brew competitions

[YeastFeast]

Hi,
Can anyone tell me how brewing competitions group the different styles into categories?
For instance, I entered a competition at a local brewery this past weekend. This contest allowed entries from 27 styles. There were about 40 entrants with about 80 entries (you could enter up to 3 beers).
This competition ended up with 8 categories. Who and how do they decide which sub-styles go into each of the 8 categories?
Thanks!

 

[Agent]

This wasn't the Headbutt perchance?

I had the same thought as they announced the Golden Ale category and I eventually realized that the lagers got swept in there as well.

I believe what gets lumped together varies by entry numbers in the categories, so may change year to year based on what beers are submitted.

All I know is that I need to stop brewing experimental recipes for contests if I don't want to get hammered in the judging.

 

[YeastFeast]

This wasn't the Headbutt perchance?

YES!

I believe what gets lumped together varies by entry numbers in the categories, so may change year to year based on what beers are submitted.

I assume they were trying to make 8 equal categories of about 10 entries each? I know last year they had 7 categories but less entries than this year I think? So if a category doesn't have enough entries, they start combining sub-styles like Golden Ale, American Lagers, Cream Ale together?
So, wondering if there is a "head judge" or group that decides which sub-styles are forced together and there are no real rules/guidelines for it??

 

[OLBrews]

Typically tables are organized by both table size and keeping like categories together. This can be very challenging since it depends what folks are entering and how many judges you have to work with. The BJCP Competition Handbook provides guidance on how to approach this: https://dev.bjcp.org/competitions/competition-handbook/preparing-for-the-competition/

 

[YeastFeast]

Typically tables are organized by both table size and keeping like categories together. This can be very challenging since it depends what folks are entering and how many judges you have to work with. The BJCP Competition Handbook provides guidance on how to approach this: https://dev.bjcp.org/competitions/competition-handbook/preparing-for-the-competition/

Interesting. So that makes sense, every competition is going to be different and each competition category is not necessarily a BJCP beer style, there could be and very likely will be categories that are combined. For instance, from the Standard American Beer Style (1A, 1B, 1C) combined with Pale American Ale Beer Styles of (18A, 18B), or something like that.

 

[Witherby]

Interesting. So that makes sense, every competition is going to be different and each competition category is not necessarily a BJCP beer style, there could be and very likely will be categories that are combined. For instance, from the Standard American Beer Style (1A, 1B, 1C) combined with Pale American Ale Beer Styles of (18A, 18B), or something like that.

Just look at what even the National Homebrew Competition does to mix the BJCP styles:
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/national-homebrew-competition/compete/#tab-stylesguidelines

 

[Bobby_M]

The table groupings are determined by the competition coordinator and the best competitions lay that process out to some degree in the competition rules document/webpage. If it's run anything like a BJCP competition, the goal is to keep each table manageable, but also not completely bare. For example, they're not going to make "porter" table if they only received 3 porter entries. Ideally you have tables with a minimum of 6 or so entries. When there are more entries in a single style than a single judging pair could possibly get through, they add more pairs of judges to get it completed.

It's really the only way to handle it. Would you be jazzed to get a 1st place medal for a sub-par beer just because you entered a beer style that had no other competition?