I’m happy to announce the updated BJCP style guide for BeerSmith 2. A little over a week ago the Beer Judge Certification Program released the final version of their new BJCP 2015 style guide at www.BJCP.org. I’ve just released an add-on for BeerSmith desktop (see details below) so you can begin using the new style guide with BeerSmith.
Quick Guide to Getting the BJCP 2015 Desktop Add-on
The 2015 style guide is available for BeerSmith desktop as an add-on, which makes it easy to download and use in BeerSmith. Future versions of BeerSmith will include it by default.
Here’s a very short video walking you through the process outlined below.
- Click on Add-ons (on the lower toolbar) and then Add to bring up the list of add-ons
- Select the “BJCP 2015” style guide add-on and install it
- After you’ve installed the add-on close the add-on dialogs and go to Options->Brewing
- From that dialog set “BJCP 2015” as the display style guide
- Click OK to save your changes and you can browse the new style guide under Profiles->Style or use it in any recipe
NOTE: BeerSmith mobile is in the process of being updated as well – see below
The New BJCP 2015 Style Guidelines
The BJCP style guidelines are used for virtually all home brewing competitions in the United States, as well as many international competitions. They are also used to certify beer judges and as a style reference for both home and professional brewers around the world. The BJCP intends to start testing against the new guidelines for all exams after 1 November 2015, and expects that all competitions will be using the new guidelines by the end of 2015.
The guide was last revised in 2008. The new 2015 revisions include separate style guides for beer, mead and cider, even though these were grouped into a single guide in the old 2008 edition.
The new 2015 guide is substantially larger, and includes major revisions. First the entire style category system has been revised to better reflect the judging of similar beers in an effort to make it easier for competition organizers to set up judging panels. Also every beer style description has been updated and expanded to include more information about the style, its history, ingredients, and a detailed profile of the beer.
New beer styles and categories like Czech Lager were added, and for many of the open categories like historical beer (category 27) now have a series of specific sub-style examples defined. The overall number of styles is about 25% larger than the old guide.
BJCP Style Guide for BeerSmith Mobile Coming Also
I’m also updating the style guide for BeerSmith mobile. It will be incorporated in releases 2.2.47 and later, and should be available on Android and Kindle Fire shortly, and iPhone/iPad a few weeks later (as soon as it goes through the approval process). The new version will incorporate the BJCP 2015 guide as the default, but on the “full” mobile version you will be able to display the old 2008 guidelines as well by going to Options->Advanced.
Getting error message (BS v1.4): “Cannot open a connection to the update server – Update Cancelled”
Drop me a note via the contact-us page – I should be able to help — Brad
Hi Brad!
When the new version for iPhone Will be available?
Hi Brad,
I have a couple of questions… Q1: I am currently upgrading my brewing to electric, with a BCS 462 system. I was wondering if you had any tips for dialing in the system with respect to efficiency, and scalability. If it helps, I am using 3 20G Stout tanks , 2 pumps with a herms system. I’d lie to shortcut the experimental process, and hit my numbers right on.
Q2: I have been a longtime user of beersmith, and I wish to add it to a new (old) laptop for use with the above. However I don’t want to lose my recipe base I have already established. How do I transfer this to the new computer? (I’m pretty sure this is the second time I have asked you about transferring recipes between computers, but hey I forget.)
Frankly, after all the expense attempting to set of up this new brewery, I would happily pay a new $30 fee to help support your efforts- as I feel I have gotten a great return on my investment in Brewsmith. I am mostly concerned with transferring my recipes to my new computer. Having said that, I will not support (and I hope you will avoid) the trend toward subscription based services for software applications.
Please let me know on the above.
Respectfully,
Mike Haughey
When I select BJCP styles and then “add”, it does not show up in the next box to select install. Can you help me with this?
Thanks so much!
Dan
Check to see if it is already installed. If you go to File->Addons it will show the list already installed and the “add” list will only show those not yet installed. If you have installed it then go to Options->General and make sure you have the BJCP 2015 guide selected as the current style guide.
I am having the same problem as Dan except there are no files on the Addons screen. When I go to Options it only has the BJCP 2008 guide.
Thanks,
Rob
Rob
Drop me a note at beersmith at beersmith.com and I will try to help you debug this.
Brad
I also can not get the 2015 styles to load. I seem to be missing 22D Wheatwine.
I appreciate access to the latest and greatest BJCP guidelines on the mobile app but are there any plans to add them in full? Brewed my first braggot and I see that meads and ciders have been given their own guides and only the beer style guideline has been made available in the app.
Amazon Android version 2.2.48
Cheers
Also since I’m here, it would be nice to have the measurement fields be limited to numbers only. It also fails to register if you don’t have leading zeros on decimal values.
Will the 2015 BJCP also add the new mead guide lines?
Not yet – I’ve not completed the cider and mead guidelines yet.