What are the most common styles entered into your local homebrew competitions?

[nrjones89]

Around these parts, I am seeing a lot of sours, Belgians, American ales, and *PAs, in that order. I am about to enter my first competition with a German pilsner... doesn't seem like very many people enter traditional styles, especially the lighter ones. Why is that? What are you seeing at the local competitions most?

 

[mashpaddled]

I haven't judged here in Denver but in all the competitions I judged in Texas that were not style specific it was always a large number of IPAs followed by pale ales. Stout comes in next, although it depends whether you want to lump all stouts together or treat them separately. The number of sour beers grew over time but still not as many as IPA or pale ale. I suppose if you put together all the Belgian styles together it was a large number but I don't think of those as all the same style any more than all lagers are the same.

I don't think you see a lot of the "traditional" lager or ale styles at competition because fewer people brew those and when they do it's usually as crowd pleaser beers rather than something they want to brew for their own consumption. It reflects beer sales on a commercial craft level. Way more IPA is sold than any other craft category. You used to see a blonde ale of some sort at almost every brewery but now they are fairly rare.