Where does my Milk Chocolate Stout fit in BJCP 2015 guidelines?

[djNasty]

I have a Milk Chocolate Stout that I want to enter into a homebrew competition, but I do not know what style i should declare it as. Here is my recipe:

9 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1
1 lbs Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 2
12.00 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 3
8.00 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4
8.00 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 5
1.00 oz Bakers Chocolate (Boil 90 min) Misc 6
1.00 oz Nugget [13.0%] - Boil 60 min Hops 7
1.00 oz Anise, Star (Boil 10 min) Misc 8
1 lbs Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Grain 9

Yeast was US-04
O.G 1.068
F.G. 1.027

 

[unviewtiful]

16A Sweet Stout. Depending on how pronounced the star anise is, you might be able to also throw it into 30A Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer.

 

[Pappers_]

You'll have to let your palate be your guide on this. As @unviewtiful said, from the ingredients, it seems that it could go in either 16A or 30A. Its not just the anise that would push it to 30A, the chocolate could also do that (and is explicitly included in the guidelines for category 30. If you can taste the anise or chocolate or both, I'd enter it in 30a with a base style of 16A.

The bottomline, though, is you need to let your palate determine which category to enter the beer. For example, I may have brewed an APA but it ended up more bitter than I intended and is a better fit as an IPA.

 

[m00ps]

It can be whatever you want if you are persuasive and confident enough. No, sir, I assure you its a hefeweizen. Something must be wrong with your eyes and palate

Id venture to guess 16A. Unless someone who has no idea what's in it can pick out anise, id go with 16A

 

[djNasty]

Thanks guys for all of your input! That helped a lot. I've been on the fence as to which category to chose, and you guys made some great points. I made a pretty balanced beer. Neither the chocolate or anise is very pronounced in the overall flavor of the beer, but you can tell its there especially in the aroma. I will be entering it as 30A and letting the judges know that it is a spiced sweet stout.