Need help classifying beer for Competition

[kahunaman]

Hey everyone...
I'm about to enter 8 beers into my first competition and I was hoping someone/ few of you could take a look at my beers and how I classified them to make sure they're in the right class. Any help would be great!

Dutch Lager - I made a heiniken-like beer. I find light and dark - but no straight lager. thoughts?

Fat Tire - I worked with a type of Fat Tire clone. Is this a straight up amber?

Bourbon Chocolate Stout- Is this a stout, or a specialty beer with adjuncts?

Vanilla Porter - Same question as above. Does it class as a porter, or a specialty - in this case, is it a spice or a specialty?

Thanks in advance for any help. I'm looking forward to entering this competition. It's my first one and I just dont' want to make any dumb misstaked by mis-classing a beer or something.
Thanks again!
-Tom

 

[mpb4f]

Hi Tom,
For the Durch lager, I'd take a close look at the style guidelines and see whether you think it might be entered as a Dortmunder or a Helles. Or possibley a Pils if the hop balance is right.
I'll leave the Fat Tire to someone else, no idea what to do with that one.
The last two are interesting. For the Stout, I would be inclined to try entering it as a stout. I've brewed a chocolate RIS in the past and entered it as a specialty and the gerneral concensus is that it would probably have done better as a stout. I think that the rational for this is that the chocolate flavor is not unusual in a stout, you can get pretty strong chocolate character from grain so what you are in effect doing is just amplifying the character that's already there. I think with a specialty entry, you really want it to be something that differs significantly from the norm. For the porter, I'd enter it in the spiced beer catagory of the vanilla is really obvious. If it's subtle, you oculd probably either go spiced or just as a porter.
Matt