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New BJCP Guidelines

Freak

Grandmaster Brewer
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Don't know if you have seen the rough draft of the 2014 BJCP Guidelines but, I am not sure I like them. Changes in the past have been minimal. These are some big changes. Just wondering if any of you have looked at them. What do you think?
 
As a brewer that competes, you know that the brewing landscape is changing. How many new styles have you seen made by home brewers in the last six years? It'll continue to change and grow after these guidelines are released.

The BJCP guidelines need to reflect the changes that exist since the last release. The operative word is "reflect." The BJCP is not, nor ever has been, a complete source of world beer styles. It's a reflection of what is available commercially and what home brewer's enter in competition.

This set of guidelines is trying to include our brewing brethren in Australia, NZ, South America and Europe, where BJCP exams have been given and there is a growing pool of judges. The new guidelines reflect styles and ingredients that are popular in those regions.

At it's most extreme, every single beer brand could be considered a "style." After all, they all taste different to varying degrees, right? But, that would turn competitions into cloning events and awards into participation ribbons. That's not only impractical, it's no fun, either.

OTOH, look up some of the older versions of the guidelines. The styles were much more confined. The 2004 version was a big change from the 1999 style list and had much deeper descriptions.

The earliest guidelines were nothing more than tasting notes that worked best if you'd actually tasted a fresh example. There were very crude stats on the last page.

http://www.bjcp.org/docs/1997_Style.pdf


 
People made perfectly good beer for thousands of years before style guidelines were invented. Some of them are laughable in any case. I shall continue to Ignore them as I never enter competitions
 
It just seems a little strange that things are categorized by region rather than by style. For example, There are stouts in several categories rather than Just a stout category with several sub-categories of stout. Same goes for IPA and several other styles. Nothing wrong with that. It just seems harder to follow.
 
Does it have to do with the style the area provides? English IPA is very different from American IPA and maybe a NW American IPA has developed quite differently than say a NE American IPA?
 
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