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Competition Question

wolfsbear

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I have a Sweet Stout infused with coffee. For competition, would I enter it as a Sweet Stout, or as a Specialty Ale?
 
I think you answered your own question. :) You call it a sweet stout so enroll it as a sweet stout.  If you look at your gravity, color, bitterness, etc and it is within the style guide for sweet stouts then keep it there.  The coffee is just a distinguishing flavor.  Good luck!
 
Enter it in both categories.
 
http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style13.php#1b

Ask your friends to taste it with these guidelines in hand.  This is how the comp judges will evaluate it.  The coffee in a SS is usually a favorable note, and not the dominant theme, so it depends on how your coffee comes across.  It should not be "all coffee" so that roasted barley and chocolate notes are lost.  Or so coffee that the "sweet" is outweighed.

Specialty is more of a "called shot" category.  What the brewer puts in the "entry info" needs to be detectable to the judges or it's dinged.  And the base category is considered too, so a "Coffee Stout" would be judged a little looser than a "Sweet Stout with coffee."    In the latter, the sweet/lactose would need to be noticeable since it's part of the base style.
 
As long as the coffee is not over powering, go ahead and enter it in the 13B Sweet Stout category.  (Since 13B can have coffee notes you should be OK.)  If the coffee is very prominent, then enter it in the 23 Specialty category.

If you think that it is on the edge, by all means enter it in both categories.  I have done this several times and got some interesting results.

Good luck and let us know how you do.
 
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