- Joined
- Feb 16, 2012
- Messages
- 3,387
- Reaction score
- 4,324
- Location
- Either in the brewery or on the road
I've been brewing quite a bit in the last month. Five different times to be exact. Two of the brews had very similar grain bills (a British Golden Ale and a Best Bitter). Long story short, I ended up with a little over three gallons of combined second runnings wort after sparging. Each was exactly 1.019 SG/4.8P, nearly equal volumes. I've been wanting to do a pilot brew of a low-alcohol beer for sometime, so I combined the two 'left-overs', came up with a hopping schedule for an appropriate BU:GU ratio for a low-alcohol beer using American hops, and let that bad boy boil.
The grist from the Golden Ale and the Bitters worked out to equal amounts of Maris Otter and Chevalier with a smattering of torrified wheat, Crisp 77L, and a pinch of chocolate, carafoam and acidulated malts, with each mash being nearly identical. I had more American hops on hand and had such a hard time sourcing good British Northdown, Challenger and Target hops that I decided to use the Holy Trinity of Hops, aka: Simcoe, Citra and Mosaic. What I ended up with was a mixture of all British malts incorporating only American hops, bittered to American IPA levels and fermented with British ale yeast (Imperial A09 "Pub").
OG was 1.021with just under 2.5 gallons into the fermenter. That day I had previously taken a sample of the fermenting Best Bitter which ended up being nearly two cups of Pub yeast at high krausen after pouring off ~30 ml of beer for a gravity reading on the Bitters, so I just chucked it into the mix. The pilot brew took off like a rocket. Within less than a day and a half it had reached 1.006 SG/1.5P, which proved to be terminal gravity, so right at ~2.0% ABV, which is below anything even being considered as "sessionable." Anyway, I call this mongrel "Hands Across the Sea" due to its Anglo-American nexus.
And it tastes GREAT!
So here's my 'first world' problem: What category do I enter this beer using BJCP Guidelines (2015)? It's not an American IPA with the British grist, yeast, and esters. It's not a British IPA with all those American hops and IBU hopping rates. The ABV % is below the range for both styles. Plus, spoiler alert, I'm already entering an American IPA, with only one entry per style allowed. It's a very low alcohol beer brewed with British malts fermented with British yeast, hopped to American IPA bittering levels. Clearly it does not meet the guidelines criteria for any of the 300~400 different IPA "styles".
I'm inclined to use Category 34, but is it Mixed-Style Beer (34B) or Experimental Beer (34C)? At first 34B seems right since it is two different IPA 'styles', but are they really just two different examples of the same basic beer? Or is 34C more correct since 2.0% ABV is more like a no-alcohol beer (< 0.5%) rather than "sessionable" which is ill-defined but generally accepted as >3.0% but <4.5%?
It may seem like picking nit, but that's sometimes what judges do, and the last thing I want to do is get sideways with the judges. For anyone with any judging experience in these things, I'd like an educated opinion. I really want to get this beer evaluated by people who have the insight and knowledge, but I don't want it dismissed as being in the wrong category. It has such good body, flavor and aroma for a low ABV beer that I want to get an impartial assessment by somebody who doesn't have a vested interest or pride of ownership issues. If I can replicate the recipe and improve upon it, it'll become a part of the rotation: a hoppy IPA-style low-alcohol beer. Trending up.
The grist from the Golden Ale and the Bitters worked out to equal amounts of Maris Otter and Chevalier with a smattering of torrified wheat, Crisp 77L, and a pinch of chocolate, carafoam and acidulated malts, with each mash being nearly identical. I had more American hops on hand and had such a hard time sourcing good British Northdown, Challenger and Target hops that I decided to use the Holy Trinity of Hops, aka: Simcoe, Citra and Mosaic. What I ended up with was a mixture of all British malts incorporating only American hops, bittered to American IPA levels and fermented with British ale yeast (Imperial A09 "Pub").
OG was 1.021with just under 2.5 gallons into the fermenter. That day I had previously taken a sample of the fermenting Best Bitter which ended up being nearly two cups of Pub yeast at high krausen after pouring off ~30 ml of beer for a gravity reading on the Bitters, so I just chucked it into the mix. The pilot brew took off like a rocket. Within less than a day and a half it had reached 1.006 SG/1.5P, which proved to be terminal gravity, so right at ~2.0% ABV, which is below anything even being considered as "sessionable." Anyway, I call this mongrel "Hands Across the Sea" due to its Anglo-American nexus.
And it tastes GREAT!
So here's my 'first world' problem: What category do I enter this beer using BJCP Guidelines (2015)? It's not an American IPA with the British grist, yeast, and esters. It's not a British IPA with all those American hops and IBU hopping rates. The ABV % is below the range for both styles. Plus, spoiler alert, I'm already entering an American IPA, with only one entry per style allowed. It's a very low alcohol beer brewed with British malts fermented with British yeast, hopped to American IPA bittering levels. Clearly it does not meet the guidelines criteria for any of the 300~400 different IPA "styles".
I'm inclined to use Category 34, but is it Mixed-Style Beer (34B) or Experimental Beer (34C)? At first 34B seems right since it is two different IPA 'styles', but are they really just two different examples of the same basic beer? Or is 34C more correct since 2.0% ABV is more like a no-alcohol beer (< 0.5%) rather than "sessionable" which is ill-defined but generally accepted as >3.0% but <4.5%?
It may seem like picking nit, but that's sometimes what judges do, and the last thing I want to do is get sideways with the judges. For anyone with any judging experience in these things, I'd like an educated opinion. I really want to get this beer evaluated by people who have the insight and knowledge, but I don't want it dismissed as being in the wrong category. It has such good body, flavor and aroma for a low ABV beer that I want to get an impartial assessment by somebody who doesn't have a vested interest or pride of ownership issues. If I can replicate the recipe and improve upon it, it'll become a part of the rotation: a hoppy IPA-style low-alcohol beer. Trending up.