Competition Corner
by Bryan Gros

I’m a member of an e-mail committee of the BJCP trying to revise the style guidelines. In theory, the style guidelines are always evolving, but in practice, they need to be "published" and printed periodically to be used while the committee considers further updates. If you’ve seen the BJCP guidelines, you know they’re definately due for an update, and the changes our committee are proposing should be ready this fall for release as the 1999 Style Guidelines.

Anyway, since we’re overhauling the guidelines, several philosophical questions have come up. What should be included and what should be excluded are the biggest questions. To answer this, however, we had to define the purpose of the guidelines.

One idea was to just catalog all styles of beer, where a style is distinguished by a unique history, ingredient, or process, that makes it distinguished from other styles. But instead, we decided to narrow the scope given the purpose of the guidelines—useful to organizers and beer judges in competitions. Popularity with the general public should be considered as a factor in what a style is; after all, many of the styles popular with homebrewers are those popular in brewpubs (e.g. red ale). But history should also be a consideration. Porter, as a style, nearly died out before homebrewers, and then the American microbrewers, increased the popularity of it. Ditto for barleywine.

Our first goal, though, is to port the existing guidelines into a standard format. Each style should list acceptable ranges of aroma, appearance, flavor, finish, and mouthfeel. The new AHA guidelines for 1998 have improved on this aspect. It is frustrating for an entrant or a judge when the guidelines you’re using say nothing of hop aroma and flavor (does that mean none is good or bad?), or mentions body in one substyle and not in another. After reformatting the existing guidelines, it was obvious where the holes were, and they were easily filled.

Next step is to ensure that the scope of each style is appropriate. So the question arises, should the guideline be broad enough to include all example of a style? If porters in England are as low starting gravity as 1.034, should the style guidelines go that low? What about bitter, which are usually categorized as ordinary bitter, best bitter, and extra special bitter. How does a judge learn to distinguish these styles? In England, labels from breweries vary, and bitters are all points on a continuum. Since all homebrew in competitions are bottled, would it suffice to have "ordinary bitter", "ESB", and "IPA" as three distinct styles? These questions are being hashed out now, and compromises will be made.

The final step, at least for this year, is determining which styles to add or delete. There is at least one beer in England called a Mild, but is pale. Should this style be added? How about Scandinavian Pilsner (included in the current BJCP guidelines) or Caribbean Lager (in the current AHA guidelines)? Are these useful styles? Does a Swedish Porter exist? Did it ever exist? Is there a distinction between a Robust Porter and a Brown Porter commercially? In the homebrew world?

It is fun, at least for me, to think about these issues and debate them, but in the end, competitions need a clear set of guidelines. Hopefully we’ll have a much improved set to deliver this winter.

Upcoming events:

11th Annual Southern California Regional Homebrew Championships, Sponsored by Inland Empire Brewers. Entries due 6/24/98 with a $5/1st entry fee, $3/each add'l. Contact Derek Yeaney at (909) 352-4828 (h) or (909) 270-1400 x2204 (w), e-mail: acmebrew@empirenet.com

Homebrew Competition in association with the Small Brewer’s Festival in Mountain View. Judges are needed, and the judging will be Sat, Aug. 1. Judges get lunch and admission to the festival. For judge or entry information, contact Jeremy Bergsman at jeremybb@stanford.edu.