Nothing beats the satisfaction of impressing your friends with homebrewed beer. It’s great to accept their praise, but even if you’re confident your latest batch is amazing, you have to admit that your friends are a biased audience. Homebrew competitions, on the other hand, offer the chance to get unbiased, honest feedback that may confirm your brewing skills but will certainly help you hone your craft. The possibility of taking home a medal is a great motivator, but even if you have a problem beer, it’s worth entering just to get advice on how to make it better. Some brewers even come to love the challenge of picking a category they don’t already brew and perfecting a recipe. Regardless whether you’re convinced you’ve got a winner, there are some good things to think about before you pack up your beer and send it off to a competition.
Winning Formula: Good Beer That’s in Style
The most important point to remember is that your beer will be evaluated against two different standards: technical execution and how well it matches the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) style description. For that first part, the judges are looking for flaws such as off-flavors or signs of infection. Whether these are significant or fairly subtle, they will lower your beer’s score.
At the same time, the judges compare your beer against the details of the BJCP category. For instance, a beer may be technically perfect, but its strong hops flavor would be out of place for a beer entered in the Scottish Heavy (14B) category. So, even if your homebrew is wonderfully drinkable, it may miss the mark for style.