The 2021 BJCP Beer Style guidelines were released on 29 December, 2021 by the Beer Judge Certification Program, and are now available for BeerSmith web and desktop. The 2021 guidelines are considered a modest revision of the 2015 style guide, and an effort was made to maintain the majority of the categories and style names the same. The 2015 mead and cider guides were left unchanged.
BJCP President Emeritus Gordon Strong led the revision of the style guide and has published the complete guide on the BJCP web site. I spent the last few weeks updating the BeerSmith style guides and publishing an add-on for the new guides. There is a grace period for the new guidelines use in exams until 1 August 2022, and the BJCP says that competitions may use either guideline, though they expect to transition to the new guidelines by the end of 2022.
Installing the 2021 Guide in BeerSmith Desktop Version 3
For BeerSmith desktop I have the guidelines available as an add-on. To access it in BeerSmith 3 go to File->Addons or click on the drop down to show only the Style plugins. Find the “BJCP 2021 Beer Styles” add-on in the list and click the install button to install it. Note if you are using the old mead and cider guidelines you may want to take additional steps listed in the mead/cider guide section below as well.
Next you need to take the important step to adjust your settings to make the style guide visible, as typically the program has only currently selected style guides enabled. To do this, go to the Options (Preferences on Mac) dialog ->Brewing Tab and check the box under Style Guides to Display called BJCP 2021 Beer Styles to display the 2021 guide. You will likely want to also uncheck the BJCP 2015 style guide so you don’t have both displayed at the same time.
Installing the 2021 Style Guide for BeerSmith Web
If you are using the new BeerSmith Web based editor at BeerSmithRecipes.com, go to Profiles->Style to display the current list of styles. On the ribbon near the top of the list click on the Manage Preloaded Styles and then check the box next to the BJCP 2021 Beer Styles to display the new styles. Again, you probably want to also uncheck the box next to the BJCP 2015 Beer Styles so you don’t have both guides displayed at the same time.
Installing the 2021 Guide in BeerSmith 2
The 2021 guidelines are also available as an add-on for BeerSmith 2. Go to File->Addons and then click on the large add button on the dialog to show the items not yet installed. Install the BJCP 2021 Style Guide. Next you will need to go to Options (Preferences on Mac)->Brewing and select the BJCP 2021 guide under the Display Style Guide option.
Notes Regarding the 2015 Mead and Cider Styles for BeerSmith 3 Desktop
Since the Mead and Cider guidelines from 2015 have not been updated, they are still on the 2015 baseline and will be displayed as “BJCP 2015”. The problem is that when you disable the display of the old BJCP 2015 style guide it will also hide the mead and cider guides.
To make things easier to manage, I’ve published individual BeerSmith 3 add-ons for just the 2015 mead and cider guides that have guide names “BJCP 2015 Mead” and “BJCP 2015 Cider”. So after you download and enable the new 2021 Beer Style Guide you can go in and also download the addons for the 2015 Mead and Cider styles so they can be enabled separately. Go to File->Addons and download the BJCP 2015 Mead and BJCP 2015 Cider guides. If you had older versions of these you can uninstall and then reinstall the add-ons to update.
Then don’t forget the extra step of going to Options (Preferences on Mac)->Brewing and enable display of both the cider and mead guides for 2015 under Style Guides to Display.
BeerSmith Mobile
The new guidelines are not yet incorporated in the Apple or Google Play mobile apps, though you can access and build recipes using your phone from the web based version of BeerSmith by simply logging into the web based version at BeerSmtihRecipes.com (as outlined above) if you have a Gold, Platinum or Pro license. I will be incorporating the 2012 Beer Style Guide into the next releases of the stand-alone mobile apps.
I hope you enjoy the new BJCP 2021 style guides. Thanks for joining me on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter or my podcast (also on itunes…and youtube) for more great tips on homebrewing.
Related Beer Brewing Articles from BeerSmith:
- BJCP 2015 Cider and Mead Style Guide Add-ons Available for BeerSmith
- New BJCP 2015 Style Guide Add-on Released for BeerSmith
- New BeerSmith Desktop Add-ons – Hops, Yeast and GABF Style Guide
- Creating an Ingredient or Profile Add-on in BeerSmith 3
- New BJCP 2008 Style Guide and BeerSmith Batch Sparging Release
- The 2015 BJCP Beer Style Guide with Gordon Strong – BeerSmith Podcast #104
- Creating Custom Reports in BeerSmith Desktop
- BeerSmith 3 – A First Look
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