat DME
Strawberries

Hops:
Nelson Sauvin
Fuggles

Add on/misc:
Hibiscus

ABV: 8%-9.5%
IBU: 30
BU/GU: 0.44

What was your intention for style? When brewing for a competition, we always use a recipe calculator and fine tune the ingredients for a spot on style match.

We are at a point now where every beer we brew is a certain BJCP style, such as German Pilsner, Vienna Lager, Festbier, English Barleywine, etc.

While we mostly brew for us, and the goal is to brew the best beer we can, it is always to style.

 

[Cat Assistant Brewery]

What was your intention for style? When brewing for a competition, we always use a recipe calculator and fine tune the ingredients for a spot on style match.

We are at a point now where every beer we brew is a certain BJCP style, such as German Pilsner, Vienna Lager, Festbier, English Barleywine, etc.

While we mostly brew for us, and the goal is to brew the best beer we can, it is always to style.

I was going for fusion of a wheat beer and style of drink called a Braggot. But overall feed back am getting is that sounds like I should submit some of my closer to style beers. I was just hoping show this off since I was proud of how this oddball of beer turned out.

 

[Oleson M.D.]

I was going for fusion of a wheat beer and style of drink called a Braggot. But overall feed back am getting is that sounds like I should submit some of my closer to style beers. I was just hoping show this off since I was proud of how this oddball of beer turned out.

Good for you! Glad it turned out to your satisfaction. That is the problem with the BJCP style guidelines. It might be the world’s best beer, but if it is not wholly within the guidelines, it will not matter.

 

[Bobby_M]

I'm pretty confident it would be:
29C. Specialty Fruit Beer A Specialty Fruit Beer is a Fruit Beer with some additional ingredients, such as fermentable sugars (e.g., honey, brown sugar, invert sugar), sweeteners (e.g., lactose), adjuncts, alternative grains, or other special ingredients added, or some additional process applied.

While experimental fusion recipes are not my cup of tea, I do believe there is an appropriate category for just about any concoction one may come up with. It may not be a favorite of whoever ends up judging the avant-garde table but.... These looser categories do tend to be slightly more open to personal preference because there are no commercial examples for a judge to compare to.